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From: "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>
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Subject: RE: A systematic approach to IP review?
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:32:20 -0700
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Not to put too fine a point on this, but it sounds like you are talking =
about boilerplate (and authored) template code that Bison incorporates =
in its output.  It is also tricky because the Bison output is computer =
source code.  That is an interesting case. =20

In the US, original work of authorship is pretty specific in the case of =
literary works, which is where software copyright falls the last time I =
checked (too long ago, though).  I suspect that a license (in the =
contractual sense) can deal with more than copyright.  And, if Bison =
spits out copyright notices, they still only apply to that part of the =
output, if any, that qualifies as copyrightable subject matter. =20

Has the Bison claim ever been tested in court?  Has anyone been pursued =
or challenged for infringement? I'm just curious. =20

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Norbert Thiebaud [mailto:nthiebaud@gmail.com]=20
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 22:11
To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org; dennis.hamilton@acm.org
Subject: Re: A systematic approach to IP review?

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 7:55 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
<dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote:
> I'll stand by my original statement.
>
> I'm not going to get into the Pixar case since it doesn't apply here.

I did not say it applied to the Visual studio generated cruft... I
merely commented on the blanket assertion that 'computer generated =3D>
no copyright'
>
> The Bison manual may have license conditions on what can be done with =
the generated artifact, but I suggest that is not about copyrightable =
subject matter in the artifact.
Actually it is. The only claim they could legally have _is_ on the
generated bit that are substantial piece of code copied from template
they provide, namely in the case of a bison generated parser the whole
parser skeleton needed to exploit the generated state-graph. the whole
paragraph is about the copyright disposition of these bits. and in the
case of bison they explicitly grant you a license to use these bits in
the 'normal' use case... my point being that the existence of that
paragraph also disprove the assertion that 'computer  generated =3D> no
copyright'

You could write a program that print itself... the mere fact that it
print itself does not mean you lose the copyright on your program...

That being said, I do think you are on the clear with the Visual
Studio generated cruft... but not merely because there is 'computer
generation' involved.


Norbert