[Linux-aus] Meaning of object code/binary format/executable format in GPL/BSD style licenses

[Andrew Donnellan]

On 9/23/06, Glen Turner <glen.turner at aarnet.edu.au> wrote:
> Andrew Donnellan wrote:
>
> > I believe that under copyright law to be a separate copyrighted work
> > requires that it be creative. Therefore, manually translating it can
> > be considered creative (it's actually reimplementing the same
> > algorithm (which cannot be copyrighted) in a different language),
> > where as a machine translation is not creative and is therefore
> > considered not copyrightable making it a derived work as it is based
> > on an already copyrighter work.
>
> That's not the case in Australian copyright law, since that
> argument was successfully used in Apple Computer (a Apple II
> clone maker copied the ROMs and Apple sued, Apple lost since
> the ROM binary was of not a literary work -- the assembler
> was the literary work).  After that success the legislation
> was altered.
>

However in that case the clone was made off the compiled version (the
actual ROM) rather than being non-creatively translated from the
literary work - the source code.

Again, IANAL.


-- 
Andrew Donnellan
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