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Write your own if it is very simple. If he is gone it is just to just write your own version. The contributor agreement that requires signature is there for a r

Write your own if it is very simple. If he is gone it is just to just write your own version. The contributor agreement that requires signature is there for a reason.

stavros 2y ago
Write your own what? Code? If so, it could be argued in court that you're still violating copyright, because you looked at the code beforehand. At least, that's what happens with anti-reverse-engineering clauses.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  I think it depends on how different it is, as to whether it will be a violation. And just how different is going to be a subjective decision made by a judge on a case by case basis... if anyone ever bothered to take the issue that far to begin with. If it's found reasonable to assume that a certain 'copy' of the code could be indistinguishable of that made by another person who didn't look at the original code... then it's probably not similar enough to be infringing. I would even go so far as to say that I think if such a case _was_ ever brought, that unless someone paid enough money to hire subject matter experts to testify, the case may likely be thrown out because the judge is not able to make an informed decision with such lack of evidence.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  I tried finding the pr they referenced, but wasn't able to in a minute of looking, but I did find https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/pull/1403 https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/pull/1403 which is a null fix. Presuming the PR in question is similar, one would likely be able to successfully argue that the code in the PR is trivial enough to not be covered by copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Useful_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St... I think it's an entirely valid argument given the variables names are defined by the original code and the style is defined by a style guide, the only addition here is a intrinsic utilitarian function without any artistic expression. That said, I am not a lawyer, so who knows how it would actually play out in court if it went that far.
  - stavros 2y ago
    You're right, for something that small it probably wouldn't be an issue, but something larger or non-obvious would be risky. I'm cautioning people against thinking "if I rewrite it, it's fine".
- hinkley 2y ago
  You’re allowed to describe how it works to someone else and have them write it. If you can write a full specification of the code without any code snippets, or write a full TDD test set, and hand it off to someone who can swear they’ve never looked at the source material, you can still pull off a clean-room copy. I had to do that for a small lib due to European copyright laws. They don’t like Public Domain. There’s some precedent where the author can change their mind and sue because you can’t actually consent to not consenting to people using your stuff. MIT is great, PD is the Bog of Stench.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Yep, this is correct, you probably should document the process of description and implementation.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > You’re allowed to describe how it works to someone else and have them write it. Couldn’t you get an LLM to do that? “Here’s the code for this function, add conditionals to fix any null pointer bugs” Or: “Here’s a function and a unit test that exposes a bug in it, modify the function so the unit test passes”. With that approach, the LLM could even (autonomously) try multiple times until the test passed. > I had to do that for a small lib due to European copyright laws. They don’t like Public Domain. This shouldn’t be an issue for public domain dedications which contain a fallback copyright license such as CC0. [0] People say the Unlicense also falls in that category, but (unfortunately) its wording is less than completely clear, so it is debatable. Another option is “PD-equivalent licenses” such as 0BSD or MIT-0, which are technically copyright licenses but designed to give you the same rights as PD (e.g. reuse without requiring attribution). Now, what some random German judge is going to make of them, who knows. [0] Although some people, e.g. Fedora, don’t like its clauses around patents
    - hinkley 2y ago
      When people pay $100 million for your product they expect to be fully indemnified. It was a pain in my ass but I can’t really blame them.

Write your own if it is very simple. If he is gone it is just to just write your own version. The contributor agreement that requires signature is there for a reason.

stavros 2y ago

Write your own what? Code? If so, it could be argued in court that you're still violating copyright, because you looked at the code beforehand. At least, that's what happens with anti-reverse-engineering clauses.

ranger_danger 2y ago
I think it depends on how different it is, as to whether it will be a violation. And just how different is going to be a subjective decision made by a judge on a case by case basis... if anyone ever bothered to take the issue that far to begin with. If it's found reasonable to assume that a certain 'copy' of the code could be indistinguishable of that made by another person who didn't look at the original code... then it's probably not similar enough to be infringing. I would even go so far as to say that I think if such a case _was_ ever brought, that unless someone paid enough money to hire subject matter experts to testify, the case may likely be thrown out because the judge is not able to make an informed decision with such lack of evidence.
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
I tried finding the pr they referenced, but wasn't able to in a minute of looking, but I did find https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/pull/1403 https://github.com/spectreconsole/spectre.console/pull/1403 which is a null fix. Presuming the PR in question is similar, one would likely be able to successfully argue that the code in the PR is trivial enough to not be covered by copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Useful_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St... I think it's an entirely valid argument given the variables names are defined by the original code and the style is defined by a style guide, the only addition here is a intrinsic utilitarian function without any artistic expression. That said, I am not a lawyer, so who knows how it would actually play out in court if it went that far.
- stavros 2y ago
  You're right, for something that small it probably wouldn't be an issue, but something larger or non-obvious would be risky. I'm cautioning people against thinking "if I rewrite it, it's fine".
hinkley 2y ago
You’re allowed to describe how it works to someone else and have them write it. If you can write a full specification of the code without any code snippets, or write a full TDD test set, and hand it off to someone who can swear they’ve never looked at the source material, you can still pull off a clean-room copy. I had to do that for a small lib due to European copyright laws. They don’t like Public Domain. There’s some precedent where the author can change their mind and sue because you can’t actually consent to not consenting to people using your stuff. MIT is great, PD is the Bog of Stench.
- stavros 2y ago
  Yep, this is correct, you probably should document the process of description and implementation.
- skissane 2y ago
  > You’re allowed to describe how it works to someone else and have them write it. Couldn’t you get an LLM to do that? “Here’s the code for this function, add conditionals to fix any null pointer bugs” Or: “Here’s a function and a unit test that exposes a bug in it, modify the function so the unit test passes”. With that approach, the LLM could even (autonomously) try multiple times until the test passed. > I had to do that for a small lib due to European copyright laws. They don’t like Public Domain. This shouldn’t be an issue for public domain dedications which contain a fallback copyright license such as CC0. [0] People say the Unlicense also falls in that category, but (unfortunately) its wording is less than completely clear, so it is debatable. Another option is “PD-equivalent licenses” such as 0BSD or MIT-0, which are technically copyright licenses but designed to give you the same rights as PD (e.g. reuse without requiring attribution). Now, what some random German judge is going to make of them, who knows. [0] Although some people, e.g. Fedora, don’t like its clauses around patents
  - hinkley 2y ago
    When people pay $100 million for your product they expect to be fully indemnified. It was a pain in my ass but I can’t really blame them.