From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: copyright issues and derivative work (the case of matlab-mode) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2021 18:44:29 +0200 Message-ID: <83r1b6om8i.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87y25eq1o6.fsf@mat.ucm.es> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="18137"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Uwe Brauer Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 23 17:45:34 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mpYvF-0004WH-M9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 23 Nov 2021 17:45:33 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42450 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mpYvD-0006qf-Rl for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:45:31 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:36500) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mpYu4-00068R-8f for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:44:20 -0500 Original-Received: from [2001:470:142:3::e] (port=53108 helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mpYu3-0005IL-OM; Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:44:19 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=MIME-version:References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From: Date; bh=KGWhYn1axmdn+7sA9PeWOZA0AKbfm1YQY/gFQph6eP8=; b=k9g17Fggun4AemHw31hb zIjP96ZXVMG6CT/F12Awwx+UvafegcU4qGnlScB5AxCI0geOeOMGG9nkfNLbBYHtbYFq9Yuoar6Au XB5GauX4cNZXgroafmTBuk7xMT468ZaQo8XG/KqpE6HrqSpwdrGfkmZnNRUXUgQU3mqoxCyIId+3a KCWrFwdqKWnXuaIeCIYfbwOz/Bb7zRa64WL8OjvqtfvCDSHoAozLGd1Hay5O3YxWygEA6FHTABnuG 09T7VWhs0VAVJenGDPqL0CShf6S5oNuV9xv2OifaAfUL72qYn1pO7T+rQCrxnNTnW24s13iA4ZH7X AuVDMiS3Hj8HOA==; Original-Received: from [87.69.77.57] (port=4410 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mpYu3-0002eM-Ek; Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:44:19 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87y25eq1o6.fsf@mat.ucm.es> (message from Uwe Brauer on Tue, 23 Nov 2021 17:25:45 +0100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:279959 Archived-At: > From: Uwe Brauer > Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2021 17:25:45 +0100 > > 3. Patches, that contain more than 15 lines, which according to > https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Legally-Significant.html > is legally relevant. However the current HEAD (tip) state of the > repository contains less than 15 lines or even no line at all. > Now there are two possibilities. > > a. The orginal patch is no longer relevant, and therefore no action is needed. > That is what common sense would tell me. > > b. Although the code is not present now, it was present in some > commit in the past, therefore the rest of the commits is > derivative work. > > If b. is the case we are doomed, but I cannot belive that some commit at > some point acts like a virus «infecting» the descents of that commit, > till today. It's a, assuming that those code lines are gone for good, i.e. the current code is not merely some transformation of those original lines. The "annotate" (or "blame") command will not tell you, because it attributes whole lines; you need to look at the diffs between the last version that did have that code and the current code, and analyze that. Btw, the "15-lines" rule is just an approximation: depending on what are those lines, it could be much more, or it could be slightly less. It's a judgment call, not a mechanistic line count.