81 ms·

Hm, right at the start in the "Warning about licenses" they seem to try to make the GPL apply to a concept, an abstract algorithm -- kinda like a patent? But I

Hm, right at the start in the "Warning about licenses" they seem to try to make the GPL apply to a concept, an abstract algorithm -- kinda like a patent? But I don't think that's how licenses like the GPL work? And hence that this is not legally binding in any way? At the very least, it reads rather strangely to me. Perhaps someone who knows more about licensing that me can elaborate? To clarify: they claim that after reading the article, any independent implementation of the algorithm (even if it didn't involve looking at their code) must be licensed under the GPL. But that seems to go against everything I thought I knew about "clean room reverse engineering"?

roca 6y ago
Their claim is simply incorrect. Copyright does not protect ideas. Claiming that they can infect ideas with the GPL is bizarre and deceptive bullying.
- Ygg2 6y ago
  See tompazourek's message for quote or visit: https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 I think, it's less this, and more preventing others as passing these ideas as their own. Which is valid. I've seen sleazier academics just CnP things without attribution.
  - pmeunier 6y ago
    I'm the author. I've been asked to review results of mine in the past, taken form arxiv.org and resubmitted by senior academics. I've also seen partial reimplementations of Pijul, from the source code, with a different license, which is absolutely clear.
    - Ygg2 6y ago
      I've heard of cases where people just ripped off parts of another's work as PHD. I've never heard of someone submitting stolen work to a fellow he stole the work from. That's some A level chicanery.
      - majewsky 6y ago
        > someone submitting stolen work to a fellow he stole the work from When you submit a paper to a journal, you don't get to pick your reviewers. In fact, you most likely don't ever get to know who the reviewers are because the process is anonymized. But given that many areas of scientific inquiry are highly specialized, it isn't particularly surprising that if you rip off someone's work, that someone is going to be picked as a reviewer for your paper by chance.
    - roca 6y ago
      I'm sorry to hear that, but making false and intimidating claims about copyright doesn't help your situation.
  - roca 6y ago
    The context and motivation are irrelevant. As a statement of fact the claim is simply false.
wcerfgba 6y ago
I also came here to comment on this. A quick search seems to indicate that algorithms cannot be copyrighted, only an "expressed representation of a work" can be copyrighted. So if you represent the algorithm as (pseudo)code, this representation is copyrighted, but there is nothing to stop someone from reimplementing it in a non-verbatim fashion. That said I couldn't find anything authoritative like case law or guidance from WIPO or other IP organisations, so any expert input would be appreciated in this thread. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/4097/does-copyrighted-code-protect-intellectual-property-rights-on-novel-algorithms-i https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/4097/does-copyrighte...
garmaine 6y ago
What they're looking for is a patent, not copyright.
oaiey 6y ago
It made me stop reading the rest. True or not, I will not further investigate what Pijul is. Negative Marketing.
- brabel 6y ago
  You should read the other comments made after yours... apparently that was just a misunderstanding and not what the author intended.
tompazourek 6y ago
The author discusses it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 Quoting: > Well, this is the documentation for a particular implementation. It is actually targeted at a particular species of academics, who have been quietly republishing my work in recent years, and not only my work on Pijul.
oefrha 6y ago
Edit: Author has removed the licensing claim so we can put this thread to rest. The original comment follows. --- This is absolutely bogus. TFA is a description of the math behind Pijul, not a step by step description of the implementation, and certainly not the implementation itself. Have you ever read a math/CS paper that attempts to dictate a license on all future work based on the algorithms (or ideas in general) within? I’m honestly shocked that the author, who is apparently an academic, flouts academic norms like this. Disclosure: as someone who was trained as a mathematician, I’m offended by attempts at restricting the free exchange of knowledge. Re sibling that links to author’s tweet: plagiarism is something else entirely, and I fail to see how GPL helps in combating plagiarism.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  > Have you ever read a math/CS paper that attempts to dictate a license on all future work based on the algorithms That's a patent, and I do think that there exists papers that describes patented algorithms. TFA seems to think that their algorithms is patented by the GPL license
  - oefrha 6y ago
    Yes, that’s a subtlety that my original comment didn’t address. However, even patents can’t be licensed in perpetuity, so they can’t possibly apply to all future work. GPL on the other hand doesn’t have an expiry date. In addition, there’s no implicit patent, you have to apply in every jurisdiction where you want to protect your idea, and IIRC in most jurisdictions you either can’t retroactively apply for a patent after you’ve published the idea, or you only have a short period after publishing before the right is forfeited.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      > GPL on the other hand doesn’t have an expiry date. Of course it does. 70 years (or was it 95?) after the death of the author, like for any copyrighted work.
pmeunier 6y ago
I'm the author, and I'm entirely guilty of that misunderstanding. This is not what I meant, it's just a commented targeted at a number of different people who have stolen my stuff in recent years, in different areas of my work, and not only about Pijul, genuinely claiming to rediscover it after they had read the code, read the papers, asked me questions about it. That comment of mine doesn't belong in that post, I removed it.
- chriswarbo 6y ago
  It sounds like this is a (very common) mix up of copyright and plagiarism. Whenever I've talked about Creative Commons with artists, their most frequent concern is about others passing off work as their own. It's a widespread conflation, but thankfully it's easy to sort out; for example, The Canterbury Tales was written before copyright existed, but that doesn't mean I can claim it as my own work; that would be fraud (specifically: plagiarism).
- BlackFingolfin 6y ago
  Thank you for clarifying this, I think it's much better if this paragraph doesn't distract people from the great work you are doing on Pijul. And being plagiarized totally sucks, as someone who has found his own GPL'ed code in non-open commercial products, I think I can relate, even though this is of course not quite the same. I hope you can find other ways to deal with that, though.
- mythz 6y ago
  FYI the Documentation link [1] in the header menu of your home page is returning a 404. [1] https://pijul.org/manual https://pijul.org/manual
  - hobofan 6y ago
    This is intended as the docs for the new Pijul still have to be written and keeping up the old ones would have likely lead to confusion.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  The gpl doesnt protect ideas, it only protects code. I agree that there is rampant theft going on in open source. You should keep your work closed source and figure out a way to prevent others from stealing your work from you before making it open source

roca 6y ago

Their claim is simply incorrect. Copyright does not protect ideas. Claiming that they can infect ideas with the GPL is bizarre and deceptive bullying.

Ygg2 6y ago
See tompazourek's message for quote or visit: https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 I think, it's less this, and more preventing others as passing these ideas as their own. Which is valid. I've seen sleazier academics just CnP things without attribution.
- pmeunier 6y ago
  I'm the author. I've been asked to review results of mine in the past, taken form arxiv.org and resubmitted by senior academics. I've also seen partial reimplementations of Pijul, from the source code, with a different license, which is absolutely clear.
  - Ygg2 6y ago
    I've heard of cases where people just ripped off parts of another's work as PHD. I've never heard of someone submitting stolen work to a fellow he stole the work from. That's some A level chicanery.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      > someone submitting stolen work to a fellow he stole the work from When you submit a paper to a journal, you don't get to pick your reviewers. In fact, you most likely don't ever get to know who the reviewers are because the process is anonymized. But given that many areas of scientific inquiry are highly specialized, it isn't particularly surprising that if you rip off someone's work, that someone is going to be picked as a reviewer for your paper by chance.
  - roca 6y ago
    I'm sorry to hear that, but making false and intimidating claims about copyright doesn't help your situation.
- roca 6y ago
  The context and motivation are irrelevant. As a statement of fact the claim is simply false.

wcerfgba 6y ago

I also came here to comment on this. A quick search seems to indicate that algorithms cannot be copyrighted, only an "expressed representation of a work" can be copyrighted. So if you represent the algorithm as (pseudo)code, this representation is copyrighted, but there is nothing to stop someone from reimplementing it in a non-verbatim fashion. That said I couldn't find anything authoritative like case law or guidance from WIPO or other IP organisations, so any expert input would be appreciated in this thread. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/4097/does-copyrighted-code-protect-intellectual-property-rights-on-novel-algorithms-i https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/4097/does-copyrighte...

garmaine 6y ago

What they're looking for is a patent, not copyright.

oaiey 6y ago

It made me stop reading the rest. True or not, I will not further investigate what Pijul is. Negative Marketing.

brabel 6y ago
You should read the other comments made after yours... apparently that was just a misunderstanding and not what the author intended.

tompazourek 6y ago

The author discusses it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 https://twitter.com/nuempe/status/1325756834947461120 Quoting: > Well, this is the documentation for a particular implementation. It is actually targeted at a particular species of academics, who have been quietly republishing my work in recent years, and not only my work on Pijul.

oefrha 6y ago

Edit: Author has removed the licensing claim so we can put this thread to rest. The original comment follows. --- This is absolutely bogus. TFA is a description of the math behind Pijul, not a step by step description of the implementation, and certainly not the implementation itself. Have you ever read a math/CS paper that attempts to dictate a license on all future work based on the algorithms (or ideas in general) within? I’m honestly shocked that the author, who is apparently an academic, flouts academic norms like this. Disclosure: as someone who was trained as a mathematician, I’m offended by attempts at restricting the free exchange of knowledge. Re sibling that links to author’s tweet: plagiarism is something else entirely, and I fail to see how GPL helps in combating plagiarism.

wodenokoto 6y ago
> Have you ever read a math/CS paper that attempts to dictate a license on all future work based on the algorithms That's a patent, and I do think that there exists papers that describes patented algorithms. TFA seems to think that their algorithms is patented by the GPL license
- oefrha 6y ago
  Yes, that’s a subtlety that my original comment didn’t address. However, even patents can’t be licensed in perpetuity, so they can’t possibly apply to all future work. GPL on the other hand doesn’t have an expiry date. In addition, there’s no implicit patent, you have to apply in every jurisdiction where you want to protect your idea, and IIRC in most jurisdictions you either can’t retroactively apply for a patent after you’ve published the idea, or you only have a short period after publishing before the right is forfeited.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    > GPL on the other hand doesn’t have an expiry date. Of course it does. 70 years (or was it 95?) after the death of the author, like for any copyrighted work.

pmeunier 6y ago

I'm the author, and I'm entirely guilty of that misunderstanding. This is not what I meant, it's just a commented targeted at a number of different people who have stolen my stuff in recent years, in different areas of my work, and not only about Pijul, genuinely claiming to rediscover it after they had read the code, read the papers, asked me questions about it. That comment of mine doesn't belong in that post, I removed it.

chriswarbo 6y ago
It sounds like this is a (very common) mix up of copyright and plagiarism. Whenever I've talked about Creative Commons with artists, their most frequent concern is about others passing off work as their own. It's a widespread conflation, but thankfully it's easy to sort out; for example, The Canterbury Tales was written before copyright existed, but that doesn't mean I can claim it as my own work; that would be fraud (specifically: plagiarism).
BlackFingolfin 6y ago
Thank you for clarifying this, I think it's much better if this paragraph doesn't distract people from the great work you are doing on Pijul. And being plagiarized totally sucks, as someone who has found his own GPL'ed code in non-open commercial products, I think I can relate, even though this is of course not quite the same. I hope you can find other ways to deal with that, though.
mythz 6y ago
FYI the Documentation link [1] in the header menu of your home page is returning a 404. [1] https://pijul.org/manual https://pijul.org/manual
- hobofan 6y ago
  This is intended as the docs for the new Pijul still have to be written and keeping up the old ones would have likely lead to confusion.
CyberRabbi 6y ago
The gpl doesnt protect ideas, it only protects code. I agree that there is rampant theft going on in open source. You should keep your work closed source and figure out a way to prevent others from stealing your work from you before making it open source