Legal/Permission Question

[Walter Bright]

Dan wrote:
> Walter, if I may ask, examining Walnut 1.9 from:
> http://dsource.org/projects/browse/branches/1.9/source/
> 
> Is the code that I've currently written in any way derived from your works?  While, as people here have suggested, you probably won't come after me for it, your explicit agreement that it isn't so far would probably hold me not liable for that code.
> 
> Granted that, I guess I'm not allowed to program ever again, because I've read source code for practically everything - Ogre3D, various games, scripting engines, compilers, OS's, tools, algorithms and data structures.. I'm just a walking liability.
> 
> I'll miss you all so much.  *sniffle*
> 
> It's a damned good thing this turnip is dry.  : )

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.

But you should know what the legal issues involved are, as they'll apply 
to whatever programming work you do. If you write software and wish to 
sell it to some major corporation for big bucks, they'll want clean 
title to it, and they'll check it out. You'll be asked to sign papers 
guaranteeing it's original, under threat of substantial penalties. 
Avoiding taint makes this trivial.

As for me personally, what gets my back up are (and yes, these have all 
happened):

1) accusing me of copying, when the accuser is the one that stole the 
code from me in the first place

2) hiring me to do programming, using the result, and trying to duck payment

3) licensing my code, paying me royalties for a year or two, becoming 
intimately familiar with my code, then releasing a new version trying to 
claim it is now an "original" work to duck payment and credit

4) trying to claim original authorship of code that is obviously mine, 
by doing little more than replace the copyright notice

Bottom line is, doing a line by line transliteration of copyrighted code 
for the purpose of evading the copyright just isn't right. Think of it 
this way: you're releasing Walnut under a BSD license. That means you 
wish to retain credit and copyright of it. How would you feel if someone 
else took Walnut, transliterated it, peeled off your copyright, and 
called it their own?