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by pcwalton 420 days ago
> The OP cites these (https://github.com/devkitPro/libogc/blob/52c525a13fd1762c103... and https://github.com/atgreen/RTEMS/blob/2f200c7e642c214accb7cc...), but that's hardly a smoking gun. The function is trivial, just filling in some struct fields.

Yeah, I'm with Marcan 90% of the time, and in my view Marcan is more likely than not right that that function is derived from the RTEMS function, but in my view there's still reasonable doubt. That is to say, purely based on the evidence linked, I only agree that it's probable that the code is copied and disagree with Marcan's claim that it's "not possible" for the implementation to be non-infringing.

The fact that some of the identifiers are similar raises the biggest suspicions. "__lwp_stack_isenough" vs. "_Stack_Is_enough" is suspicious because I'd probably call that "sufficient_stack_available" or something like that. "LWP_STATES_DORMANT" vs. "STATES_DORMANT" is also suspicious because the normal OS term would be "sleeping". Still, the function logic is different enough that, even with that evidence, one could plausibly claim that only the headers or interface were copied and the implementation was clean-room, which is non-infringing per Oracle v. Google.

In US legal system terms, I'd say that a preponderance of the evidence shows that the code is a derivative work (i.e. it's more likely than not that the code was copied at some point), but that there's still reasonable doubt (i.e. a reasonable person could plausibly believe otherwise).

1 comments

I looked for other examples in the code and found __lwp_thread_changepriority pretty damning, judge for yourself:

https://github.com/atgreen/RTEMS/blob/2f200c7e642c214accb7cc...

https://github.com/devkitPro/libogc/blob/52c525a13fd1762c103...

The only difference is that the prependit parameter and its associated branch is missing, other than that the functions are completely identical.