Questions on GPL for billwg 15416

Is a book the same as a sound recording? You'd better let the RIAA hear about that! Might give them a whole new business to explore.

Source code is a set of directions to a mechanism that creates object code in a very deterministic way. The government says:

WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT? Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:

a.. Works ...

b.. breastles...

c.. Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration"

which makes the source code somewhat of an idea or procedure or method for creating object code. In a sense it is the idea that the object code expresses. Perhaps it is not protected.

What might the legal definition of a translation be, Ray? If I translate it back, I don't get the original source at all. Whereas if I translate a book to another language and translate it back to the original language, I will get something very much like the original. The reverse engineered source from a binary can only be the idea behind the binary and would not contain the original expression.

your This cite is very low on any case law or statutory proof too, Ray. It is a summary of the popular opinions, but not an example of a decision in a relevant case. I have been unable to find anything where the issue was squarely framed and a judgement made. Neither have you.

Only here? infringement, have The Well, that is a question, certainly. The resultant "translated" code seems to simply call CoCreateInstance() with the objects GUID and then use the objects methods to strip formatting from the text. That doesn't look very unique in terms of expression when all is said and done. The object itself doesn't seem like any innovative thing either. It is a straighforward string replacement exercise.