On 26/07/10 16:33, Andre Engels wrote:
I think that is disingenuous. If one considers a skin or extension to be a derived work, that is not because it uses function and class names from the original product, but because they do not have any meaning without the original code. The product, people would argue, is not "extension" but "mediawiki+extension", which clearly _is_ a derivative of mediawiki.
Yes, it is certainly derivative in that sense. It's just not derivative in the sense of being a derived work under copyright law.
Line numbers are even less creative than function or class names, but if someone took a series of instructions like
- Take Mediawiki version 11.0
- In such-and-such-file replace lines so-and-so to so-and-so by (my own code)
- same with several other files/lines
I would argue that what you have is a derived work from MediaWiki. Whether the same holds for extensions and skins, I would not argue from either side, not knowing enough about either the code or the legal side of the matter, but I think your rejection is too easy.
Those instructions do not contain any of the creative work that went into making MediaWiki. Thus the copyright holder has no right to restrict the distribution of those instructions.
-- Tim Starling