That is protected by copyright.
I mean, if you aren’t in a position to enforce your copyright license then sure you probably shouldn’t publish your source code at all, but that’s the unfortunate reality of the legal system.
I don’t believe this is a cut and dried case and is more of a “it depends” grey legal area in the modern world. Having AI rewrite an existing app without directly copying any code can be seen as a new invention. They can’t copyright their ideas nor algorithms, but the implementation is copyrighted.
Algorithms present difficulty and uncertainty in the law since they do not fit nicely into copyright or patents.
Copyright covering algorithms can only be applied once the programmer converts the algorithm into source code. The copyright of the source code can be used to protect that code from being copied, but will not prevent others from independently creating their own source code which does the same thing.
claiming they have a monopoly on encrypted tools.
Er, no? They are claiming you (Mo) specifically are violating an agreement you signed with them voluntarily.
I like Proton but this is not cool.
If you want to talk about what’s “not cool”, it’s pretty lame to sign an agreement in exchange for compensation and then complain when you are actually held to its terms while pretending Proton is saying something they quite clearly aren’t.
It’s actually shockingly dishonest to me to frame the email they sent as Proton claiming they have a broad monopoly on encrypted tools. I feel like Mo may as well have just said the sky is green.
I mean, that could be quite wealthy if you were maxing out your 401k with a full match and it was specifically the last 10 years in particular. And it’s not a retirement account, it is freely available to you to invest or use however you want right now. Also, it doesn’t matter. You agreed to not compete with them in exchange for that. If that wasn’t worth it to you, you shouldn’t have agreed to it.
I don’t see why that’s relevant.
That’s not the question though, the question is does your E2EE tool compete with Proton’s? Is it a market replacement for any of Proton’s products? It seems like it is.
You didn’t have to agree to the terms they offered you. Sorry that you did without fully considering the implications, maybe instead of trying to publicly shame them for exercising their rights under the agreement you signed you should take it as a lesson to be more thoughtful about your business dealings in the future.
Why is he tweeting that Proton thinks they have a monopoly on encrypted tools and simultaneously saying in a video he thinks it’s just a misunderstanding? These two things are not compatible. If it was a misunderstanding, and that’s what he thinks it is, trying to publicly shame them like this is wildly inappropriate.
This is clearly an attempt to pressure them to not enforce the noncompete by making it more costly for them PR wise than it would be to just let it go.
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I feel like this entire thread is going to give ideas to Proton’s legal team or Mo’s lawyer(s) should this escalate.
We’re at this point simply debating on what’s right or wrong, morally and legally, which is not going to do anything. I don’t know what Mo is planning on doing but I hope he rides it out for another year. You have a lot of years left Mo - I’m sure there are many great tools you’ll build and monetize. Fighting this is not going to look good for either party.
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In my professional capacity, I am perpetually engaged with inter-company IP/NDA agreements, and if the contract Mo entered into is even a tenth as robust as I genuinely presume it to be—given we are discussing an enterprise of Proton’s magnitude—his prospects of advancing the matter through any means other than squandering his financial resources are precisely zero percent.
edit. Just to clarify: I’m an engineer, not a lawyer.
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For all those people feeling appalled by the existence of the non-compete. Imagine Proton buying SN and right after that Mo going, taking the open source code of SN and spinning it up as a new project drawing in all the people that were not happy with the acquisition (or just liked SN and wanted to support the OG). I mean Proton would have to be stupid to not cover this - so a non-compete had to exist. And yes, anyone still could have done this, but Mo was in a unique position of knowing exactly what to do and having the benefit of the users that already knew him.
Whether it is applicable to the Shape.work or not is a different question. But clearly SOME non-compete had to exist.
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