Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Alexander Terekhov wrote: > > Hyman Rosen wrote: > >> You still need permission from the owners > >> of the components to make copies and distribute them. > > > > That's in the GPL second section aka "1" (counting from zero). > > Huh? The part that says that you may copy and distribute > verbatim copies of the source code?
Yup. The Copyright Act defines a computer program as "a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result." 17 U.S.C. § 101. Computer programs can be expressed in either source code or object code. "Source code is the computer program code as the programmer writes it, using a particular programming language." Compendium of Copyright Office Practices, § 321.01. Source code is a high level language that people can readily understand. "Object code is the representation of the program in machine language [binary] . . . which the computer executes." Id. at § 321.02. Source code usually must be compiled, or interpreted, into object code before it can be executed by a computer. Object code can also be decompiled into source code. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program. Thus separate registrations are not appropriate for the source code and object code representations of the same computer program." Id. at § 321.03. However, source code created by decompiling object code will not necessarily be identical to the source code that was compiled to create the object code. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program." Id. at § 321.03. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program." Id. at § 321.03. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program." Id. at § 321.03. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program." Id. at § 321.03. Source code and object code are "two representations of the same computer program. For registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program rather than in any particular representation of the program." Id. at § 321.03. http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/CopyrightCompendium/chapter_0300.asp ------ An applicant files two applications for the same program: one specifically for the source code and the other for the object code. Since the object code version does not contain copyrightable differences, there is no basis for a separate registration for the object code. The Office will communicate with the applicant suggesting a single registration for the computer program. ------ Got it now, Hyman? regards, alexander. -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
