🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu) writes:
> For such programmers, even _reading_ CopyLefted source 
> places them in a moral dilemma:  suppose that he/she stumbles onto a 
> really clever search algorithm while I'm browsing through GNU grep? 

The GPL does not cover this.  Protection of algorithms (i.e., ideas)
is the domain of patents, not copyrights (or copylefts).  The FSF and
the LPF actually stand quite firmly against software patents of this
sort.

If you find a great algorithm in GNU grep, you can use it all you like.
What GNU grep's copyleft protects is the actual expression of that
algorithm in the text of grep.c, *not* the algorithm itself.

> With a public domain or freeware source code, the honorable thing to do 
> would be to cite the author of the routine in one's source code and add 
> an acknowledgement in the documentation.  Alternatively, one could talk
> to the author(s);  9 times out of 10 they'll be flattered and tell you 
> to go ahead and use the routine, happy to be of assistance to a fellow
> programmer.

The "copyleft" is really a legal copyright; the holder of a copyright
can choose to do anything he/she wishes to.  If you ask the author of
a GPL-protected program if you can use a routine commercially, and that
author is flattered and agreeable, then that's just fine.  A copyright
doesn't bind the copyright holder; it binds everyone else on the
copyright holder's behalf.  The copyright holder is free to release to
you a special copy of the program that carries different restrictions.
If you take liberties with the program without the author's permission,
*then* you are violating the copyright (copyleft).

This is all assuming the program's author really is the holder of the
copyright; that may not be the case.  I've signed over the copyrights
to several of my programs to the FSF for various reasons, and some
institutions will consider themselves to hold the rights to any
software you produce with their facilities.  The point is, there is
always *some* person or organization that owns the copyright, and they
are allowed to administer it however they please---including granting
exceptions to people who wash their car, or whatever.

								-- Dave