Hyman Rosen <[email protected]> wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: >> The only other components in the executable will be "boilerplate"
> No. Those components may include entire implementations of things > like formatting floating point numbers into strings, trigonometric > functions, calendar functions, and so forth. They needn't do so, for example, if these things are in a dynamically linked library which isn't part of the executable. But these library components often will be linked in. >> OK. You're saying, I think, that this "boilerplate" code gives the >> boilerplate's writer some degree of copyright in the executable >> program. > No. I'm saying that the library code which is linked in to the > executable program continues to fall under the copyright of its > holder, and may only be copied under permission of that holder. > If you wish to make copies of your executable, you must have this > permission. And as you and John Hasler have explained, this permission comes with the tools, otherwise nobody would buy them. Thanks! >> 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. > But copyright law doesn't care about whether your program works! > A broken program is just as copyrightable as a working one. And a good job too, otherwise not many programs would be copyrightable. :-) -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
