Re: GPL and other licences

[Alan Mackenzie]

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> wrote on Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:24:54
+0100:

> Alan Mackenzie wrote:

>> For example, just last week I needed a function which searches
>> backwards a maximum of 3000 bytes from the end of file for "Local
>> Variables:", and then deletes any following lines containing "mode:"
>> or "eval:".  I extracted the code which did the searching out of an
>> existing function, then added the bits to do the deletion.

> fancy_file("Alan Mackenzie")
>   .locate_backwards_from_end("Local Variables:", 3000)
>   .delete_any_following_lines_containing("mode:", "eval:");

The actual source of the function I'm talking about (which is available
in SourceForge) is materially different from the above.  The extracted
code (what you've called ".locate_backwards_from_end") has been
extensively changed from the original, yet is recognisably derived from
it.

> You grabbed some code for locate_backwards_from_end() and changed it.

Yes.

> I authored delete_any_following_lines().

No.  There is no contribution from you in the function I am talking
about.  You are trying to hypothesise about a different scenario.

>> The resulting function is in no way a "compilation" - it is a
>> derivative of the original function.

> The resulting overall program is a compilation of your work and my
> work. Your work (function locate_backwards_from_end() that contains
> someone else's *modified* code) may well be a derivative work. That
> doesn't change the status of the resulting overall program -- it's
> still a compilation.

No.  The function was written by me, a substantial part of it having been
derived from an existing function written by somebody else.  The function
I wrote is derived from the original.  It is not a "compilation" of my
work with somebody else's, since the constituent parts don't retain their
separate identity.

Think of an embryo  - it is not a "compilation" of an egg and a sperm,
since the latter have long since lost their distinctive identity.  The
embryo is _derived_ from the egg and sperm, though.

> Got it now?

No.  It doesn't seem like you have either.

By the way, is your native language English?

> alexander.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").