Op 2005-04-14, Robert Kern schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Antoon Pardon wrote:
Op 2005-04-14, Robert Kern schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Antoon Pardon wrote:
Op 2005-04-13, Robert Kern schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
I would do that if I were just writing code I thought others could find usefull. I then would feel no problem "burdening" those users with the same kind of license I found in the product I took some code from. But I also think that readers of documentation should be free to use any code included in any way they see fit.
If they have issues with distributing code derived from Python, why are they reading a Python tutorial?
Try and look it from a students viewpoint. He is learing languages, algorithms and so on. Now he is ready to write his own program. Chances are high that he will rely on examples from the courses/documentation he read. It is just not practical for someone like that to figure out all the possible different licenses under which he can use the examples from the various documenation sources.
The PSF License is about as light as they come.
Now if this documentation refers to code from yet another source with its own license, using it becomes an utter nightmare for the student, because now he has to figure out which piece of the code is original from the author of the documentation and which was copied from the other source.
Then write your own code and don't use anyone else's. You can't offer extra permissions for code that's not yours.
Well then I'll just have to do that.
Consideration like this, let me come to the conclusion that code included with documentation should come with no strings attached for the students to reuse.
No such thing, really. Copyright law requires almost as much as the PSF license. The MIT license is shorter, possibly more easily understandable, but practically amounts to more-or-less the same thing.
If I read a tutorial or a course on algorithms both with examples. Does copyright law require that I attribute if I reuse code from these examples?
If the amount copied is large enough.
Even if it was pseudo code that I had to translate in an actual language.
Probably not. Copyright controls copying (and a few other things, but they have less relevance in a software context).
Suppose some time has passed and I have to write similar code. I cant find the documentation but this time I'm experienced enough so that I can recreate the code. Do I still need to attribute the code?
Again, probably not.
What if the code is so short that basically everyone that solves the problem writes the same kind of code?
No, copyright requires creativity.
Rosen's book should answer these questions for you.
In short, don't worry about it. Don't sue people, keep the attributions intact, and probably no one will care.
Sorry, that list should also have had "follow courteous practices with other people's code" which includes listing changes and a reference to the license of that code.
If they don't care, why did they attach such a license in the first place.
Lawyers. The original license (the "CNRI License") was much briefer and vaguer, although it amounts to the same requirements, practically. The PSF license made those requirements, disclaimers, etc. explicit.
-- Robert Kern [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high Are the graves of dreams allowed to die." -- Richard Harter
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