From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Unibyte characters, strings, and buffers Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 18:22:37 +0300 Message-ID: <83k3bacs02.fsf@gnu.org> References: <831txozsqa.fsf@gnu.org> <83ppl7y30l.fsf@gnu.org> <87r45nouvx.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <8361myyac6.fsf@gnu.org> <87a9capqfr.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <5335C336.3080108@dancol.org> <87mwg9nti0.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <83ioqxdzax.fsf@gnu.org> <87ha6hngak.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1396279380 23548 80.91.229.3 (31 Mar 2014 15:23:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:23:00 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dancol@dancol.org, monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 31 17:22:54 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WUe2w-0005T8-Gx for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 17:22:46 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49381 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUe2w-0007FP-45 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:22:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57044) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUe2o-0007EX-RA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:22:43 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUe2k-00080W-6P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:22:38 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout21.012.net.il ([80.179.55.169]:61258) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WUe2j-00080N-Ty for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:22:34 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout21.012.net.il by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0N3B002003ZFE000@a-mtaout21.012.net.il> for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 18:22:32 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout21.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0N3B002IX41J9G70@a-mtaout21.012.net.il>; Mon, 31 Mar 2014 18:22:32 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <87ha6hngak.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.169 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:171216 Archived-At: > From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" > Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 01:03:15 +0900 > Cc: dancol@dancol.org, monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA, emacs-devel@gnu.org > > Eli Zaretskii writes: > > > AFAIU, copyright protects only the form, not the ideas. Ideas can > > be described and discussed at any level of detail, because > > implementation of those same ideas by another person will never, > > except by improbable accident, be so close to the original as to be > > suspected of copying. > > Unfortunately, many cases that some observers believe involve > independent invention in fact were resolved in favor of the plaintiff > on the basis that the appearance was sufficiently similar, and the > defendent couldn't prove non-copying. Your "probability" argument > doesn't hold up. Please show your references for that. IANAL, but just by reading related stuff on the Internet, I arrive to the opposite conclusion. For example, here are citations from the last part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure,_sequence_and_organization, which seem to uphold my understanding and contradict yours: Competitors may create programs that provide essentially the same functionality as a protected program as long as they do not copy the code. The trend has been for courts to say that even if there are non-literal SSO similarities, there must be proof of copying. Some relevant court decisions allow for reverse-engineering to discover ideas that are not subject to copyright within a protected program. The ideas can be implemented in a competing program as long as the developers do not copy the original expression. With a clean room design approach one team of engineers derives a functional specification from the original code, and then a second team uses that specification to design and built the new code. [...] The judge [in the Oracle v Google case] asked for [both Google and Oracle] to comment on a ruling by the European Court of Justice in a similar case that found "Neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression. Accordingly, they do not enjoy copyright protection." On 31 May 2012 the judge ruled that "So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API."