"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Steve Holden wrote:
>> Whether or not some fragments of code remain unchanged at the end of
>> your project, if you start out with a piece of source code lifted from
>> wxPython then what you have created is definitely a "derivative work"
>> and, as such, you must take into account the wxPython license in your
>> licensing of the derivative work.
> Is that true ? What if I remove/replace the copyright doubtful portion
> with another implementation ? I believe this happens all the time in
> commerical software sue too.
In general, if you can show you removed all the licensed code that was
in your code, and replaced it with software from another source,
you're cool. That's how the BSD distributions came about - Berkeley's
Computer Systems Research Group rewrote pretty much all of Unix.
However, you're still liable to be sued. CSRG was, which is part of
why BSD languished while Linux was taking off. It's also why the
previous paragraph is a gross oversimplification. The court case
didn't establish a real precedent, as it turned out AT&T was
distributing code that belonged to CSRG in violation of the BSD
license. So they reached a settlement in which CSRG was allowed to
distribute a tape that had most of a Unix sytem on it, a few key files
that AT&T claimed as their own being withheld. This is the "BSD Lite"
distribution that the *BSD systems and parts of OS X are based on. All
this backstory made the SCO barratry much more entertaining.
<mike
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Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
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