[Haskell-cafe] containers license issue

[Mike Meyer]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:27:03 +0100
Vo Minh Thu <noteed at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure what your point is.
> 
> Re-implementing an algorithm is not a copyright infringement (nor is a
> propagation of the original work). Algorithms are not covered by
> copyright.

While algorithms aren't covered by copyright, *code* is. A translation
of a copyrighted work into another language is considered a derived
work of the original. If not, then simply translating a source program
into some computer's binary language would release it from copyright,
and it could be freely distributed. That would pretty much kill the
GPL.

Once someone has read an algorithm in some programming language, it
opens the question of whether they are copying the algorithm or the
code if they produce a copy of the algorithm. The generally accepted
solution is the one taken here - a clean-room re-implementation by
people who haven't read the code (ok, sort of taken here).

It might be small enough to get by on a "fair use" clause. The "prior
art" and "obvious" exceptions stated on this thread are for patents,
and don't apply to copyright.

But that's all irrelevant. The reason company lawyers object to having
GPL'ed code in the company code base is that it opens them up to the
possibility of a lawsuit. That the original author said it was derived
from GPL'ed code was sufficient to cause at least one lawyer to
believe that a case existed.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/
Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information.

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