[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Please don't start the copyright stuff again!!!

[Reed Meyer <rdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, SamBC wrote:

> I was just summarising the discussions from before, if you had bothered to
> read the rest of my post. But let's not get into flame wars, huh?

Agreed.  I'll try to refrain from personal attacks...

> You say yourself later in your post that implementations are not
> copyrightable. So the sourcecode (the implementation) must be safe by
> definition.

I said "implementations are not copyrightable"??????????  I really said
that?
     That would be going against the very tenet of copyright law (and
about the only part of the law that's well-defined), "ideas not
copyrightable, implementations of ideas are".
     In any case I strongly disagree with your last sentence.  Source code
which implements copyrighted things wouldn't necessarily be safe.

> >      Perhaps you don't quite remember how the discussion panned out.
> > For example, you say the "only thing we couldn't find citations &
> > precedents to put us in the clear over was ... the Tech Tree."  That might
> > be a memory of Jules Bean's post ("Re: software license violation", July
> > 20) where he says "The 'tech tree' I could just about see a genuine case
> > for" (the meaning being that everything else is safe).  Unless Jules is a
> > copyright lawyer (and maybe even if he was), I wouldn't put a whole lot of
> > stock in this statement.
> 
> The reasoning behind that was fairly simple. Copyright only extends to
> 'works of authorship' (I believe that is common to all jurisdictions with
> different wording), and that is the only 'work of authorship' that is
> copied. The manuals are ours, the expression of the rules is ours, the
> graphics is ours. Only the techtree structure and pattern is copied. I will
> agree with that, and you will note that I outlined methods of dealing with
> that (in summary of previous posts) in my last post.

I don't see why you guys don't also think that the buildings and units
also aren't rip-offs (to cite two examples).  Sure, the name "Granary"
itself, being one word, certainly isn't a copy.  But then when you look at
its definition in the context of freeciv: "Reduces by half the number of
food units you need for the next increase in population.", then it begins
to get kind of iffy.  Then you add "Barracks", then "Palace", then etc.,
and their definitions, and you begin to make a case for Hasbro's side.
NOTE!!!!  I don't even mean the "help text" DESCRIPTIONS of each building,
units, etc., I mean their *DEFINITIONS* in terms of gameplay.  For
example, I didn't look at the freeciv "help text" or the Civ II
manual/online help for the Granary definition above, I simply wrote it
based on how the building actually WORKS in freeciv and Civ II.  And that,
my friends, is a specific implementation of the "city buildings" idea, and
therefore copyrightable.

> He kept trolling on about trademark and patent as well, so I don't know
> where you're getting that from. I apologise for referring to precedents, I
> wasn't sure there were any, I was guessing there. But there were clear
> citations of legislation supporting our case.

I disagree about the words "clear" and "supporting" in the last sentence.

> As for the *nix/Linux side, when people talk about Linux they are often
> referring to the GNU tools also - which are reimplementations of a tried
> idea, often using the same algorithms (expressed as different code) and file
> formats/configuration options. In a way (ignoring the techtree for this
> debate) freeciv is less of a copy than these, as we use our own
> configuration options, many different algorithms (look at the AI, for
> instance), and different file formats

FOR SURE the AI is not a copy, nor the file formats (not that file formats
would matter to Hasbro, unless you were able to read in and play a Civ
I/II game).  And as I said before, the interface isn't either IMO.

> You want to pull your stuff out, then I'm sure the maintainers will respect
> that, although if your files include a GPL declaration then they can use it
> anyway. But I'm sure your wishes will be respected

Hah, from the copyright threads it's obvious that the maintainers don't
give a flip about copying other peoples' work, GPL'ed or not!

> And plagiarism can be legal where only arguments/ideas are used, it is
> apparent identically which is the problem, even when partial. So the problem
> may well be solved by renaming some of the techs and units (>50% perhaps)

Unfortunately, not just renaming, but also changing their definitions
(again, I'm not talking the "help text").
     And, as you realize, it's difficult to assign a percentage as to "how
much change is good enough".  Certainly even at the 50% level Hasbro can
easily make a case, when you're talking hundreds of instances among
techs, buildings, units, etc.

Cheers,
---Reed Meyer