On 08/20/2013 03:08 PM, Thomas Charron wrote:
A binaray is *not* a modification of the source, no more then a
meal is a 'modification' of a recipe.
This analogy doesn't really work. A binary created using a compiler, and
potentially an assembler, linker, and other tools is a textual
translation of the source code. The artistic elements of the original
persist but in a different form. And of course we know all about how
that works legally due to CAI v. Altai. It is more than fair to call any
translation a modification of the original work. It might miss being a
/derivative/ work because there is no additional /art/ added by the
mechanical process of translation, and thus no new copyrightable elements.
In contrast, creating food from a recipie is not a textual translation,
it is the execution of a set of instructions regarding how to combine
materials.
But your entire argument is moot anyway, since the work appears to have
copied liberally from the Linux kernel and we have not established that
every element it copied was exclusively functional rather than expressive.
