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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!www.facs.federated-fds.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!super.zippo.com!zdc!szdc!szdc-e!news From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@freebsd.org> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux vs whatever Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 09:21:38 -0500 Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine Lines: 30 Message-ID: <32F0AE72.41C67EA6@freebsd.org> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <32f342b7.11963784@uns.bris.ac.uk> <5cnqsl$78o@cynic.portal.ca> <32EFDF58.41C67EA6@freebsd.org> <5cpece$evs@news.jf.intel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 3.0-CURRENT i386) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:155399 comp.os.linux.networking:66818 comp.os.linux.setup:94823 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5818 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2172 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:51502 comp.os.os2.advocacy:264667 Mike Haertel wrote: > > In article <32EFDF58.41C67EA6@freebsd.org>, John S. Dyson <dyson@freebsd.org> wrote: > >But how does one do that? > >If the original owner has seen the mods, the possibility > >taint (seeing the GPLed mods) rears it's ugly head. > > I think you're being overly paranoid. > > If you read a GPL'd program, and then write (from scratch) a new > program that does the same thing, anybody who claims your new > implementation is "tainted" with the GPL would be laughed out of > court unless you do something blatant like transcribing the old > code with new variable names. Even if you use the same > algorithms. It wouldn't be like you were trying to reverse > engineer someone's unpublished proprietary secrets in the face > of a signed license agreement. > I certainly would feel bad about it though. Maybe it isn't paranoia, but ethics that get in my way there. I can very easily copy code, obscuring it's true source (many programmers can do that.) The problem is that violates the intent of the original author. Sure, it MIGHT be laughed out of court -- but should it be a "dirty little secret" that some code was stolen (violating the GPL?) Don't get me wrong -- I don't like GPL, but if code is tainted with it, then I try to be ethical about it's use. John