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Aristotle (5147)
Derivative? What does that mean?
Here is something I personally never really figured out:
When does derivative code cease to be derivative?
Several times I have taken code written by other people and put it through so many cycles of refactoring that, even though each of the intermediate steps is clearly derivative from the previous one, the result bears no resemblance to the original whatsoever. Is it still derivative? The original code served as a springboard, and for that certainly continues to deserve credit. But both the computational expression of the problem in question and the understanding that led to that particular expression is entirely my own. The credit I owe in that case seems like the credit a successful pupil might owe to a teacher: the work is still the pupil’s. I learned from the code – by scrapping it piecemeal, in a gradual process of transformation, in which the result feels like mine.
Who has copyright on that work?
When does imitation end and inspiration begin?
Life is ridiculous.
--Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
Only the Expression of an Idea (Score:1)
This is not legal advice, but if you've removed or replaced all expressions of the original copyrighted idea, you have a new work perhaps inspired by the original but by no means a derivative work.
And what about the algorithm itself? (Score:1)
... of yore (Score:1)
Does publication alter it? (Score:2)
It seems to me that if you started with code and performed several iterations privately and came up with something completely different and then published it, it would not be derivative. But if you published each iteration, each would be derivative of the previous and therefore tainted.
I'm not sure my definition agrees with legality, though. I'm certain the only way to be truly legally safe is to operate in a cleanroom, reimplementing from open specs, documentation, and reverse engineering, never lookin
J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
Re: (Score:1)
I have considered all of the same cases or variations on them, actually. I agree with your conclusion, but your thought experiments are not helping. :-) You have restated my questions, but not given any answers…