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Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

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Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#291

Post by timClicks »

jahewson wrote: post #254
mapleoin wrote: post #22

What are the licensing implications for this kind of work? I assume the authors used GNU coreutils as more than just inspiration. They probably read all the original code and reused some of the solutions (obviously ported to Rust). Shouldn't the derivative work still be covered by the GPL?

No. It's not a derivative work. Creating a compatible piece of software is not copying. Even if you've seen the original code. If you're not literally copying and pasting code, it's fine. Copyright protects the code itself from being copied, but the ideas, abstractions, overall design, and even individual APIs are not eligible for copyright protection

I don't think that is accurate. If your work is derived from the source - even if you don't replicate the original - you're infringing copyright. That's why clean room design is so important.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#292

Post by Dylan16807 »

jerf wrote: post #229
ktRolster wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point some popular compiler is going to make a subtle but important change to some undefined behavior that's not going to be immediately obvious as to it's repercussions, and the fallout will be massive. Wait until you realize that the length of a byte in C is not clearly defined. Someday a processor will come along where a byte is 6 bits, and the fallout will be massive. (Really, it's happened before). No, a…

Did you see the short-lived attempt to create "friendly C" a few months ago? [1] There's languages that have a few undefined corners, and then there's C. A sufficiently large difference in quantity becomes a difference in quality. C is qualitatively worse than most modern languages with its undefined behavior. (Granted, some modern languages escape by having the one implementation, which is then the definition. But s…

It was too ambitious. Some of those examples, like shifting by 32, are about trying to remove even unspecified behavior. If you could reduce most cases of undefined behavior down to "what some real machine would do", it would be an enormous help, and wouldn't be anywhere near as hard.

For example you could say that division by zero will either give a result or trap, but that it can't do anything else, and the code path cannot be ignored. Or that an uninitialized variable is equivalent to initializing it with a semi-random number.

Even if an out of bounds array access will cause untold chaos, you can at least specify that it will cause that chaos at X bytes past the base of the array.

Merely creating an invalid pointer would be, on architectures where it doesn't trap, 100% harmless.

And for crying out loud, is forgetting to terminate a string literal with a " still undefined? There are so many bits of undefined behavior that are easy to remove.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#293

Post by kps »

jeena wrote: post #63
mapleoin wrote: post #22

What are the licensing implications for this kind of work? I assume the authors used GNU coreutils as more than just inspiration. They probably read all the original code and reused some of the solutions (obviously ported to Rust). Shouldn't the derivative work still be covered by the GPL?

Just to give an example: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/whoami/p... looks suspically simmilar to: http://code.metager.de/source/xref/gnu/coreutils/src/whoami....

And they both look equally similar to usr/src/cmd/whoami.c in 3BSD (1978).

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#294

Post by jahewson »

jordigh wrote: post #276
jahewson wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, just as reading non-GPL'd code and then writing a GPL'd version is legitimate, so too is reading GPL'd code and writing a non-GPL'd version. As long as you're not literally copying and pasting the code. While you're free to invent any contribution rules you like for Octave, there's really no need for such drastic measures. It might give you a nice piece of mind, but it's not legally necessary - it's perfectly p…

Are you a lawyer? Because other lawyers have told me otherwise. Would you happen to know of cases where your interpretation has been upheld?

Of course I can read something and not copy it. I can read a book and not copy it. I can listen to a song and not copy it. I can look at art and not copy it. And I can read source code and not copy it.

It's not surprising that your lawyer implied otherwise, as its "best practice" to guard against every feasible risk, no matter how unlikely. Understand that your lawyer is protecting you against a hyper-zealous misinterpretation of the law, not the actual law.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#295

Post by justincormack »

mapleoin wrote: post #22

What are the licensing implications for this kind of work? I assume the authors used GNU coreutils as more than just inspiration. They probably read all the original code and reused some of the solutions (obviously ported to Rust). Shouldn't the derivative work still be covered by the GPL?

No, copyright only applies to the actual text of the code. Ideas and algorithms are not copyrightable.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#296

Post by TallGuyShort »

jahewson wrote: post #273
TallGuyShort wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's a little more complex: there's the question of copying interfaces, and the question of reverse engineering the implementation behind them. Many man pages are written such that it's clear how you should implement the logic so that all flags, etc. are interpreted in a well-defined and consistent manner with the original. But it's a billion times easier to just check out the source code for some of the tools an…

There's nothing wrong with reading the source code. You're allowed to read whatever you like! Just don't copy it.

Well there's the rub - once you see the source code, it's tough to say you weren't influenced by it. In for-profit endeavors this kind of thing is typically done by having two separate groups of people, one that sees the competing product and writes detailed descriptions of behavior, and one that never sees the product, only the product of the first group. If you're careful about this and go to pains to keep the groups strictly separated, you're in the clear. If you've read the source code and go and write very similar source code, you're considered tainted from an intellectual property perspective. It doesn't prove you copied them, but you certainly lose a lot of moral high ground. In this case, I doubt many of the copyright owners are going to care, let alone actually pursue legal action. But seeing the source code is legally dangerous at times. I am not a lawyer.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#297

Post by pcwalton »

SQLite wrote: post #289
pcwalton wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is itself a straw man. Follow the link to Mr. Hipp's comments and read them. He did not say this. "Rust doesn't eliminate all bugs" is a rephrased version of "Some well-formed rust programs will generate machine code that behaves differently from what the programmer expected." > That a programmer who has produced such high-quality and rigorously tested software as sqlite should be portrayed as either cavalier…

I was not aware of kcov or its basis bcov. Thanks for pointing those out. However, a quick glance at the bcov source code leads me to believe that it only does source-line coverage, not branch coverage. So, unless my quick reading of bcov sources is mistaken, I couldn't test a Rust SQLite as well as I can test the existing SQLite because kcov/bcov is missing the ability to measure coverage of individual machine-code…

Thanks, that's really great feedback. We should invest in making use of llvm-cov. It should dovetail nicely with the MIR work (which is now to the point where it can build the Rust compiler), since the language-specific IR it exposes is especially suited for quick development of instrumentation passes.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#298

Post by dang »

bigdubs wrote: post #133
0xFFC wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also Rust doesn't have exceptions so you have to wrap almost any function call with let/match/Ok/Err. Ugly. respectfully, This is pure nonsense. First of all rust does not have runtime and AFAIK for providing exception you should have runtime to manage stack. Second not every language should be like high-level languages, it is not the rule to be like C#,Java,Python,etc. I use a lot of them for my work when I need si…

Comment OP's stance is valid. "Magic" in this context are keywords or symbols that are not immediately clear to programmers that don't work in rust. One of the reasons golang is so successful is that there is very little magic in the syntax, and even when there is it's fairly easy to grok (an example would be the `go` keyword). FWIW I also share their opinion that rust is unapproachable.

> keywords or symbols that are not immediately clear to programmers that don't work in rust

That's an argument against introducing new notation for anything. That can't be right.

Re: Cross-platform Rust rewrite of the GNU coreutils

#300

Post by _ZeD_ »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #188
pnathan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've submitted an issue asking to shift to a GPL license. My general perspective on code I write that isn't for work - it has to be GPL. I refuse to have my code be yoinked by random corporations for their profit without having the code shared downstream.

Like many other programmers, I avoid GPL'd code like the plague. The idea that you can own an idea seems ridiculous to me, and it feels unjust to sue "random corporations" for using ideas that you published. We're standing on the shoulders of giants, and I see the GPL as a tumor that's draining the world's resources. Just my two cents.

sorry, but is the "random corporaions" the tumor: they just use the code, maybe improve it, but keep that private, and the improvement is lost for the rest of the people.
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