From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1025b4,43ae7f61992b3213 X-Google-Attributes: gid1025b4,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,faf964ea4531e6af X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Joshua E. Rodd" Subject: Re: GPL and "free" software Date: 1999/05/03 Message-ID: <372E3B77.2E6EA08@iiinet.dhs.org>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 473704350 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7fibd5$jc7$1@news2.tor.accglobal.net> <3729D0F6.3DF2CCED@doc.ic.ac.uk> <372A07FE.47AD7982@doc.ic.ac.uk> <372ADEED.D907754@doc.ic.ac.uk> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@neo.rr.com X-Trace: dustdevil.neo.rr.com 925776759 24.93.213.213 (Mon, 03 May 1999 20:12:39 EDT) Organization: Road Runner High Speed Online -- Northeast Ohio MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 20:12:39 EDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss Date: 1999-05-03T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Ed Avis wrote: > Barry Margolin wrote: > > >When you #include a file, > >the compiler treats it as if the contents of that file were actually > >inserted in that place, and the resulting compiled file contains the > >compiled versions of those statements, which are clearly derivative works > >of those bits of source code. > > But most of the time, header files don't actually include code. FD_SET certainly includes code. > They > include function prototypes, which aren't strictly necessary (K&C > managed for years without them), declarations of functions (which are > just there to reassure the compiler that 'printf()' isn't a typo), and > constant values such as #define SIGINT 2, which being just a few > simple numbers, probably aren't copyrightable by themselves. Huh? One could as well argue that an object file is `just a bunch of unsigned numbers'. It's still copyrighted. > Prototypes and declarations don't end up in the final object code - > they're just 'scaffolding' for the compiler. They very well could end up in the final code--think about Java.