Re: Judy license;

[Stavros M. <mac...@al...>]

Yes, I agree that there are all sorts of issues with L/GPL.

As for the header files, I don't think you need to be so meticulous.  There
is an explicit provision for interface specifications, a.k.a. header files
(LGPLv3, section 3).

About the theoretical possibility of having two texts which are
word-for-word identical, one a copyright violation, the other not, that is
actually a well-established principle of copyright law in general (not just
for software) as opposed to patent law, where, if you come up with the same
thing independently and innocently, you can still infringe the patent.

           -s

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 5:04 PM, john skaller <sk...@us...
> wrote:

>
> On 31/08/2012, at 6:13 AM, john skaller wrote:
>
> >
> > On 31/08/2012, at 4:15 AM, Stavros Macrakis wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 1:33 AM, john skaller <
> sk...@us...> wrote:
> >> On 30/08/2012, at 3:13 PM, Bisht, Pradeep wrote:
> >>> ... Can I link judy to my program statically ? ...
> >>
> >> ...Technically if you do your program is LGPL too....
> >>
> >> You are mistaken. Though the linked program is a "derived work" of the
> LGPL code (*), Pradeep's code does not have to be released under the LGPL.
> >
> > I am not mistaken, you just misread my comments.
> > By "program" I meant binary executable. Thought that was clear.
>
> Actually, GPL and LGPL are fraught with legal difficulties.
> They're bad licences because they try to make logically unsustainable
> distinctions .. although its not clear a naive judge would agree.
>
> In theory, when you compile your C source the resulting
> object file is a derived work because you included
> an LGPL header file (in fact the pre-processed C code
> is also a derived work: macro expansions and header
> file inclusions are derivations).
>
> If instead you copy the interface specification, your source
> is a derived work.
>
> However if you merely read the specification and write your
> own interface based on the intellectual content, that is NOT
> a derived work. The API itself is not copyrightable, established
> for US domain at least by the very recent Google vs. Oracle
> in respect of Google using Java library APIs in Android.
>
> For that reason I have code which uses GMP, but I wrote the
> interface (in Felix code) from the specs, rather than mechanically
> deriving it: my interface is not a derived work and so is unencumbered.
>
> I also distribute Judy with my product. Technically the claim that the
> product is FFAU is incorrect. As a whole, it is FFAU, but each part
> has a separate licence. This is the way it works for "compendium"
> products that are aggregations rather than derivations. The best
> known example of that is Linux distros: they can include GPL'd works
> without themselves being GPL. The individual component remains GPL.
>
> So we have the ludicrous situation where you can distribute non GPL
> code containing a header file which is GPL, and all is OK, but if you
> physically
> copy  the header file into one of your files, that file is now GPL --
> despite
> the two encodings being logically identical.
>
> Similarly, you can distribute your code plus some other GPL'd code
> and as long as the client compiles and links it into a program
> there's no breach of licence. But if you do that, and distribute
> the result, you're breaching the licence.  I know of commercial
> companies that actually take the sources to the client's place
> and do the building there for just this reason.
>
> The whole concept of intellectual property is rubbish.
> It is nonsense in the modern world. IMHO of course :)
>
> --
> john skaller
> sk...@us...
> http://felix-lang.org
>
>
>
>