Quoting "Joseph S. Myers" <jos...@codesourcery.com>:
I suggest you recalibrate your understanding of the scope of copyright to be less expansive rather than supposing it to apply to "file names, function names and identifiers".
But if identifieres were OK, wouldn't that mean that auto-generating documentation that shows hook names along with argument types and names are also OK? I don't see any fundamental difference between writing stuff like 'change type of argument foo of func to bar and rename to baz' to put it into a ChangeLog, and running a program to adjust a piece of documentation to reflect such a change.
Arguing for its application to such elements may be accepted in certain industries based around the use of copyright, patent and trademark laws, DRM and closed software and devices against the public interest; it is not appropriate for work as part of the Free Software Movement.
It's not that I want copyright be applied so broadly, but I'm trying to avoid a situation where my patch becomes unusable because of such issues. I spent a lot of time before getting the target hook code, comments and documentation consistent, only to be told that the GCC maintainers have no authority to move information from code or comments into documentation or vice versa. If the FSF wants its maintainers to have certain freedoms when handling the source code they handle on behalf of the FSF, it is best if this is spelled out in licences and/or policies, since national copyright regimes vary, contain legal uncertainties, and are subject to change.
