From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:01:17 +1200 From: Andy Elvey In-reply-to: To: 9fans@9fans.net Message-id: <500F8BAD.3020102@paradise.net.nz> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary=------------050902070409040608030809 References: <500F3CB6.105@paradise.net.nz> <500F6896.4010605@paradise.net.nz> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:12.0) Gecko/20120430 Thunderbird/12.0.1 Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 technical docs and man pages - licensed or "public domain"? Topicbox-Message-UUID: a50fdd88-ead7-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------050902070409040608030809 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 25/07/12 16:06, John Floren wrote: (snip) > Just write the code, nobody cares. The manual pages define an > interface, and you're going to implement it. The manual pages are > copyrighted, sure, because they're written works and are automatically > protected by copyright. Besides the recent Google vs. Oracle fiasco, I > can't think of a time an open-source project had legal problems by > writing new code to implement an API. And, based on a brief reading of > http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf, it looks as though a > US judge has ruled that an API is not subject to copyright; if you > implement the 9P API, you should be fine. Also, since you're doing a > free reimplementation of code which is currently available free to > everyone by the creators (Lucent), I have a hard time figuring out > exactly what basis they'd have for a lawsuit. john Hi John - thanks for that. Thanks also to everyone who has commented in this thread - you've been very helpful! This is one of the most helpful lists that I've been on. This feedback is very useful as a guide to how to proceed. Although I'm not running Plan 9 at present (I'm on Linux), I'm very impressed with its elegance. Everything from kbdfs to the plumber to the Venti filesystem - it's all beautifully thought-out. The way that Venti uses SHA1 hashes to store data reminds me a lot of Git (which I also really like - there's another elegantly designed bit of software). Thanks again, all - bye for now :) - Andy --------------050902070409040608030809 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 25/07/12 16:06, John Floren wrote:
(snip)

Just write the code, nobody cares. The manual pages define an interface, and you're going to implement it. The manual pages are copyrighted, sure, because they're written works and are automatically protected by copyright. Besides the recent Google vs. Oracle fiasco, I can't think of a time an open-source project had legal problems by writing new code to implement an API. And, based on a brief reading of http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf, it looks as though a US judge has ruled that an API is not subject to copyright; if you implement the 9P API, you should be fine. Also, since you're doing a free reimplementation of code which is currently available free to everyone by the creators (Lucent), I have a hard time figuring out exactly what basis they'd have for a lawsuit. john

Hi John - thanks for that.
Thanks also to everyone who has commented in this thread - you've been very helpful! This is one of the most helpful lists that I've been on.
This feedback is very useful as a guide to how to proceed.

Although I'm not running Plan 9 at present (I'm on Linux), I'm very impressed with its elegance. Everything from kbdfs to the plumber to the Venti filesystem - it's all beautifully thought-out. The way that Venti uses SHA1 hashes to store data reminds me a lot of Git (which I also really like - there's another elegantly designed bit of software).
Thanks again, all - bye for now :)
- Andy

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