Re: PathSearchAndQualify patch not applied?

On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 06:31, Nadav Frum wrote:

> Read my postings carefully.  Please don't argue points I did not make. 
> 


I would have to ask the same of you


> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Keef Aragon wrote:
> 
> > A patch is unique... if you change
> > 
> > int c = 0;
> > to
> > int c = -1;
> > 
> > That is unique - the patch itself is unique.Identified... copyright
> > derivative work... not notional, legal.100% legal in court in front of
> > a judge period and you don't seem to understand THAT.It doesn't matter
> > if you charge money or not... your work is copyright end of story!And
> > I question the notion that the GPL is a "game" or not a real license.
> > In fact it's more clear and far more practical than the MS-EULA - and
> > legally equally as credible.I think your misconstrued understanding of
> > the law and linux development is what is not real world.You might do
> > some research on this whole thing though.Your declaration is being
> > challenged by judges and lawyers around theworld, as well as
> > supported.But that is in the sense that some people feel that a
> > license isn't real unless you make money on the product which it covers.
> 
> If you think you can legally stop TG from changing the particular line you 
> are referring to in your patch to the corrected line you supply, by not 
> granting them copyright, you are living in a very disturbing state of 
> fantasy.
> 


First off, you can't legally top TG from changing anything under the
license Cedega is released under.  Also I don't think you realize that
Cedega is an open source *free* product.  TG does not charge for it...
they are not allowed to as it is a derivitave work of the original wine
project.  They are allowed to charge for the distribution medium... That
is why you *subscribe* to TG.  You are paying for the medium, not the
software itself.


> Please don't take my statements about a patch and generalize them to all 
> code, everywhere.  And money is not a defining condition.  However, when 
> real money is not used things will tend to take the form of a game.
> 


Things don't take the form of a game.  If you take my code that I wrote
for free and make a million dollars on it, THAT is not a game.  Of
course if everyone is doing free development outside of an Open Source
License, one could still enforce copyright, but they wouldn't have much
of a case for monetary compensation.


> Judges and lawyers in the real world are dealing with real world issues.  
> Your beliefs surrounding the patch in the example above may bear some 
> resemblance to these real world issues.  Just don't try to make a case out 
> of the above example patch.
> 


The only reason the above patch wouldn't hold up in court is because it
is so trivial that a company could easily defend the possibility that
they came up with it on their own.  In a more complex example, there is
a very good case actually.


> On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Bryan Kadzban wrote:
>                                                                                 
> > Nadav Frum wrote:
> > > You still don't understand.You can hold copyright over something if
> > > and only if it is unique in some way.
> >
> > And a patch IS.Nobody else has used those lines of code, in that
> > sequence, in those places, in the program before.
> >
> > > If you cannot identify anything in your patch that is unique and
> > > yours,
> >
> > As I said last time:THE LINES OF CODE THAT THE PATCH INSERTS.  The
> > person who wrote the patch created those lines, so under Berne
> > Convention copyright law, they are theirs.If the code had already been
> > in the program, it wouldn't be in the patch, so those lines are also
> > unique.
> >
> > You obviously don't understand something about the definition of a
> > "work", so this is going to be just about all I'll say on this.If you
> > still refuse to understand it, then I guess it's going to be your
> > problem.
> 
> You have not identified what is unique about your patch.  In particular:
> 1. The place is dependent on the location of the bug and so is not 
>    entirely your doing.


doesn't matter - your work is still your work - the bug isn't your code
(Though a patch doesn't have to address a bug, it can address additional
functionality too.), but the fix is.


> 2. White space can be added and removed.  Names can be changed.  The 
>    sequence can be altered in places where it does not affect the logic
>    of the algorithm.


If you can *prove* that it is still a copy of your work with changes
that don't affect it's operation, that would still be a copy of your
work.  But again, an easy defense is, "Look how different it is, we did
this on our own."  So true, there wouldn't be a good case here not
because laws take away copyright under certain cases but because you
can't prove your allegations.


> 3. The program is not yours and is continuously in a state of change.  
>    A particular change may be an imperative and you cannot usurp the right
>    to implement that change.


You can't in this case, not because of general copyright laws, but
because the license.  Under the licenses that Cedega are under though,
TG can implement whatever patch they want as long as the give the author
credit.


> Where does your copyright begin and where does it end?
> 


It's not one continuous block necessarily, it's the code you wrote that
is copyright.  Even the example above *IS* code, even if it IS trivial.


> Nadav Frum
> ----------
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Keef Aragon <[email protected]>