Re: [DotGNU]The ECMA 334 Examples (from spec)

[James Michael DuPont]

--- Rhys Weatherley <address@hidden> wrote:
> James Michael DuPont wrote:
> 
> > Sorry if you dont aggree with me, but we cannot just keep on
> running
> > away from microsoft for no reason at all.
> 
> I am not running away from Microsoft.  I am choosing not to
> violate their clearly stated (and obvious) Copyright on the
> C# specification.
> 
> Implementing the specification will never be a problem.  Creating
> derived works based on the specification will be.  I'm sorry that
> you are unable to see the difference.

The jaggersoft software was a legal derived work.
A c# visualization tool for pdf files is one as well.

> 
> Since the examples in the specification are useless as a regression
> test suite, it is (a) a waste of time, and (b) of dubious legal
> standing.

The patches for the compiler that come from testing with that I write
without you ever getting the sources, and the test cases I extract and
rewrite you will maybe accept? 
> 
> > Because I am not offically part of the DotGNU project, I can take
> > this risk apon myself.
> 
> And you think that will save us? 

Yes, because I will adhere to your patching legal standards
and only send you code that is of my own copyright or derived from a
gpl project (or license compatible code).

> If you contribute any code to
> the project, even if it just a set of fixed-up test cases, that
> you gleaned from automatic extraction, then we are dead.

Your right about that part, but not for my examples,
we are talking about creative works that I make inspired by reading
documents copyrighted by other people.

Read my mail. You keep on ignoring the facts that I have stated.

>  You
> are not engaged in clean rooming: you are basing your work on
> theirs and then passing it through the barrier.

You might be confusing something here.

>1. The crashes and bugs that I got from the running the code through
>the compiler need to be condensed down into a simple reproducable
>example and posted to the bug page. 

This is not copyright violation, this can also be done by using
publically available sources copyrighted by other people and then 
making a abstract simple test case. That is how compiler software is
tested by many people, the compile something that they know is
correct(or think so, because some of the code in the spec is not
compilable), and then abstract the problems away from the compiler into
a test case.

> > Running away from microsoft is not the way to do it. You need to
> help
> > the project by being rational, not irrational. You need to present
> > logical arguments, not voodoo-hoodo-hocus-pocus.
> 
> I'm being irrational?  I'm not the one standing in front of
> a bear and hoping that it will be nice and not eat me!  Even if
> there was a non-zero chance that it was a nice bear, the prudent
> course of action is to stay away from it.
> 
> The nature of Copyright is this: you have no rights except what
> are explicitly enumerated by a license or fair use.
> Fair use
> arguments are increasingly hard to make in courts.  The logical
> course of action is to assume that it isn't allowed unless
> explicitly told so.  It would be irrational to assume that what
> you are doing is fair use just because you want it to be so.

What if we just make a pdf reader for highlighting and documenting
c# programs from webpages and pdf files. I have even completed the
patch to a
tool like xpf and working on a plugin for dia.

 A general pdf markup program with a compiler for doing sytax
highlighting. A hookup via the bison xml dumper and csdoc xml output
and the reflection type code gopal was using to my patched vcg [2]
(visualization of compiler graphs, an automatic layout tool that I will
be rereleasing) and using the some form of xml indexing,and database
access for tree nodes that I am working on with the gcc.

I dont see any copyright problems with that.

This will allow also the grammar to be corelated via database queries
to the specification itself. An interface to the rmutt [2] random
sentence generator for new syntax trees and an xml intermediate
languages for applying style sheets for code generation involving c#
code.

> Whether it is actually fair use or not is a moot point anyway.

> I have decided for the project that we will find another way.

I aggree with you not to import any snippets of code that are of other
copyright into the GNU project. The idea of abstracting test cases from
compiler crashes you might want to look at from my way.

That is why I have not published anything but the full xml version of
the emca spec. My perl tools to run the tests are not in any violation
of copyright or contract. 

At least in germany, here you can give away key-generator software that
for shareware, because there is not a contract.


> Please respect my wishes and do not put DotGNU at further risk.
I have respected them, and in the past, I did listen to you about this.

You did not get any code copyrighted or worked on from non-gnu sources,
the treecc stuff I sent you is derived from the gcc, tree.h.

> 
> I am getting very, very, very, tired of your "I want to do it
> therefore it is allowed" attitude James Michael.

I am not proposing to do anything illegal. I will respect your wishes,
please don't loose patience with me. 


Mike

[1]http://www.cs.uni-sb.de/RW/users/sander/html/gsvcg1.html
 The VCG tool reads a textual and readable specification of a graph and
visualizes the graph. If not all positions of nodes are fixed, the tool
layouts the graph using several heuristics as reducing the number of
crossings, minimizing the size of edges, centering of nodes. The
specification language of the VCG tool is nearly compatible to GRL, the
language of the edge tool, but contains many extensions. The VCG tool
allows folding of dynamically or statically specified regions of the
graph. It uses colors and runs on X11 and MS Windows 3.1. (An older
version runs on Sunview).


[2] http://www.schneertz.com/rmutt/
"rmutt" is a utility for generating random text from context-free
grammars (a.k.a. recursive transition networks). It's modeled after
Andrew C. Bulhak's late, great "dada engine" which he used to write the
hilarious Postmodern Thesis Generator. I used the dada engine to write
the generic sports page generator for newspoetry.com. Although the dada
 engine is not under active development, it works very well and I
highly recommend it.


=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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