Andrei's Google Talk

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:45:18 -0400, klickverbot <see at klickverbot.at> wrote:

> On 9/21/10 4:31 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> Huh? Look, this isn't an issue of being deceitful, it's an issue of the
>> defensible strength of "yes, I read it, but I didn't copy anything" vs.
>> "no I didn't read it, so I couldn't have copied anything." If you don't
>> believe the person, then it's up to you to prove they're lying.
>  > […]
>  > It's even possible to read code, understand the ideas, and write your
>  > own code to implement the ideas (commonly done via a clean-room
>  > implementation).
>
> I guess I don't quite understand US copyright laws here: Here in Europe,  
> if somebody accuses you of copying their work, they have to prove that  
> you in fact did copy it. Let's assume that person manages to convince a  
> judge that your code is in fact a copy of theirs. To defend yourself, it  
> should not really make a difference whether you claim that you read that  
> code or not.
>
> Even if it mattered whether you looked at the code or not (at least for  
> Europe, I'm reasonably sure that it does not), how are you going to  
> convince the judge that you didn't look at the source code? After all,  
> for Open Source projects, the source code is publicly available at the  
> internet, and if you did not write your program in jail or deep down in  
> the ocean in a submarine, there is always the possibility that you could  
> have looked at the code.
>
> As I said, I don't really know much about the US copyright laws, but if  
> you are used to common European jurisdiction, this situation seems  
> pretty bizarre…

Hm.. I may see why there is a disconnect here.  You might think I mean  
someone copied the code without actually reading it?  That's not what I'm  
talking about.  What I'm talking about is a case where it appears  
snippets/parts of someone's project appear in another, but the author of  
the other never downloaded/viewed/possessed in any way the original  
project's source.

So I don't mean "copied without viewing" I mean "did not ever possess the  
original."  That's what I meant by not having looked at the code.

Does this make sense?

-Steve