"Federico Aponte" <fed### [at] liberoit> wrote:
> clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> > Am 04.01.2018 um 15:18 schrieb Bald Eagle:
> >
> > > I have a few questions about this, as IP remains very gray and thorny for me.
> > >
> > > There are instances where a work may be cited as an excerpt, may be used for
> > > parody, etc.   Are there the same / similar  rules for code?
> > > I believe there are, and I've read some somewhere, I'm just not intimately
> > > familiar with the rules governing this area.
> >
> > I bet there's no universally true answer to this question. IP laws
> > differ a lot between countries, and software may or may not get special
> > treatment there.
> >
> > > Second, might it not be expedient to identify the 3rd party snippets and just
> > > stick in a placeholder comment?
> > > // this performs an FFT
> > > // this does some specialized calculation
> > > // this is code for the well-known Dasblinkenlights algorithm...
> >
> > That depends on the license under which the original authors of Moray
> > used such code. Any publication of software (not only in binary form,
> > but also as source code) requires the copyright holder's permission
> > (that is, a license); so if the 3rd party did not explicitly allow
> > publication of their source code, that's not an option.
> >
> > > Is it permissible to post links to online instances of any such code?
> >
> > Yes, absolutely -- provided that online instance already constitutes a
> > publicly accessible copy of that code and is legit (i.e. the "owner" of
> > that instance has the right to make it publicly available).
> >
> > > Is it permissible to supply self-encapsulated compiled code to act as a
> > > black-box that a developer would need to emulate with their own from-scratch
> > > source code?
> > > For instance, run some code which passes data to that black-box module, which
> > > then passes on processed data to a second set of code...
> >
> > That also depends on the license. By default (i.e. if in doubt), the
> > answer would be "no".
> >
> > > Can the 3rd party source be "paraphrased" as pseudo code?
> >
> > Yes. Unless you live in a country where algorithms /per se/ (as opposed
> > to implementations thereof) can be subject to copyright. (Dunno if there
> > are any such countries at all, but they could theoretically exist.)
> >
> > > I'm just thinking that getting it posted in ANY form would jump-start this, and
> > > it would be FAR faster to give the 3rd party stuff a quick-and dirty
> > > non-functional rewrite in one of the above forms, than actually replace it with
> > > working code.
> >
> > Actually, the first step would have to be taking inventory: What 3rd
> > party pieces of code actually do exist at all, and how extensive are
> > they. Only then does it make sense to discuss how to best tackle the
> > issue -- if it is any at all. It might turn out that there isn't any 3rd
> > party code at all, or that all 3rd party code is free software anyway.
> >
> > Right now, all I'm saying is that this /can/ be a problem, and that for
> > now the code has to be treated as if it /is/ a problem, until the
> > contrary has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
>
> Thank you for the information so quickly provided.
> I am still willing to get involved in the project and can make this inventory of
> 3rd party libraries used within Moray. The outcome of that is valuable
> information for me to understand the complexity of the project for a single
> developer.
> Could you please advise how I can best proceed from here?
>
> Fed

My question is WHEN! is anybody going to do anything about it?
There seems to be a lack of interest generally. This has been going on for
years. Povray needs a good 3D modeller. Moray was that modeller.
Why does someone simply ask the author. Lutz, what code is 3rd party.

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