On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Josh Myer wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > > But who knows if #include'd code constitutes a derived work :(
> >
> > Only if the #included snippets of code are large enough to be
> > protected by copyright, which might be true of the stuff in
> > mm_inline.h and of some of the semaphore code, but probably
> > isn't true of the spinlock code.
> Since you're functionally using it, and it's not a protected use
> (Satire, etc, though some would argue that the nvidia drivers are a
> mockery...), I would tend to think Fair Use wouldn't apply in this case.
> Are there any IP Lawyers in the house?
>
> The only analogy i can think of is a remix of songs, and several people
> have gotten into wonderfully large lawsuits over that.
You can copyright songs, but not individual musical notes.
Likewise, snippets of code aren't copyrightable if they're below
a certain "triviality size".
> > Even if the code #included is large enough to be protected by
> > copyright I don't know if the code including it would be considered
> > a derived work. Many questions remaining...
>
> This basically all falls upon the shoulders of whoever wrote the spinlock
> code on whatever platform you're compiling for...
No, this is an issue of legislation and case law. Some copyright
holders (*eyes hollywood*) would like to be able to decide such
things for themselves, but this isn't something copyright holders
can decide...
regards,
Rik
-- Bravely reimplemented by the knights who say "NIH". http://www.surriel.com/ http://guru.conectiva.com/ Current spamtrap: <a href=mailto:"october@surriel.com">october@surriel.com</a>- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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