Re: [PATCH] jpeg image reader

[Marco Gerards]

Robert Millan <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 12:01:47PM +0100, Marco Gerards wrote:
>> Bean <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > On Jan 14, 2008 2:31 AM, Marco Gerards <address@hidden> wrote:
>> >> > /*
>> >> >  *  GRUB  --  GRand Unified Bootloader
>> >> >  *  Copyright (C) 2008  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>> >>
>> >> Did you write all the code yourself?
>> >
>> > yes, but i take some code segment from Independent JPEG Group's
>> > implementation, such as idct transformation and ycrcb -> rgb
>> > conversion.
>> 
>> I do not think these algorithms can be copyrighted and are in the
>> public domain?  Can you check this?
>
> Only actual code can be copyrighted.  Algorithms can only be patented.
>
> Copyright expires into public domain, but this is only theoretical since
> they reform copyright law every 20 years to extend it.
>
> I think only patents actually expire in practice.

What I meant was, that the code Bean used is public domain already.
AFAIK that's not uncommon for reference implementations.

OTOH, color space convertion is trivial, IMO.  In these cases you
cannot claim copyright, I think?  I just do not know the official
definition of trivial and if this is true in any case?

--
Marco