[quote=“bwv812, post:6, topic:16900”]
You can skirt copyright in open-source by simply rewriting everything. Since only the expression, and not the ideas, can be copyrighted, rewriting to obtain the same functionality is feasible. Indeed, Google rewrote Java when it developed Android, and even though it retained Sun’s APIs in its own brew, in Oracle v. Google a court found that you can’t protect APIs, as they are basically functional in nature and required for interoperability.[/quote]
True you can rewrite everything but you might find yourself really screwed if it’s something critical, and it would definitely leave people scrambling. The only plus is that the law requires you give at least two years notices (before the 35 year anniversary). That all said to be able to do this would require some strange circumstances for sourcecode, eg, that the copyright was transferred from the creator and it wasn’t a work for hire. OSS copyrights are either works for hire or never transferred. Early software copyrights might be a different story, I’m sure the 1980’s had plenty of hobbyist who sold their game copyrights to manufacturers etc.
