Hey guys, I saw this discussion on the archives and joined to interject a little more info about copyright. I know this has already been discussed, but I thought I'd contribute some references.
There is a great deal of agreement among the FOSS community that header files are generally not copyrightable, and the GPL terms don't apply to them. This is backed up by RMS and the FSF, which is pretty telling by itself: http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0301.1/0362.html Linus Torvalds agrees: http://lxnews.org/2011/03/25/android-gpl-problems-totally-bogus/ Both of those cases are with regards to GPL'd works, but there is one notable court case that generalizes it even more: BayState Technologies, Inc v. Bentley Systems, Inc. (1996) [no relation to me], district court found that "technical interfaces... cannot be protected by copyright law". The summary also references other related fair use cases, including Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc. Case summary here: http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/publications/ip/ip_articles/baystate_holding.pdf Basically: common public opinion and some lower US court findings hold that a typical descriptive header file (i.e. no inline functions) is NOT bound by copyright law. I am not a lawyer, and have never played one in any theatrical production. -Trevor -- Trevor Bentley Sherpa Solutions, LLC Office: (404)467-8866 Web: http://www.sherpasolutions.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Create and publish websites with WebMatrix Use the most popular FREE web apps or write code yourself; WebMatrix provides all the features you need to develop and publish your website. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ms-webmatrix-sf _______________________________________________ Sdcc-user mailing list Sdcc-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sdcc-user
