Does "modification" include translation to another HLL?

John Cowan jcowan at reutershealth.com
Fri Dec 7 18:53:10 UTC 2001


Rod Dixon wrote:

> Hence, John's second
> fact pattern switched from an inquiry concerning authorization to create a
> derivative work to a question of whether the Perl program was
> independently created (i.e. original to that author). In my opinion,
> John's hypo is just as likely to lead to litigation as the one he was
> responding to since "reading" the program could be circumstantial evidence
> of copying.


Yes, of course.  Instead of "read" I should have said "examine".
If I observe what your program does and write an equivalent program,
I do not infringe you (unless the ever-irritating DCMA gets into
the act: it forbids some kinds of reverse engineering).


-- 
Not to perambulate             || John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>
    the corridors               || http://www.reutershealth.com
during the hours of repose     || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
    in the boots of ascension.  \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3



More information about the License-discuss mailing list