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Remove the copyright comment from the outputs generated by RetDec #843

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merged 1 commit into from
Aug 26, 2020

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@s3rvac s3rvac commented Aug 21, 2020

It is a historical artifact from the times when there was a decompilation service on https://retdec.com. Now that RetDec is open-source, it makes little sense to have the comment there. Even the usefulness of its presence in the past is debatable.

Here is a quote from GPL FAQ, which I believe (but IANAL) applies to other licenses as well:

Q: Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?

A: In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert her own data, the copyright on the output belongs to her, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from.

It is a historical artifact from the times there was a decompilation service on
https://retdec.com. Now that RetDec is open-source, it makes little sense to
have the comment there. Even the usefulness of its presence in the past is
debatable.

Here is a quote from GPL FAQ [1], which I believe (but IANAL) applies to other
licenses as well:

> Q: Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my
> program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I
> require that these designs must be free?
>
> A: In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any
> say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If
> the user uses your program to enter or convert her own data, the copyright on
> the output belongs to her, not you. More generally, when a program translates
> its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits
> that of the input it was generated from.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLOutput
@s3rvac s3rvac self-assigned this Aug 21, 2020
@PeterMatula PeterMatula merged commit 6ee0385 into master Aug 26, 2020
@s3rvac s3rvac deleted the remove-copyright-from-generated-code branch August 26, 2020 05:35
s3rvac added a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 26, 2020
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2 participants