[Theora] Independent implementations?

[Maik Merten]

<Pine.LNX.4.58.0407150853240.27907 at login.math.uni-bonn.de>
Message-ID: <40F6ADF1.2040804 at gmx.net>

Christoph Lampert wrote:
> You could choose, _if_ it was On2 who changed the license, not someone
> else (because this other person wouldn't have the right to do so). So,
> we still need a document about how the VP3-stuff in theora stuff got its
> new license.

If I understand correctly only On2 has the right to change the licencse.
If Xiph did this without permission the source in SVN would clearly
(well... IANAL) be illegal. I am very confident Xiph asked for permission.

Xiph - "May we change the license?"
On2 - "Yes."
Xiph - "Ok. Done."

Although the _file_ containing the license was replaced by Xiph-staff I
think the legal act to change the _license_ was still made by On2 by
giving permission. Oh... did I mention IANAL?

>>Most people with programming skills don?t live in caves. It?s highly
>>likely that any implementation compatible with Ogg Theora is written
>>with the help of the Ogg Theora specification (which _is_ derived from
>>VP3-code). Is any code written with the help of this specification
>>automatically derived from the VP3-codebase (which surely is covered by
>>the irrevocable patent license)? Then there would be no problem....
>
>
> No no no, absolutely not. Please again be careful not to mix copyright and
> patents. "derived from" means copyright, so it has to be based on the
> sources.

I don?t think I am mixing copyright and patents. I simply had the
strange idea that using a document directly derived from source code
will make your own implementation a derivation of that source code.

As you pointed out, this is plain wrong.