Posted by
Dimiter Prodanov (imec) on
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/FFT-implementation-in-ImageJ-tp5008239p5008297.html
Hi Johannes,
I was not aware of this. Is there an accessible reference?
On the other hand, the hypothesis there is that porting is a "derivative work".
In the case of scientific code this is difficult to defend because the code is derived from scientific paper(s) - a set of formulas.
So if your code is sufficiently different I don't think that demonstration of development from first principles is difficult.
I.e. there is only 1 algorithm calculating a power-of-2 FFT so any implementations are bound to be very similar.
For that matter Numerical Recipies cannot claim any priority over the original derivation of Cooley and Tukey.
I can agree that "derivation" is in place if you keep the signature of a method and do not change substantially the body of the method
(i.e. names of variables, constants, initial values etc.). This will be indeed "porting".
Here is a discussion on the matter:
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/58338/when-porting-code-must-i-follow-the-original-license"There is porting which is to taking someone's source code to create something that works on a different system or in a different language.
Then there is reverse engineering which is to make something that behaves like someone else's program, but has nothing of substance from the original work.
Porting means you have their permission. So you need to ask the original creator what your rights are regarding license and how you release it.
Reverse Engineering means you either can't or won't talk to the original creator, and you can do whatever you darn well please. (just keep on the lookout for any lawyers)."
http://www.uwyo.edu/buerkle/misc/wnotnr.htmlAll in all, the question is very interesting.
Best regards,
Dimiter
-----Original Message-----
From: Johannes Schindelin [mailto:
[hidden email]]
Sent: 18 June, 2014 17:18
To: Dimiter Prodanov (imec)
Cc:
[hidden email]
Subject: Re: FFT implementation in ImageJ
Dear Dimiter,
On Wed, 18 Jun 2014, Dimiter Prodanov (imec) wrote:
> I don't think that by porting C code to Java one violates any license.
You might not think that. But it is established by lawyers that porting constitutes copying in the sense covered by copyright.
Sorry.
Johannes
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