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> sqlite is in the public domain and not copyrightable, for example. And therefore is not licensable under the GPL; because no license is needed at all. Ardour

by addaon 3mo ago

> sqlite is in the public domain and not copyrightable, for example. And therefore is not licensable under the GPL; because no license is needed at all. Ardour's goal isn't to be "compatible with" the GPL (in the sense of allowing binaries to be built containing both GPL-licensed code and their own code); their goal is to be covered by the GPL license for the purpose of constraining what actions users can take. This requires the code to be copyrighted, because copyright law is the mechanism that allows them to require users to agree to a license.

kam 3mo ago
Ardour does not seem to require a CLA or copyright assignment, so the maintainers don't own the copyright over contributions either way. The contributor would not be able to sue someone over a GPL violation if their contribution is public domain, but what random small contributor is going to participate in a GPL infringement suit anyway? Doesn't change the maintainer's rights to do so with any of their own human-authored contributions.
rpdillon 3mo ago
You're ignoring that adding non-copyrightable code to a collection of copyrightable code makes the collection copyrightable. The folks that wrote the policy are also ignoring that. It's simply a legal misunderstanding, because (I suspect) they didn't actually consult a lawyer, and their reading of precedent is overly broad.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3mo ago
  > You're ignoring that adding non-copyrightable code to a collection of copyrightable code makes the collection copyrightable. That is true for public domain code. It is not true (at this time) for machine generated code.
  - jeremyjh 3mo ago
    Any work that is not copyrighted is public domain. Anyway, that case did not establish that code written with an agent cannot be copyrighted by the human operating the agent. The whole problem is that the application was submitted listing the AI as sole author, so the court did not consider whether the operator could have listed himself as the author. And if he had no one would have had standing to dispute it.

by addaon 3mo ago

kam 3mo ago

Ardour does not seem to require a CLA or copyright assignment, so the maintainers don't own the copyright over contributions either way. The contributor would not be able to sue someone over a GPL violation if their contribution is public domain, but what random small contributor is going to participate in a GPL infringement suit anyway? Doesn't change the maintainer's rights to do so with any of their own human-authored contributions.

rpdillon 3mo ago

You're ignoring that adding non-copyrightable code to a collection of copyrightable code makes the collection copyrightable. The folks that wrote the policy are also ignoring that. It's simply a legal misunderstanding, because (I suspect) they didn't actually consult a lawyer, and their reading of precedent is overly broad.

PaulDavisThe1st 3mo ago
> You're ignoring that adding non-copyrightable code to a collection of copyrightable code makes the collection copyrightable. That is true for public domain code. It is not true (at this time) for machine generated code.
- jeremyjh 3mo ago
  Any work that is not copyrighted is public domain. Anyway, that case did not establish that code written with an agent cannot be copyrighted by the human operating the agent. The whole problem is that the application was submitted listing the AI as sole author, so the court did not consider whether the operator could have listed himself as the author. And if he had no one would have had standing to dispute it.