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  • Licensing?

    From Stefan Ram@21:1/5 to All on Thu Feb 2 17:34:56 2023
    Many licenses in the Python world are like: "You can make
    changes, but have to leave in my Copyright notice.".

    Would it be possible that the original author could not
    claim a Copyright anymore when code has been changed?

    The following example code is short, so it exaggerates the
    effect, but you may get the idea:

    # Copyright 1979 John Doe, you may make changes, but leave in this line!
    import turtle
    turtle.write( 'Hello 80s!' )

    , now, a user changes this into:

    # Copyright 1979 John Doe, you may make changes, but leave in this line!
    print( 'Hello 80s!' )

    , and later into:

    # Copyright 1979 John Doe, you may make changes, but leave in this line!
    print( 'Python is cool!' )

    . I am asking because I think such Copyright claims might be
    too vague because one has to speculate about such questions.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jon Ribbens@21:1/5 to Stefan Ram on Thu Feb 2 17:38:56 2023
    On 2023-02-02, Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
    Many licenses in the Python world are like: "You can make
    changes, but have to leave in my Copyright notice.".

    Would it be possible that the original author could not
    claim a Copyright anymore when code has been changed?

    No. If you change someone else's code then you have created a derived
    work, which requires permission from both the original author and you
    to copy. (Unless you change it so much that nothing remains of the
    original author's code, of course.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Greg Ewing@21:1/5 to Jon Ribbens on Fri Feb 3 13:11:23 2023
    On 3/02/23 6:38 am, Jon Ribbens wrote:
    If you change someone else's code then you have created a derived
    work, which requires permission from both the original author and you
    to copy. (Unless you change it so much that nothing remains of the
    original author's code, of course.)

    "Nothing" is probably a bit extreme; somewhere between "exactly the
    same" and "completely different" there will be a borderline case,
    although exactly where the border lies would require a court case
    to determine.

    When in doubt, the sensible and courteous thing would be to include
    the original copyright notice as requested, maybe with a "based on
    work by..." attribution.

    --
    Greg

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jon Ribbens@21:1/5 to Greg Ewing on Fri Feb 3 00:39:22 2023
    On 2023-02-03, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
    On 3/02/23 6:38 am, Jon Ribbens wrote:
    If you change someone else's code then you have created a derived
    work, which requires permission from both the original author and you
    to copy. (Unless you change it so much that nothing remains of the
    original author's code, of course.)

    "Nothing" is probably a bit extreme; somewhere between "exactly the
    same" and "completely different" there will be a borderline case,
    although exactly where the border lies would require a court case
    to determine.

    Well yes, technically if you remove so much code that what remains
    of the original is so de minimis that it can't be considered
    copyrightable then you're good. But that doesn't seem that useful
    to know, because if you've removed that much then what remains,
    pretty much by definition, isn't going to be useful. You'd be
    better off simply starting from scratch and having an unimpeachable
    claim to own the entire copyright yourself.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)