Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:21:59 -0400 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Mark Murray <mark@grondar.org> Subject: Re: Ugly Huge BSD Monster Message-ID: <20030905162159.GA3542@online.fr> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20030905095147.02cbbd90@localhost>
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Brett Glass wrote: > >Is that the extent of the 'risk'? Pure supposition? > > No; solid case law. Harrison was only the most famous case > that was won on this principle. See my earlier mail. It is believable that a melody was copied by accident; it is believable that an algorithm was copied by unconscious memory. A detailed orchestration, or an entire routine, are a different matter. You don't copy those by accident. In music, melodies are protected by copyright, so Harrison was still liable. In programming, algorithms are not protected by copyright; an accuser would have to show that you actually cut-and-pasted their code, not just read their algorithm and reimplemented it (even if you did that consciously and intentionally). There are still issues like "there are only so many ways to write a for loop" and "you could have copied it and obfuscated it". These things are very hard to prove, but if you want to worry about such accusations, you'd better worry about commercial non-GPL companies first. They need not prove, either, that you ever saw their code: they would claim that the similarity is sufficient that you could not have written your code independently without seeing theirs. In addition, they could claim that it infringes their patents: algorithms cannot be copyrighted, but they can be patented in the US. At least the GPL protects you from patent claims (from the code's author, anyway: third-party patent claims are, as always, possible). If you're worried about such lawsuits, the GPL is the last thing you should worry about: it has never gone to court yet, while much software on your desktop is almost surely infringing IBM's (the XOR cursor?) or Apple's (truetype hinting?) or Microsoft's patents as you read this. - Rahul
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