"Pedro A.D.Rezende" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Alexander Terekhov wrote: >> Object code is a well established term. GNUspeak is irrelevant. >> The Copyright Act defines a computer program as"a set of >> statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in >> a computer in order to bring about a certain result. " 17 U.S.C. >> § 101. > > The copyright act is WRONG. > > A computer program can NEVER be "a SET of statements or > instructions...", a computer program has to understood as "a SEQUENCE > of statements or instructions...".
I wouldn't be too sure that "set" doesn't have a different meaning to lawyers than it has to mathematicians or computer scientists. Anyway, I doubt whether sequence is correct, too - unless you redefine sequence to include conditional execution and loops. > Bad laws can not change the nature of the symbolic realm, where > computer programs exist. For one thing, GNUspeakers know that realm > better than self-aggandizing, sophist lawmakers and lawyers. This statement is probably both right and irrelevant. We're dealing here with legal aspects of creating a Linux distribution, and therefore the language and thinking of lawyers does and should have an impact on the outcome of the discussion... Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)