Hyman Rosen <[email protected]> wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: >> If I write foo.c and compile it to foo.o, I don't think there are pieces >> there. I then link it with a few other files and it becomes the >> executable foo. The only bits in there which aren't my copyright are >> analogues of the book's cover and printing.
> That's not correct. The executable foo may contain pieces > (or the entirety, even) of works whose copyright is owned > by someone other than you. OK. I'm assuming here that I wrote all the source myself. The only other components in the executable will be "boilerplate" (things like init code, setting up stacks, reading command line parameters, calling OS routines). > Some of them may be requested by you as part of the link process, > and some of them may be placed there automatically by the linker > without your specific request. OK. You're saying, I think, that this "boilerplate" code gives the boilerplate's writer some degree of copyright in the executable program. I'm not at all convinced o this. Certainly, the world doesn't seem to work this way in practice, in that if I write some code for a proprietary OS, and build it with proprietary tools, the tool vendors don't sue me for royalties. > Your "book printing" analogy is apt; the cover art will > generally be covered by a copyright owned by someone other > than the book author. It differs from software, though, in that the cover isn't necessary for the book's purpose. The "boilerplate" code is absolutely required for the program to work. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
