5 ms·

A large portion of programming books are still under neither a FOSS nor a CC license, and hence fully protected by copyright. (I've encountered some where the m

A large portion of programming books are still under neither a FOSS nor a CC license, and hence fully protected by copyright. (I've encountered some where the main text of the book is not under a FOSS license, while the code is, but that's also not universal.) In such cases, you're not allowed to just re-use large code segments from the book (commercially or in an open source piece of code). Hence the case of a book under GPL isn't any "worse" than that, except that you do have the option of using the code in a GPL-licensed codebase. (Small snippets are obviously not covered by copyright.)

microtherion 7y ago
That's a good point. I suppose Numerical Recipes was one case where I was particularly aware of the situation because (a) the license is stated explicitly (b) the code is structured in ways that it WOULD technically make sense to reuse non-trivial portions as is.
abacadaba 7y ago
If you infringe gpl code though, you're obligated to provide your source. If you infringe some other copyrighted code, you're just liable for damages. Is this correct at all? Like if Microsoft accidentally included some gpl code in Windows, could they theoretically be required to open source it? Or would just have to stop distributing?
- gnomewascool 7y ago
  No. If you're found violating the GPL, then you have some time (which I don't remember off the top of my head) to provide the source; if you don't do that you'll be treated as having infringed any generic copyright — being liable for damages, having to cease distribution etc.
- icebraining 7y ago
  You're never forced to follow the license; you just have to accept that you've committed copyright infringement, and may have to pay statutory damages for each copy, besides stopping the distribution of any more.

5 ms·

A large portion of programming books are still under neither a FOSS nor a CC license, and hence fully protected by copyright. (I've encountered some where the m

by gnomewascool 7y ago

microtherion 7y ago
That's a good point. I suppose Numerical Recipes was one case where I was particularly aware of the situation because (a) the license is stated explicitly (b) the code is structured in ways that it WOULD technically make sense to reuse non-trivial portions as is.
abacadaba 7y ago
If you infringe gpl code though, you're obligated to provide your source. If you infringe some other copyrighted code, you're just liable for damages. Is this correct at all? Like if Microsoft accidentally included some gpl code in Windows, could they theoretically be required to open source it? Or would just have to stop distributing?
- gnomewascool 7y ago
  No. If you're found violating the GPL, then you have some time (which I don't remember off the top of my head) to provide the source; if you don't do that you'll be treated as having infringed any generic copyright — being liable for damages, having to cease distribution etc.
- icebraining 7y ago
  You're never forced to follow the license; you just have to accept that you've committed copyright infringement, and may have to pay statutory damages for each copy, besides stopping the distribution of any more.