Re: Battle for Wesnoth relicensing

[Alexander Terekhov]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> 
> Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> > Hyman Rosen wrote:
> >> You still need permission from the owners
> >> of the components to make copies and distribute them.
> >
> > That's in the GPL second section aka "1" (counting from zero).
> 
> Huh? The part that says that you may copy and distribute
> verbatim copies of the source code?

Yup.

The Copyright Act defines a computer program as "a set of statements or
instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to
bring about a certain result." 17 U.S.C. § 101. Computer programs can be
expressed in either source code or object code. "Source code is the
computer program 
code as the programmer writes it, using a particular programming
language." Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, § 321.01. Source
code is a high level language that people can readily understand.
"Object code is the representation of the program in machine language
[binary] . . . which the computer executes." Id. at § 321.02. Source
code usually must be compiled, or interpreted, into object code before
it can be executed by a computer. Object code can also be decompiled
into source code. Source code and object code are "two representations
of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in
the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program. Thus separate registrations are not appropriate for the source
code and object code representations of the same computer program." Id.
at § 321.03. However, source code created by decompiling object code
will not necessarily be identical to the source code that was compiled
to create the object code.

Source code and object code are "two representations of the same
computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the
computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program." Id. at § 321.03.

Source code and object code are "two representations of the same
computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the
computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program." Id. at § 321.03.

Source code and object code are "two representations of the same
computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the
computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program." Id. at § 321.03.

Source code and object code are "two representations of the same
computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the
computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program." Id. at § 321.03.

Source code and object code are "two representations of the same
computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the
computer program rather than in any particular representation of the
program." Id. at § 321.03.

http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/CopyrightCompendium/chapter_0300.asp

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An applicant files two applications for the same program: one
specifically for the source code and the other for the object code.
Since the object code
version does not contain copyrightable differences, there is no basis
for a separate registration for the object code. The Office will
communicate with
the applicant suggesting a single registration for the computer program.
------

Got it now, Hyman?

regards,
alexander.

--
http://gng.z505.com/index.htm
(GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can
be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards
too, whereas GNU cannot.)