NDAs on code are useless, a developer can take any code and modify it enough to look like they have developed it. If you are the original creator of the program and use interpreted languages like Python, Javascript or Typescript, everything will be in plain text, so you can't do much about it. Everything could be copied easily. If you use a proper language like c++ or c# at least your code will be compiled and packaged into a dll. There you can obfuscate your code with specific tools for it. Still there are tools to reverse engineer the code but it will be much more complicated than if the program output was in plain text. Either way, every time we are asked to sign an NDA about the code base we laugh at it. Whoever asks for an NDA to a developer has no clue about developing software.
while an nda is often difficult to prove they aren’t useless. It sets a legal basis if a violation occurs. Proving it happened might be hard but now there is a possibility of a claim.
Sorry, I should have said that NDAs are totally useful and protect your intellectual property from any identity theft. That is what they are forced and signed in important teams. Only very important people use NDAs. If you want your company to stand over the rest force NDAs.
NDAs apply to people that are communicators and public figures, like Youtubers for example. I watched the other day a betatester that couldn't talk about a new game that is coming out for the Xbox. That is useful. For software developers is totally useless, because of the what I explained in the previous post. The most famous language in the world is Python. A horrible language that is only used because its learning curve at the beginning is flatter than others. Then it becomes a Frankenstein of libraries all written in plain text. It is great for spreading knowledge in Academia as everyone can have access to it, but it is imposible to protect, for the very same nature of it. How the hell do you protect plain text when you can modify it? All apply to the same problem, again and again. Management that don't have a clue of how to build software. They hire people, ask them to use Python because it is popular and force them to sign an NDA. A joke. This issue was never one when people used proper languages that were built to protect intellectual property. Languages that have built the S&P 500. Look at those companies and see the primary software they used 20 years ago. All compiled and protected languages. And as a last example, since we are on a trading forum, the stupidity of using Python for trading, a field where people are trying to keep their ideas and strategies secret. You hire a developer, tell them how you make money and ask for an NDA. You are more than happy with your piece of paper and that developer is laughing all the way to their garage. And you ask for integrity, in a field that is based on profiting from others' loses, really? But what do I know. https://josvisser.substack.com/p/why-python-is-terrible
I'm a believer in using the right tool for the job so I won't claim Python is the answer to everything. In the right hands, however, it's extremely powerful and a must have for the modern developer. Given that beginners often mangle the whitespace when copy/pasting between systems, thus adding bugs inadvertently, I cannot stand that indentation matters. That alone prevents many people from "stealing the code". So, it's not "perfect", what is? Nonetheless I remember using it to save my bacon on a very challenging machine-learning project. And, that project only took a single weekend to implement! There's no way I could have pulled it off without Python. As far as NDAs are concerned, they're also just one post of a large fence. Respectable, prestigious institutions will have numerous security measures in place to prevent the theft of IP... ask me how I know. They'll restrict physical access to hardware, restrict remote access, firewall subsystems from each other, and generally silo knowledge on a need to know basis. Simply walking away with the kitchen sink is basically impossible for practical purposes. Good security solutions are holistic in nature. That said, if all you've got is a hammer... then everything becomes a nail. So, keep an open mind; you can stuff a lot in there if you try hard enough. And that's by far the most difficult thing to subordinate.
Having the entire code base and walking out with it to start something probably isn't going to be profitable. But if people want to believe that ... cha - ching. BTW, everything needs to be written in machine language.