Re: Re: FRR package in Debian violates the GPL licence
Paul Jama wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Mar 2019, Ole Streicher wrote:
>> My example
>>
>> #include <log.h>
>> int main(void) { zlog_rotate(); return 0; }
>>
>> is not an adaption of any GPL code. It is fully written by my
>> own.
>
> It is written by you, and you have copyright in it (in some way, I
> have the vague idea there can be complex legal details in that).
>
> However, assuming this "zlog_rotate" function is non-trivial and a
> copyrightable work, then the holder of the copyright in "zlog_rotate"
> /also/ has copyright in your work. For your work is based upon the
> "zlog_rotate" work - it /is/ an adaptation of it.
>
> I know there are many programmers who can't get their head around
> that, however I don't believe that's at all contraversial amongst
> lawyers.
Of course it is controversial, that was the whole point of the
Oracle vs Google trial. It was generally believed that API is not
copyrightable, for example, BSD had the same interfaces as UNIX,
but was not a derivative of UNIX; or Wine reimplements the Windows
APIs but is not a derivative of Windows.
Oracle challenged this in 2010, claiming that Google's reimplementation
of parts of Java is a derivative work of their Java API. The court unfortunately
agreed with this, despite all previous precedents, and despite this
causing severe issues for the field (as it prevents you from re-implementing
a proprietrary API not supported anymore by the vendor, for example, or
support for proprietrary file formats).
I'm not sure why you are supporting Oracle's position, but consider
the impact on the computing world of that position, and what trouble
it causes if it wins.
There is still some hope: The case is not closed - a second supreme
court petition was filed in January.
--
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