🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan9.211106.22282@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu writes:

   So suppose a slightly different scenario.  I wrote two programs, A and B,
   both of which have subroutine S in them.  Somehow A goes under the GPL,
   perhaps because I decided to put it under GPL, perhaps because I made it PD
   and someone else decided to put it under the GPL.
   
   I now decide to write C, which also uses subroutine S.  If I take S from A,
   C is infected with the GPL.  If I take S from B, C is not.
   
   Yet the two copies of S are still identical, byte for byte.  I'm stuck; any
   third party can say "oh, you just took S from the GPL program.  So C falls
   under the GPL, so I can copy C".  Can _this_ happen and is _this_ intended?
   
   Or imagine that someone else wrote S, which is PD.  Me and the GNU
   programmer independently used S in our programs.  Once again some
   third party comes by and   says "oh, you took S from the GPL
   program.  I think I'll pirate your stuff." (Of course, if I
   register first, I've escaped, but what if I didn't manage to?)
   How could I possibly prove otherwise?

It seems like the only way to resolve this paradox is by saying that
something in the public domain remains in the public domain, even
though someone might incorporate it into a copyrighted work.  I
believe that this is the way the legal system resolves it, but IANAL,
and logic is too much to expect from the legal system.

-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> What canst *thou* say?
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