No subject

reading the original code, and converting it from Python to Java. This
isn't a modified version of the original - it's all new code. However,
the legal consensus is that it's a derived work, and hence the
original author has a copyright on it.

A "rewrite", on the other hand, can be done without looking at the
original code. You're writing new code that provides the same
functionality as the old code, whether or not it does it in the same
way, and whether or not you use the same language. Legal precedent is
that such is *not* a derived work, and thus not subject to copyright
laws. Lawsuits tend to focus on proving (or disproving) that parts of
the new code are translations or outright copies of the original,
rather than rewrites. Examples include pretty much everything in a
GNU/Linux system that implements a command from an AT&T Unix system,
and most of the BIOSes in commercial use today.

Given that the only documentation of the on-disk structure of
mercurial is the python code, and the author has expressed hostility
to the idea of a version released under a different license, a rewrite
of mercurial that could be used on real mercurial repositories and
intended to survive a lawsuit would almost certainly involve more work
than writing it in the first place. A "rewrite" that didn't share the
disk structure probably wouldn't be - but that would be a different
scm.

	 <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.

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