🚀 go-pugleaf

Quoting arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) in article <1993Jan9.211106.22282@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>:
>
>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?

No.  Software doesn't just "fall under the GPL", it has to be put
there. I suspect that if I modify gcc and distribute it without all the
GPL notices, you don't have the right to redistribute what I've done
just because you've noticed it.  You'll have to sue me for distributing
it illegally under copyright law, and try and get the court to rule that
I must GPL my software as a result.  It could decide that I have the
option to withdraw it.  Or any such thing.

In the situation you describe, you won't be able to make your case
because I need only produce a copy of B and claim I took my source from
that and you won't be able to prove otherwise.

I am not a lawyer.  I am not from the US.  All of the above is just a
guess based on the demonstrably false assumption that there is some
logic to the way Law works.
  __                                   _____
\/ o\ Paul Crowley   pdc@dcs.ed.ac.uk  \\ //
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