tlug: Re: solaris code, etc.

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Darren" == Darren Cook <darren@example.com> writes:

    >> The thing is, if a Linux developer is subscribed to TLUG, and a
    >> Solaris developer should happen to post some code related to
    >> the Linux guy's work from Solaris, the Linux guy will have to
    >> stop working on his code.  At least that's the considered
    >> opinion of the lawyers that

    Darren> So why don't Sun just join the linux-kernel list and post
    Darren> all their source code. Then do the same for BSD, and all
    Darren> the other unices. Then they can have a monopoly.

<chuckle>  Amusing thought.

That's exactly the idea of patent.  Copyrights don't work that way.
Just apply the "Perl motto."

I should point out that I expressed the
point in an extreme fashion.  It's not _legally_ absolute the guy
would have to stop working on the code; it simply becomes much more
risky and expensive to defend yourself against accusations of
infringement as the likelihood you've seen the original rises.  If you
can _prove_ that you haven't seen the original code, even identical
code would not violate copyright.

Free software by its nature can't afford too much risk and expense,
thus the imperative "must stop."  Companies don't much like risk and
expense either, even when they're as rich as Sun.

>>>>> "Selva" == Selva Nair <selva@example.com> writes:

    Selva> I would guess that the laws our arguments are based on
    Selva> apply only to the US. Does anyone know whether the
    Selva> copyright laws of European or Asian countries allow such
    Selva> *strange* interpretations?

Yes.  They do.  The Berne Convention more or less requires it.

I don't see what's "strange" about it.  Copying without permission is
prohibited in principle in all signatories.  The circumstance of
near-identical text, perhaps with cosmetic changes or translation,
carries great weight in court.  Otherwise copyright would be
practically unenforcable.

It's the "translation" part that makes it so slippery in practice.
Consider that the Linux kernel uses different identifier names for
common functions and has a rich language of macros for expressing some
operations.  Translating the functionality of a Solaris module to the
Linux kernel would involve changes on the order of translating from
Spanish to German, or maybe even Japanese, I would suspect.  So a
court would consider algorithmic aspects as well (strictly speaking,
you couldn't prove copyright infringement that way, but with a few
textual coincidences and identical algorithms, high probability that
the defendant had seen the plaintiff's original would probably result
in the complaint being upheld).

There are variations across countries, such as how much is considered
so small that independent invention is likely.  (A critical book that
reproduced something like 1/3 of the content of a manga was recently
declared "fair use" by a Japanese court; I don't think that would work
in the U.S.)  And countries like Germany apparently do not allow
authors to sell their own right to use intellectual assets they
produce (so you can often find full text of horribly expensive ISO and
ECMA standards on the Web at authors' home pages).  And enforcement
differs; gaisha can have a horrible time enforcing copyright in Japan
(the Wall Street Journal waited for nearly a year for an injunction
against a Japanese company that was grabbing the text off the
satellite transmission and translating it into Japanese with less than
a day's time lag).  And Japan like many countries has an exemption for
"life and death" information (kept me, for one, from being hauled into
court for relaying the Araki and Friedl translations of the NHK/NTT
list of Hanshin-Daishinsai victims on the Web).

The basic principle, that the author has the right to control copying
arbitrarily, is identical everywhere.  And the Berne Convention
obliges signatories to enforce that right on behalf of authors from
other countries, creating a tendency to convergence in standards.

Variations in what is patentable is much greater, but the convention
there basically states that if you have a patent on a device in the
U.S., noone else can patent it in Japan, if it is patentable.  (If it
isn't patentable under Japanese standards, then you can't patent it
either.)  And having a patent in one country gives you a head start on
patenting in another in practice.  (Of course multiple jurisdictions
lead to jurisdictional disputes, and there are different rules about
precedence, some countries go by order of application, others by order
of invention.)

-- 
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