On Thu, Nov 04, 1999 at 12:28:32PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> Copyright law (by which I mean U.S. Copyright law) does indeed
> have such a principle, but it's formulated very differently:
>
> According to U.S. Copyright law,
>
> A ''computer program'' is a set of statements or instructions to
> be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring
> about a certain result.
>
> Notice that this doesn't care about protocols or interfaces. If the
> instructions are used to produce the result they're part of the
> program -- this is a very inclusive statement.
>
> To balance this out, there's also a concept of fair use. Most uses
> of the command line interface count as fair use.
Is this an assumption, or do you have citations?
I mean, presumably use of statements in the BIOS, or microcode in the CPU
is fair use, too. Are there any references which distinguish between fair
use between this sort of interface, and regular dynamic linked libraries,
or, for that matter, the other cases of command line interface use?
And even then, this doesn't feel overly relevant; it's very
American-centric. I'd be a little disappointed if we end up with
binaries being derivatives of dynamic libraries in some countries,
and not in others. :-/
> I'm not going to go into this any deeper. I've posted that definition of
> a computer program something like a dozen times and most of the responses
> I've gotten don't even acknowledge the key issues. I worry that a second
> sentence would be too complicated for people.
Heh.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it
results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.''
-- Linus Torvalds
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