Mailing List Archive

On 3/02/23 6:38 am, Jon Ribbens wrote:
> If you change someone else's code then you have created a derived
> work, which requires permission from both the original author and you
> to copy. (Unless you change it so much that nothing remains of the
> original author's code, of course.)

"Nothing" is probably a bit extreme; somewhere between "exactly the
same" and "completely different" there will be a borderline case,
although exactly where the border lies would require a court case
to determine.

When in doubt, the sensible and courteous thing would be to include
the original copyright notice as requested, maybe with a "based on
work by..." attribution.

--
Greg
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On 2023-02-03, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> On 3/02/23 6:38 am, Jon Ribbens wrote:
>> If you change someone else's code then you have created a derived
>> work, which requires permission from both the original author and you
>> to copy. (Unless you change it so much that nothing remains of the
>> original author's code, of course.)
>
> "Nothing" is probably a bit extreme; somewhere between "exactly the
> same" and "completely different" there will be a borderline case,
> although exactly where the border lies would require a court case
> to determine.

Well yes, technically if you remove so much code that what remains
of the original is so de minimis that it can't be considered
copyrightable then you're good. But that doesn't seem that useful
to know, because if you've removed that much then what remains,
pretty much by definition, isn't going to be useful. You'd be
better off simply starting from scratch and having an unimpeachable
claim to own the entire copyright yourself.
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