On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 01:05:29PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> writes: > > > On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 06:40:38PM +0900, Olaf Meeuwissen wrote: > >> I've been "pestered" by the people who pay for the development of > >> several of our packages to add a blurb claiming copyright on the > >> *binary* packages we build and distribute. Binary packages built > >> and distributed by others are not to be covered by this copyright > >> claim. > >> > >> Now this strikes my as pretty off-the-wall and impractical, but I > >> am wondering whether anyone knows of "prior art" in this area. If > > > > I think it goes beyond impractical -- I believe it's not legally > > enforceable. The transformation from source to binary form does not contain > > any elements of creative input; the process itself is trivially > > reproducable, and with the same set of inputs you will produce identical > > output every time. > > But the copyright is still held by the author of the source. Indeed. But that's not the issue at hand. > Additionally, a repository of packages, with particular selections of > quality software, is copyrightable in the same way that an anthology > or magazine is copyrightable. Again, not what is being discussed. The creation of an anthology or collection involves creative input; two people, faced with the same "possibles" set, and even the same criteria for selection, will quite possibly choose differently. The same does not apply to the compilation of a piece of software, unless the build process is horribly fucked up. - Matt
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