Re: PathSearchAndQualify patch not applied?

Nadav,

To finish this whole thing off, you are right... it's not practical to
prove yourself and your patch.  It would certainly be extremely
difficult to bring a case to a judge.  That doesn't mean your work isn't
copyrightable, it just means you can't prove you did it in the first
place.  Just like the murder analogy that Bryan gave earlier.  None the
less, the law is the law and your work is always - always
copyrightable... you just may not be able to prove it's your work when
it comes down to it - that doesn't void the law.  It just leaves you
with no case to present.

On Tue, 2004-07-20 at 05:42, Nadav Frum wrote:

> You still have not answered the judge's question.  Assuming TG applies 
> your patch to their code, renaming variables where necessary, what exactly 
> have they taken from you?  Or perhaps you could inform the judge what 
> should be taken out of TG's code to undo their crime.
> 
> Nadav Frum
> ----------
> 
> On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Bryan Kadzban wrote:
> 
> > 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 onthe 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).
> > 

-- 
Keef Aragon <[email protected]>