Re: PathSearchAndQualify patch not applied?

Nadav Frum wrote:
> Why are we discussing the XFree86 project and Microsoft?

They are examples to illustrate some logical fallacies.  ;-)

> Try to imagine yourselves sitting in front of a judge with your legal
> representative and TG's team is on the other side of the court.  The
> judge looks at your team and politely asks what it is about your
> patch that you feel was unlawfully taken from you?

The patch.

Not the format, not the algorithm, not the structure/design, not the
bug.  But the patch itself.  The exact bits in the patch file.

This is *NOT* covered by the copyright on the "diff" program -- it's a
work produced by the diff program, yes, but is not a derivative work, so 
the FSF disclaims any copyright on it.  Copyright is therefore yours.
This is the same reason that you can write a program, compile it with
gcc, and not distribute it under the GPL -- it's not a derivative work
of gcc, because gcc doesn't incorporate a significant amount of its own
code in the program when it compiles it.  Neither does diff when it
creates a patch file.

Alternately, you could argue that you own the lines of code that your
patch would have inserted (anything with a + before it in the patch
file).  TG can't apply the patch without those lines, so this would have
the same effect.  They could fix the bug without them, but then it would
be either an independent implementation (which is almost guaranteed to
be different, and not copyrighted by you), or a derivative work (which
you might also be able to claim some rights to, depending on the patch's
license).