Re: [PATCH, HURD][RFC] hurdselect: Step7x, almost complete rewrite finished

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> Svante Signell <svante.signell@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> On Wed, 2013-02-13 at 09:07 +0100, Richard Braun wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 06:51:29AM +0100, Svante Signell wrote:

[…]

 >>> - you cannot commit this code unless I agree to sign the copyright
 >>> papers for libc (which I of course will when asked for).  This is a
 >>> derived work of mine.  Otherwise it has to stay as a Debian patch.

 >> Really ?  That's what you choose to say here ?  Have you at least
 >> looked at the changes he made ?  They're really not much like what
 >> you've sent us.

 > I know, but it's still a derived work from my efforts.  If I hadn't
 > worked on this, the current state wouldn't be as it is now.

        It seems like a common misconception that even the “paid
        professionals” sometimes fall into.  The point is, however, that
        the copyright law is concerned with /representations/ (i. e.,
        code, in this case), not /ideas/ (algorithms, etc.)

        Clearly, without Unix being available, GNU wouldn't exist.  This
        doesn't make the latter fall under the copyright of the former.

        Also, there're the cases when the code in question is not
        copyrightable at all, as not being a “creative work.”  For
        instance, when writing a device driver, there may be certain
        procedures prescribed by the device's own specification, that
        allow for virtually only a single implementation.  If that's the
        case, the code for such an implementation may be
        non-copyrightable.

PS.  Note, however, that I haven't reviewed the code being discussed,
        and thus have no opinion on whether any of the Svante's code has
        made its way (perhaps with trivial modifications) into the
        Samuel's patch, or not.

[…]

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