On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Daniel Shahaf <d...@daniel.shahaf.name> wrote: > [ Haven't read the whole thread yet, quick response only to this sentence ] > > Peter Samuelson wrote on Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 10:11:45 -0500: >> This is why you should read the existing third-party implementations. > > I believe some third-party implementations are GPL'd --- meaning that we > can't borrow code from them --- so one should be careful in what parts > of what implementations one chooses to read.
We certainly can't copy / paste code, but borrowing algorithms, techniques, patterns or ideas is perfectly valid. GPL governs copyright of the code, not the ideas contained therein. (For instance, reimplementing something from a GPL'd Python program to a ALv2'd C program would be perfectly valid.) -Hyrum PS - IANAL and could be way off base here. If I am, and even *reading* GPL code somehow makes you ineligible to contribute to ALv2-licensed code, then the GPL is even goofier than I thought.
