Bruce Korb <bkorb@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > "Piffle". It is a trivial example. Well, it doesn't really matter what you or I think is trivial: what counts is what a federal judge would think (in the US, anyway). Let's put it this way. The song "Happy Birthday to You" has trivial lyrics -- only 16 words long. And yet those lyrics return about $2 million/year worth of royalties to AOL Time Warner and the Hill Foundation. See "Happy Birthday, We'll Sue" <http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.htm>. Now, I don't for a moment think the Autoconf examples have the same artistic merit and revenue potential as that immortal 16-word poem. But it's quite clear that the Autoconf manual's longer examples are nevertheless protected by copyright, and if the FSF continues to publish these examples solely under the GNU FDL, this will inhibit honest programmers who try to abide by the law, however silly the law happens to be. > There would be no way to assert a copyright claim. Sure there would, for the longer examples. If you don't believe me, ask Veritas's copyright counsel. _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
