Legal/Permission Question

Walter Bright newshound1 at digitalmars.com
Wed Apr 4 18:03:52 PDT 2007


Dan wrote:
> Walter Bright Wrote:
> 
>> LOL. I'm not sitting here with a pack of lawyers itching to sic them on 
>> somebody. Heck, I've been putting more and more of phobos into the 
>> public domain.
> 
> Indeed, I've never suspected so.  I tend to go on what people say is okay with them.
 > According to the definition, practically any programming after having 
seen an example of
 > a for loop is an offense;

No, I don't think so. Copyright does not apply to algorithms, nor does 
it apply to specific numbers or identifiers. You cannot copyright a 
phrase. You cannot copyright quicksort, but you can copyright your 
implementation of quicksort.

> so it's reasonable to be sure one isn't stepping on the wrong toes.
> 
> I agree with the issues you raised, and don't intend to violate those.
> 
> More or less though, I feel it would border on treason to the community if I continued
 > to develop and release Walnut 2.x when you felt I'd essentially 
produced a derived work
 > that should remain constricted to GPL.

I don't have an opinion on whether you produced a derived work or not, 
since I haven't looked at the code.

> Considering what you're last post stated, I can almost assume that you feel Walnut 2.x
 > at Revision 44 is okay, and that I can continue work, as long as your 
files aren't open.
> :p
> 
> I pretty much just feel I need a yes or no from ya.  :p

All I ask if that if any of it is a line by line translation from 
dmdscript, or bases its structure or data structures on dmdscript, that 
you scrap & rewrite those parts, and that you not look at the dmdscript 
source as long as you're working on Walnut.



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