[PD-dev] Porting, copyright and licensing

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jan 4, 2006, at 8:40 AM, Jamie Bullock wrote:

>
> Marc,
>
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 10:42:36 -0500
> Marc Lavallée <marc at hacklava.net> wrote:
>
>> Le 4 Janvier 2006 05:51, Jamie Bullock a écrit :
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Whilst we are on the subject of licensing and copyright, I have a  
>>> related
>>> question. If a section of code is ported into another programming
>>> language, does the ported code qualify as a new piece of software or  
>>> a
>>> modification of existing software? I ask this, because clearly it has
>>> implications for who owns the copyright to the ported code.
> <snip>
>>
>> The ACM license is a bit like a the CC attribution/non-commercial  
>> license.
>> I'm not sure it can be considered a free software license (it's not  
>> listed
>> on gnu.org), but I believe it can be used along with free software.  
>> For
>> commercial use, you must contact the author and negociate a licensing
>> agreement. For non-commercial use, you can distribute the source or
>> binaries, even modify and/or integrate the source to your project,  
>> but the
>> original code must be indentified as being the property of ACM. So I  
>> think
>> you can licence your part as GPL and use the ACM part as instructed  
>> by the
>> ACM license.
>> --
>> Marc
>
>
> Thanks for the reply.  What you mention above is was what I already  
> understood to be the case. However, the emphasis of my question is:  
> does a port from one language to another generally count as new  
> software, or modification of existing software from a  
> licensing/copyright point of view?
>
> For example, if I re-wrote PD in Java (heaven forbid), and it was  
> functionally identical to PD, would it have to retain its original  
> copyright/license, or would it be considered a new piece of software?

Copyright covers implementations, not ideas.  So if you reimplement all  
of the ideas of Pd or this Fast Cosine Transform, then its a new  
implementation and you control the copyright.  But if your  
implementation is just a copy of another implementation, then copyright  
applies.

.hc

________________________________________________________________________ 
____

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of  
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an  
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps  
it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the  
possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of  
it."
                                                        - Thomas  
Jefferson