Re: Is the xdebug's non-free license necessary?

[Måns Rullgård <mru@inprovide.com>]

Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> writes:

> On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 11:10:11AM +0100, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> Derick Rethans <derick@xdebug.org> writes:
>> > On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Josh Triplett wrote:
>> >
>> >> >>This is much broader.  For example, I cannot write a derivative called
>> >> >>"Brian's Xdebug" or "Xdebug manual" or even "A third-party manual for
>> >> >>Xdebug".
>> >> >
>> >> > The manual is no problem, that's not a derived product.
>> >>
>> >> It could very well be a derivative; a manual might want to copy some of
>> >> the code for illustrative purposes, or copy various comments.
>> >
>> > IMO just copying a tiny bit of code or copying various comments does not
>> > make something a derivate. I mean, com'on, other people can come up with
>> > those same comments or tiny bits of code.
>> 
>> This seems to me to be no different from citing a paragraph from a
>> book, which is perfectly legal under normal copyright law.
>
> There is no such thing as "normal copyright law".  Not all jurisdictions out
> there have any concept of what is known commonly as "fair use", which is the
> only thing I can think of that would allow you to quote a paragraph from a
> copyrighted book without the copyright holder's permission.

You're right.

>> If a code fragment is used in another program, matters might be
>> different, though.
>
> Why?

Quoting from a book is often done to illustrate something, or
otherwise give an example.  I can't see how a code fragment could be
considered an example of something, if it is actually executed as part
of a program.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com