On Thursday, 18 February 2016 at 22:22:57 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
With copyright, the fact that you created yours on your own is sufficient defense, assuming the courts agree. If by sheer coincidence you come up with code identical to what's in GCC, but you can show that you didn't take the code from GCC, you're in the clear.
And how are you going to show that? You can't, because it is widespread.
Patents, well, you're infringing even if you didn't refer to any other source. But if you did look at another source, especially if you looked in the patent database, you open yourself up to increased damages.
There are no damages for GCC.
