[Bug 162370] Print the table!

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------- Comment #7 from Behdad Esfahbod  2009-01-16 00:58 UTC -------
(In reply to comment #6)
> Behdad, IANAL, but this is not an idea. The "idea" part of this is presenting
> characters in a chart, which everyone is entitled to.

That's what I'm saying indeed.

> But copyright protects the presentation part of what Unicode has done. Random
> quote from Wikipedia: "Copyright does not cover ideas and information
> themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed."

The expression of the idea is the code generating it or the generated output.
Since we are not literally copying any of those, we're good.

> So, if we want to print Unicode character charts with 16 rows and a hex digit
> on each row and the rest of the character code at top of each column, write the
> character code under each glyph, and gray-out the area for not-yet-encoded
> characters, that may be illegal copying.

No that's not.  We are not using source code or generated output from the
consortium.  Really, copyright is for something you have created, patent is for
ideas.  A certain layout is an idea.  A piece of source code or a generated
output is copyrightable.  The idea of generated such a thing is at best
patentable.  See:

http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/apple-vs-microsoft.html

To quote: "...and most of the other ten were not violations of Apple's
copyright due to the merger doctrine (the merger doctrine stipulates that ideas
cannot be copyrighted). In the case of Apple vs. Microsoft, many of the
displays Apple contested were ideas and could not be protected by copyright."

What you say is like saying that "application windows are copyright by company
X, so doing them in GNOME is making derivative work".  Think about wine or any
other "free reimplementation" project.  Those would have been totally illegal
if your reasoning was to be followed.

> What I suggest is, if we really want to print character charts (as opposed to
> what Nicolas suggested in bug 561908), we should redesign it. Otherwise, our
> work could be considered unlicensed derivative work.

To produce derivative work, one needs to use an original to begin with.

> Still, since GNOME is a member of Unicode, we probably don't want to get on
> their nerves. We can ask them officially, if you do not object.

I' sure we can work something out.  I'm more talking theoretically.

> CC-ing Luis, asking for insight and advice.


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