Re: License and copyright in generated code from wsdl2h in gsoap package
Khalid Aziz wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 21:03 +0200, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> > I don't know this tool at all. Does it only transform your input
> > into code, or is some code written by this Robert van Engelen also
> > inserted? For example, startup code or some standard library?
>
> This tool generates C code from XML file. So in a way, this tool is
> generating all of the code in its output which can be considered to have
> been written by Robert van Engelen since he wrote the tool.
The question is whether any of the code was the result of creative
activity by Van Engelen. Only then does copyright apply to the
code. A purely mechanical translation of your XML to some C statements
is not copyrighted, and then a GPL statement is irrelevant.
For example a straightforward Pascal-to-C translator that merely
takes "for x := 1 to 5 do" and turns it into "for (x=1; x < 5; x++)"
does not contain the result of creative activity. Therefore the
author of such a translator cannot claim any copyright interests
in the C output.
The creator of a LOGO to C translator that takes "SHOWTURTLE
REPEAT 5 FORWARD 1" and turns it into a complete graphical program
would certainly be able to impose licensing terms on such a program.
Libraries like libgcc and libstdc++ are the result of creative
activity. So a derivative work of those libraries can only be
distributed under GPL.
> This refers to linking one's final binary with gcc libraries and the
> startup code. If one were to use gcc to generate assembly code from C
> code without linking it with libgcc or libstdc++, gcc does not require
> the resulting assembly language code to be licensed under GPL.
Absolutely.
Arnoud
--
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
Arnoud blogt nu ook: http://blog.iusmentis.com/
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