Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 21:39 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)
In reply to: Clarification on a few points by landley
Parent article: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Off the top of my head:

You're not fully apprehending the context of Judge Walker's guidelines. Altai's re-implementation of CA's software in a different language was non-literal copying. On the other hand, all versions of Busybox later than mine have been directly derivative. They start with the entire body of source code that I created and the overall design, and then later versions have incremental changes. So, you could probably remove every exact line that I wrote, and I would still have an excellent case that the result remained a derivative work and that I have an actionable interest in the work.

You misuse 17.102(b) to say that certain code is not my work because you believe it's functional and thus not copyrightable.

You don't consider that I have a compilation copyright as well.

You think I will have no actionable interest in toybox, or whatever you call it, after your extensive involvement in Busybox. I could assert such an interest if provoked.

I could probably enlarge this list if I took the time. But that would be engaging with you, which isn't desirable or necessary.

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Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:01 UTC (Tue) by deater (subscriber, #11746) [Link] (1 responses)

so by your argument, the various BSDs are still derivative of the original AT&T codebase, despite all of the AT&T code being removed? Enough so that whoever owns the UN*X copyright these days could re-assert ownership rights?

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:22 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

so by your argument, the various BSDs are still derivative of the original AT&T codebase, despite all of the AT&T code being removed?

There are a lot of circumstances to the AT&T and BSD case that don't apply here. AT&T didn't maintain their copyright correctly, in a different legal context than we have today. There was no copyright by default back then, as we later got from a Berne copyright convention. They didn't properly assert their copyright. So, when they went to enforce against BSD, they found they could not do so for reasons that had nothing to do with the nature of derivative works. And Ray Noorda brokered a settlement between the parties (yes, the SCO Ray Noorda, before he went senile). We might otherwise have no BSD today.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:27 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (12 responses)

be careful with this argument, if taken to it's logical extreme it would mean that any mistakes by a contributer to an opensource project can never be rectified, the project can only be shut down.

this is handing power to copyright intrests that big media only dream of right now.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:42 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (6 responses)

You mean the way they can't change the advertising terms in the license on SSL because of something that happened to Eric Young 20 years ago?

Yes. This sort of stuff happens. But it's a lot more complicated than your one-sentence summary. I could discuss it for at least an hour.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 0:27 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (5 responses)

Considering how much pain the OpenSSL advertising clause has caused, I'd love to hear the details on that particular issue. Could you point to any details on what happened to Eric Young 20 years ago?

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 0:40 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (2 responses)

Eric was compelled to sign an agreement that he not touch the software again. He might be able to say why today, or not. I've not heard from him in a long time.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 4:16 UTC (Wed) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (1 responses)

Ouch. I take it that "not touch the software again" also includes "give permission to relicense the software"?

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 4:36 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Yes. Eric appears to still be with RSA although his blog is gone.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 0:44 UTC (Wed) by nwnk (guest, #52271) [Link] (1 responses)

Eric got hired by RSA, who sold a product that directly competed with SSLeay, and who aren't the most open-source friendly people in the world. Since then the license to his code has not changed. I don't know whether that's Eric's choice or RSA's or somewhere in between, but it's sort of academic.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Feb 1, 2012 0:52 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

I suspect that it's more that RSA bought his company than that he just got hired. But you'd have to ask him.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:47 UTC (Tue) by RiotingPacifist (guest, #68160) [Link] (4 responses)

Comparing any commit to a project, with Busybox's clear state as a derivative work based on earlier versions written by Bruce Perens doesn't really hold up.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 22:58 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

my problem is that this is interpreting "derived from" to mean something pretty close to "inspired by"

This is like classic car restoration. If you take a Ford Model T and replace every piece of it, is it still a Model T? or is only inspired by one. At some point the car becomes a kit car with some Model T parts bolted on, and then as those are replaced it becomes just a kit car.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 23:32 UTC (Tue) by RiotingPacifist (guest, #68160) [Link] (1 responses)

If you took the "hybrid" out while you were changing parts over then the "hybrid" would certainly be a derivative of the Model T and the Kit-only car a derivative work of the "hybrid".

If you built your kit car while looking at the Model T and never depend on it for either structural integrity or functionality then it would be more complicated. And obviously if you went further still and only took the spec of the Model T and reimplemented it from that then it would be "inspired" and count as clean room reverse engineering.

The real problem is that this isn't a car and the term "derivative work" has real legal meaning and precedent in the world of copyright.

I'm not saying Bruce would have any claim on Toybox purely because Langley has seen Busybox, but I would be careful.

Translations share no lines, but original author has copyright

Posted Feb 1, 2012 11:37 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

If I translate a book from Dutch to English, my work won't contain any lines of the original work, but the author of the Dutch version will still have copyright.

Whether broad copyright is good or bad for us is another debate, but we have to acknowledge that it is today broader than just exact words.

Clarification on a few points

Posted Jan 31, 2012 23:37 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

It's exactly the same argument SCO was making in the IBM case. "Our contribution can never be isolated, and thus can never be removed. It's an indelible essence that suffuses the text, between the lines. It's not based on copyright, on patent, on trademark, on trade secret, or on contract, but exists between all of those."

I used to refer to it as "SCO disease". For a couple years there, I got paid to help prove it wasn't true. This was shortly before you-know-who tried it.