On Wednesday 30 March 2005 03:53, Raul Miller wrote: > Those .h files were held to be not protected by copyright because no > viable alternatives were available to interface with the system. > > It's hard to see how this reasoning would apply in a context where there > is some viable alternative available to interface with the system.
I don't know the details of the case at hand, but I remember the discussion around errno.h from the TSG fallout: The basic reasoning there was, that if one wants to implement a C stdlib an a unix-like system, a optimal errno.h would always look similar to that from ancient BSD (which most "modern" errno.h derive from). Since there is no way to be unixish/compatible without defining the various E* to these values, having a errno.h file with the same values is not infringing. This, I believe, can be extended to all forms of compatability: If a header file with certain contents is needed to use the interface of a library, it is no copyright infringement. To be on the safe side, this has to be interpreted very strict: Non-trivial comments and inline functions are probably not covered. Regards, David -- - hallo... wie gehts heute? - *hust* gut *rotz* *keuch* - gott sei dank kommunizieren wir �ber ein septisches medium ;) -- Matthias Leeb, Uni f. angewandte Kunst, 2005-02-15
