Message-ID: <4FA36CDD.3080705@cs.utoronto.ca>
Date: Thu, 03 May 2012 23:45:01 -0600
From: Ryan Johnson <ryan.johnson@cs.utoronto.ca>
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Subject: Re: Licensing questions
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On 03/05/2012 11:38 PM, Fedin Pavel wrote:
> On 03.05.2012 19:24, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> Right.  I've noticed the incompleteness of elf.h from time to time 
>> too but
>> extending it would be tedious since you can't just cut/paste from a 
>> GPLv*
>> file.  Maybe one of the BSDs has something more complete these days?
>  By the way, interesting question. It raises up from time to time here 
> and there, but noone gives the answer...
>  Is there any strict definition of "derived work"?
>  The problem is: we have some #define in GPLed code. And i want to 
> make some non-GPLed code interoperable. Consequently, i need the same 
> #define. Exactly the our case. Of course i could copy-paste the code, 
> and it would definitely be "derived work". But what if i don't 
> copy-paste this code, but retype it by hands? Still a copy? Well, add 
> some more cleanup. Take a piece of paper, write down all names and 
> values. Drink lots of whiskey (wine, vodka) to erase own memory ;-) 
> Next day take this paper and write own include. Is it still "derived 
> work" ?
>  But, after all, we still have only names and values, nothing more, 
> and no matter how we made our version. Does "using the same name" 
> automatically mean "derived work"? But in this case IMHO this as a 
> nonsense. There's even an anecdote about Microsoft having to 
> opensource all their stuff because their code uses GPLed "i++" 
> fragment. Well, copyright infringement applies here as well, based on 
> the reverse claim. :)
Well, according to the EU commission's very recent ruling, at least, you 
can't copyright APIs, which I would consider this elf stuff to be. 
IANAL, tho.

Ryan


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