Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@evenmere.org>]

Anthony DeRobertis <asd@suespammers.org> writes:

> On Dec 16, 2003, at 10:20, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
>>
>> I didn't say there's no copyright generated by the pairing -- just
>> that the pairing can't be separated from the writing of the plugin.
>> The plugin author, in the course of writing and testing his plugin,
>> must have assembled the combination of host+plugin in a persistent
>> form.
>
> If the author distributed it unpaired, then I re-pair it, that's not
> under the original author's copyright (if any) on that pairing.
>
> Debian pairing the plugin doesn't generate a copyright.


If an artist paints a picture with a hole in it -- a window frame,
say, in an odd shape, and a second artist paints a picture to fit in
that hole and stylistically match the whole picture, that second
artist's copyright on the combination persists, even if they are
distributed seperately.

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu