[LLVMdev] Forward: Discussion about custom memory allocators for STL

[me22]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:52 AM, Joachim Durchholz <jo at durchholz.org> wrote:
> Actually it's not patents (where origin of code is irrelevant) but
> copyright (where it is).
>

I'm aware of that, but he quite specifically said "patent lawyers",
not IP or copyright lawyers.

> I'd like to see some more specific statements about what the IP lawyers
> at Dominic's company did. If they aren't too familiar with Open Source,
> they simply might have looked in the wrong places.
>

It feels to me like having made a reasonable effort to verify
provenance would be sufficient.  For an inconclusive result, just
following the license seems fine.  It the unlikely event of a suit,
damages would be small, if any, since you were acting in good faith,
and the code could be clean-room rewritten.

I also know that there are companies that sell software that checks
for open-source-derived code in a codebase -- the company that
currently employs me uses one such product.

Of course, IANAL.