Re: "object code" in the GPL and printed copies

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

"Pedro A.D.Rezende" <prezende@unb.br> wrote:

> Alexander Terekhov wrote:
>> Object code is a well established term. GNUspeak is irrelevant.
>> The Copyright Act defines a computer program as"a set of
>> statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in
>> a computer in order to bring about a certain result. " 17 U.S.C.
>> § 101.
>
> The copyright act is WRONG.
>
> A computer program can NEVER be "a SET of statements or
> instructions...", a computer program has to understood as "a SEQUENCE
> of statements or instructions...".

I wouldn't be too sure that "set" doesn't have a different meaning to
lawyers than it has to mathematicians or computer scientists.

Anyway, I doubt whether sequence is correct, too - unless you redefine
sequence to include conditional execution and loops.

> Bad laws can not change the nature of the symbolic realm, where
> computer programs exist. For one thing, GNUspeakers know that realm
> better than self-aggandizing, sophist lawmakers and lawyers.

This statement is probably both right and irrelevant.  We're dealing
here with legal aspects of creating a Linux distribution, and therefore
the language and thinking of lawyers does and should have an impact on
the outcome of the discussion...

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX)