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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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