On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:45:18 -0400, klickverbot <s...@klickverbot.at> wrote:
On 9/21/10 4:31 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
Huh? Look, this isn't an issue of being deceitful, it's an issue of the
defensible strength of "yes, I read it, but I didn't copy anything" vs.
"no I didn't read it, so I couldn't have copied anything." If you don't
believe the person, then it's up to you to prove they're lying.
> […]
> It's even possible to read code, understand the ideas, and write your
> own code to implement the ideas (commonly done via a clean-room
> implementation).
I guess I don't quite understand US copyright laws here: Here in Europe,
if somebody accuses you of copying their work, they have to prove that
you in fact did copy it. Let's assume that person manages to convince a
judge that your code is in fact a copy of theirs. To defend yourself, it
should not really make a difference whether you claim that you read that
code or not.
Even if it mattered whether you looked at the code or not (at least for
Europe, I'm reasonably sure that it does not), how are you going to
convince the judge that you didn't look at the source code? After all,
for Open Source projects, the source code is publicly available at the
internet, and if you did not write your program in jail or deep down in
the ocean in a submarine, there is always the possibility that you could
have looked at the code.
As I said, I don't really know much about the US copyright laws, but if
you are used to common European jurisdiction, this situation seems
pretty bizarre…
Hm.. I may see why there is a disconnect here. You might think I mean
someone copied the code without actually reading it? That's not what I'm
talking about. What I'm talking about is a case where it appears
snippets/parts of someone's project appear in another, but the author of
the other never downloaded/viewed/possessed in any way the original
project's source.
So I don't mean "copied without viewing" I mean "did not ever possess the
original." That's what I meant by not having looked at the code.
Does this make sense?
-Steve
