Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
FYI, I asked the question on debian-legal (no answer yet). http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2012/07/msg00012.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/cahlp1ynygmem1vv6+qfczxk6a5pv9aa1wzmhkvc5hfmpq_q...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 11:35:34AM +0200, Christophe-Marie Duquesne wrote: I want the libary to be a fully compatible runtime and compile-time replacement for the closed-source one, so I have no choice but to use the exact same symbol names in my header. What I do is I take the header of the closed-source library, wipe out the comments and elaborated macros, and then implement all the functions of the exposed API in a .c file. As a consequence, there is very little actual difference between my header and the one of the closed-source library. The question is: what copyright issues could I possibly be exposed to? I've been asking the question to wine developpers [1], who have to deal with the same kind of issues, but since I intent to package my work for debian, I would be more comfortable if someone confirmed me it is ok to do what I do, and if it is not, how I can fix it. We are not lawyers, but see the recent Google v. Oracle lawsuit. Of course that's only USA law and USA court, but you cannot get one answer for the whole world. -- WBR, wRAR signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Andrey Rahmatullin w...@wrar.name wrote: We are not lawyers, but see the recent Google v. Oracle lawsuit. Of course that's only USA law and USA court, but you cannot get one answer for the whole world. I completely understand that there are no lawyers on this mailing list. Would the borderline status of this library prevent it to be included in Debian? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAHLp1YmD=jzvefmpw4firutsxkcqowafyadj7jvrqodcvd9...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
Hi, On 06/07/2012 11:58, Christophe-Marie Duquesne wrote: On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Andrey Rahmatullin w...@wrar.name wrote: We are not lawyers, but see the recent Google v. Oracle lawsuit. Of course that's only USA law and USA court, but you cannot get one answer for the whole world. I completely understand that there are no lawyers on this mailing list. Would the borderline status of this library prevent it to be included in Debian? I think the best would be to ask on the dedicated mailing list: debian-le...@lists.debian.org Cheers, Nicolas signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Nicolas Bourdaud nicolas.bourd...@gmail.com wrote: I think the best would be to ask on the dedicated mailing list: debian-le...@lists.debian.org Hi, I did not know about debian-legal. I'll ask there. Thank you! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/cahlp1ymopro-xzm3dkrsbhryvconw04btrs-1fvcpsx5pa2...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
Christophe-Marie Duquesne c...@chmd.fr writes: I am the author of an opensource library that reimplements a closed-source library. [...] PS: the project in question is more a proxy towards the closed source library than a real reimplementation, but technically I actually reimplement every function of their header. If you are interested, it is hosted here [2]. If it is a proxy, then it is not a reimplementation. That you add a wrapper for every function, doesn't matter, you still call the original. If it would be a reimplementation, the best course of action would be to start with a program that uses the library, and reimplement the functionality based on what the program expects. If you base your work on existing headers, that's borderline derived work. If you proxy, that *is* derived work, and the whole excercise is rather pointless, as you will still be bound by the original license. That you dlopen() and not directly link, is irrelevant. (At least, that is my understanding of legalities, but as always, I'm not a lawyer.) -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87mx3dxhf8@luthien.mhp
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On 07/06/2012 01:22 PM, Gergely Nagy wrote: Christophe-Marie Duquesne c...@chmd.fr writes: I am the author of an opensource library that reimplements a closed-source library. [...] PS: the project in question is more a proxy towards the closed source library than a real reimplementation, but technically I actually reimplement every function of their header. If you are interested, it is hosted here [2]. If it is a proxy, then it is not a reimplementation. That you add a wrapper for every function, doesn't matter, you still call the original. If it would be a reimplementation, the best course of action would be to start with a program that uses the library, and reimplement the functionality based on what the program expects. If you base your work on existing headers, that's borderline derived work. If you proxy, that *is* derived work, and the whole excercise is rather pointless, as you will still be bound by the original license. That you dlopen() and not directly link, is irrelevant. (At least, that is my understanding of legalities, but as always, I'm not a lawyer.) Also, just taking the proprietary header, kicking out all comments and elaborating the macros is IMHO not acceptable since it's copyrighted under a proprietary license. The only thing you *could* do is take the publicly available documentation (if there is any) and re-write the header based on that information. IANAL etc Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ff6d1f6.80...@users.sourceforge.net
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Gergely Nagy alger...@madhouse-project.org wrote: If it is a proxy, then it is not a reimplementation. That you add a wrapper for every function, doesn't matter, you still call the original. Yes, it is meant to be a proxy. If it would be a reimplementation, the best course of action would be to start with a program that uses the library, and reimplement the functionality based on what the program expects. No, the point of this work is to provide stub libraries for osi [1] to compile against. I don't want to actually reimplement the solvers. the whole excercise is rather pointless, as you will still be bound by the original license. This would allow people who have licenses for these solvers to use Osi easily. Osi is an opensource library to write solver-agnostic code. It is great, but lots of people don't use it just because it is difficult to compile, and they use directly a commercial solver. I'm just trying to bring more users here. On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 1:54 PM, Michael Wild them...@users.sourceforge.net wrote: The only thing you *could* do is take the publicly available documentation (if there is any) and re-write the header based on that information. Please elaborate. Would this qualify as publicly available documentation? [2] [3] [4] [1]: https://projects.coin-or.org/Osi/ [2]: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/ilog/docs/optimization/cplex/refcallablelibrary.pdf [3]: http://www.gurobi.com/documentation/5.0/reference-manual/ [4]: http://www.fico.com/en/FIResourcesLibrary/Xpress-Optimizer-Refernce-Manual.pdf -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/cahlp1ymjeamo+0sbeu0hevueaqpoen7n+t6eu4scsiowtny...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 11:35:34AM +0200, Christophe-Marie Duquesne wrote: I want the libary to be a fully compatible runtime and compile-time replacement for the closed-source one, so I have no choice but to use the exact same symbol names in my header. What I do is I take the header of the closed-source library, wipe out the comments and elaborated macros, and then implement all the functions of the exposed API in a .c file. As a consequence, there is very little actual difference between my header and the one of the closed-source library. To avoid any implication that anything from the headers has been copied, why not just use the output of nm [-D]. This is the interface that programs use to link with the library, and is what you need to provide as a drop-in replacement. Regards, Roger -- .''`. Roger Leigh : :' : Debian GNU/Linuxhttp://people.debian.org/~rleigh/ `. `' schroot and sbuild http://alioth.debian.org/projects/buildd-tools `-GPG Public Key F33D 281D 470A B443 6756 147C 07B3 C8BC 4083 E800 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120706124012.ga25...@codelibre.net
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Roger Leigh rle...@codelibre.net wrote: To avoid any implication that anything from the headers has been copied, why not just use the output of nm [-D]. This is the interface that programs use to link with the library, and is what you need to provide as a drop-in replacement. I am not sure I could use that. nm does get you the name of the symbol, but it does not get you the signature. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAHLp1Y=a-oukehmskagdpa8gqy6lpm_c13zscqdt6jjf-40...@mail.gmail.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
Christophe-Marie Duquesne c...@chmd.fr writes: On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Roger Leigh rle...@codelibre.net wrote: To avoid any implication that anything from the headers has been copied, why not just use the output of nm [-D]. This is the interface that programs use to link with the library, and is what you need to provide as a drop-in replacement. I am not sure I could use that. nm does get you the name of the symbol, but it does not get you the signature. You get that from examining appropriately licensed source code that uses the library. -- |8] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87ipe1xcv5@luthien.mhp
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
PS: the project in question is more a proxy towards the closed source library than a real reimplementation, but technically I actually reimplement every function of their header. If you are interested, it is hosted here [2]. In addition to the debian-legal list, you might want to speak to the guys over at the Free Software Foundation. I posed a similar question to them about using wrapper/chain-linking libraries to do something similar - they were really great about telling me its a no-go, and to look here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLWrapper I guess your situation is a bit different though, might be worth giving them a holler though. Hope this helps :) Will Dowling E: opensou...@autodeist.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4ff6eb09.7030...@autodeist.com
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
Roger Leigh rle...@codelibre.net writes: To avoid any implication that anything from the headers has been copied, why not just use the output of nm [-D]. This is the interface that programs use to link with the library, and is what you need to provide as a drop-in replacement. I'm also not a lawyer, and you'd really need to get a legal opinion, but I'm fairly sure that this is excessively conservative. The prototypes in the header (sans any macros, inline functions, or comments) constitute a functional interface, which is not copyrightable in the US and I believe is not copyrightable in Europe either. There is some precendent for doing something similar to what you're doing (see readline/editline). Of course, even if what you're doing is perfectly legal, that doesn't prevent someone from suing you anyway. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87bojsx1cs@windlord.stanford.edu
Re: Copyright problems for the opensource reimplementation of a closed-source library (ITP #679504)
On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 11:35:34AM +0200, Christophe-Marie Duquesne wrote: I take the header of the closed-source library, wipe out the comments and (...) In that case I see no doubt that you start from the closed-source work. I have read other comments in this thread suggesting different approaches, and I'm not sure where exactly to draw the line. Regards, Bart Martens -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-mentors-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120706185501.gb31...@master.debian.org
