GPL infringement

[Rolf]

well of course, Anil...

no one would suggest such a line of code constitute proof
please, give us a little credit....

is that what you think we presented?

please read this, then we can discuss it with you.
http://64.68.157.89/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23275

otherwise, it's a just a waste of thread space and time.

I have considerable respect for all the programmers and other wise people posting their views on this forum. I have read most of the posts, including the one you have suggested. But, my thought in this particular case is that:
"One cannot show GPL violation (with 100% surety) without comparing the 2 source codes in question."
Hence, all the attempts to try to show similarities by disassembling the binaries may not be enough to convince the GPL infringement.

yes...good point. there is no clear definition of what constitues proof.
that's in fact been a huge problem here in the discussion.

What you avoid to see is this: without such a clarification you in special shouldnt discriminate critical questions from people like me who is arguing from a interdisciplinary viewpoint. How can you all discriminate this when you have no certainty yourself? Why digging such a nonsense hole?

[kranium]

well of course, Anil...

no one would suggest such a line of code constitute proof
please, give us a little credit....

Well, Christophe talks of 4000 lines of code constituting proof

Can we see these 4000 lines of consecutive, identical code, please?

cmon chris,

no we do not have 4000 lines,
...if 4000 lines are needed by the chess community in order to constitute proof, perhaps it 'would' have been be listed in the GPL guidelines i have requested, if it existed, and this whole thing could been avoided, as we would not have talked about it prematurely.

you know he used 4000 'metaphorically' for lack of a better word.

If 4000 is metaphorical, what's the real number?

there was some discussion already about this...you counted yourself. I don't think anyone has disputed your total. there was some discussion about 'identical', 'equivilent', etc., lines that are very similar..
it'a all semantics, etc.
ultimatey, i think that would be a decision that ' judge' or FSF lawyer, etc. would have to make.

i do know that there is one function, fully disassembled by someone i have no reason to discredit or doubt. and this shows at least 33 identical (your estimate) - (Bob has said 50) - (so i'll say 41) lines, and many more very similar, some could (or many might) perhaps be deemed 'equivalent'.

'identical' and 'equivalent' needs to be defined in the new and upcoming talkchess GPL guidelines.

[tiger]

well of course, Anil...

no one would suggest such a line of code constitute proof
please, give us a little credit....

Well, Christophe talks of 4000 lines of code constituting proof

Can we see these 4000 lines of consecutive, identical code, please?

OK This time it's you distorting my words. I was talking about a 4000 lines program in which you would reject any possibility of copyright violation because one line of code cannot violate any copyright, so 4000 of them cannot either. It's what happens when the lines are considered separately, which is naturally an absurd thing to do (unless you are the one doing it, for example with setjmp).



// Christophe

[tiger]

well of course, Anil...

no one would suggest such a line of code constitute proof
please, give us a little credit....

is that what you think we presented?

please read this, then we can discuss it with you.
http://64.68.157.89/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23275

otherwise, it's a just a waste of thread space and time.

I have considerable respect for all the programmers and other wise people posting their views on this forum. I have read most of the posts, including the one you have suggested. But, my thought in this particular case is that:
"One cannot show GPL violation (with 100% surety) without comparing the 2 source codes in question."
Hence, all the attempts to try to show similarities by disassembling the binaries may not be enough to convince the GPL infringement.

No, you are wrong.

The analysis by the courts is not done on the source code level.

What is compared is not the source codes, it is the semantics of both programs. The data structures are also considered.

This analysis can be performed with both source codes available, with only one of them (the other program being reverse-engineered from object code) or with none of them (both programs analyzed from object code).

So what is compared ultimately is something like the "pseudocode" of both programs and the data structures they manipulate.

I'm not saying that the algorithms are compared. The implementation of the algorithms are compared in a way that two identical implementations written in two different programming languages for example will appear identical. So you would not fool a court by rewriting Fruit from C to Cobol.



// Christophe

[Anil]

No, you are wrong.

The analysis by the courts is not done on the source code level.

What is compared is not the source codes, it is the semantics of both programs. The data structures are also considered.

This analysis can be performed with both source codes available, with only one of them (the other program being reverse-engineered from object code) or with none of them (both programs analyzed from object code).

So what is compared ultimately is something like the "pseudocode" of both programs and the data structures they manipulate.

I'm not saying that the algorithms are compared. The implementation of the algorithms are compared in a way that two identical implementations written in two different programming languages for example will appear identical. So you would not fool a court by rewriting Fruit from C to Cobol.



// Christophe

Are you sure? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/05 ... te_to_gpl/

May be the new methods for detection should be tried:
http://developers.slashdot.org/article. ... 25/1648253
or
http://gpl-violations.org/faq/violation-faq.html

You may be right - http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity ... e-GPL.html

Maybe FSF could guide us better in this matter.