RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Dave Korn]

On 23 May 2006 22:02, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:

> Another approach would have been to provide replacements for
> certain Windows library functions that use native NT functions
> internally to get around the limitations. I believe the total
> list of needed replacements is:
> 
>  CopyFile             CopyFileEx
>  CreateDirectory      CreateDirectoryEx
>  CreateFile           DeleteFile
>  FindFirstFile        FindFirstFileEx
>  GetFileAttributes    GetFileAttributesEx
>  GetFullPathName      GetLongPathName
>  GetShortPathName     GetBinaryType
>  MoveFile             MoveFileEx
>  MoveFileWithProgress RemoveDirectory
>  ReplaceFile          SearchPath
>  SetCurrentDirectory  SetFileAttributes
>  SetFileSecurity      FindFirstChangeNotification
> 
> Of course, this would have been an NT-specific solution.
> 
> I actually use a version of such a library to create some of
> the otherwise-uncreatable files in a /dev directory (which is
> not on a managed mount). That way, I can do:

  Is this code public?

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Williams, Gerald S (Jerry)]

Dave Korn wrote:
>> I actually use a version of such a library to create some of
>> the otherwise-uncreatable files in a /dev directory (which is
>> not on a managed mount). That way, I can do:
> 
>   Is this code public?

Some of it is, sort of.

I finally got permission from my company to release it into
the public domain. I even went so far as to create a project
on sourceforge.

One problem is that in order to understand something of the
internal operation of Windows, I was working on this while
looking at the ReactOS code, so initially I pulled several
of their definitions into a header file. I had set up the
project (and received permission to release the code) as a
public domain project, not under the GPL, so it needed to
be cleaned a bit. Looking at the file now, it appears that
I did finally remove the blatantly copied declarations. I
may want to run the file past the ReactOS developers just
to make sure, though.

Now, the whole point to the project was to make something
available that Cygwin could use, since my company would not
sign the release that allowing me to contribute directly.
(This is another reason why the code couldn't be GPL'ed.)
Since Cygwin went in another direction, I pretty much let
it drop.

At that time, I had completed the following routines:

 CaseWiseCreateDirectory
 CaseWiseCreateDirectoryA
 CaseWiseCreateDirectoryW
 CaseWiseCreateDirectoryEx
 CaseWiseCreateDirectoryExA
 CaseWiseCreateDirectoryExW
 CaseWiseCreateFile
 CaseWiseCreateFileA
 CaseWiseCreateFileW
 CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectory
 CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectoryA
 CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectoryW

And was working on:

 CaseWiseMoveFile

If you're interested, I can clean up the project and make
sure the existing files are properly published.

gsw

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Dave Korn]

On 24 May 2006 15:15, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:

> Dave Korn wrote:
>>> I actually use a version of such a library to create some of
>>> the otherwise-uncreatable files in a /dev directory (which is
>>> not on a managed mount). That way, I can do:
>> 
>>   Is this code public?
> 
> Some of it is, sort of.
> 
> I finally got permission from my company to release it into
> the public domain. I even went so far as to create a project
> on sourceforge.

> At that time, I had completed the following routines:
> 
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectory
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectoryA
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectoryW
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectoryEx
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectoryExA
>  CaseWiseCreateDirectoryExW
>  CaseWiseCreateFile
>  CaseWiseCreateFileA
>  CaseWiseCreateFileW
>  CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectory
>  CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectoryA
>  CaseWiseSetCurrentDirectoryW
> 
> And was working on:
> 
>  CaseWiseMoveFile

  <lightbulb>  Hey, that "CaseWise" prefix looks familiar!  Yes, I came across
your old posts about it when I was looking into the use of
POSIX_FILE_SEMANTICS myself last summer.  I came to fairly much the same list
of needed functions myself when I looked into the matter, and then ran out of
round tuits.  I was thinking of implementing posix mount points as an
alternative to managed ones.

http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2003-02/msg02179.html

  Ah, yes, that's the thread I remember finding.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/casewise/

  Heh.  No files released, zero commits to cvs, one welcome post by "nobody"
in each of the forums.... it's like the Marie Celeste in there!

> Now, the whole point to the project was to make something
> available that Cygwin could use, since my company would not
> sign the release that allowing me to contribute directly.
> (This is another reason why the code couldn't be GPL'ed.)

> If you're interested, I can clean up the project and make
> sure the existing files are properly published.

  Look, since your company is happy with the code being PD, then maybe you
should just slip me a copy in email, and I will re-work it (using your PD code
as a specimen/example) into a form that would be sufficiently "my own work"
(albeit based on a PD work) to be submittable.  IIRC, the WINE headers are
GPL'd[*], so I'll use them for any definitions I need.

    cheers,
      DaveK

[*] - I didn't R quite C; they are in fact LGPL'd.  That is just as good for
the purposes discussed here.
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Christopher Faylor]

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 05:33:46PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>Look, since your company is happy with the code being PD, then maybe
>you should just slip me a copy in email, and I will re-work it (using
>your PD code as a specimen/example) into a form that would be
>sufficiently "my own work"

Somehow I don't think intellectual property law works that way.

cgf

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Dave Korn]

On 24 May 2006 17:39, Christopher Faylor wrote:

> On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 05:33:46PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>> Look, since your company is happy with the code being PD, then maybe
>> you should just slip me a copy in email, and I will re-work it (using
>> your PD code as a specimen/example) into a form that would be
>> sufficiently "my own work"
> 
> Somehow I don't think intellectual property law works that way.
> 
> cgf

  Hey, maybe I have read too much into the term "PD", but I don't see how the
same sort of accusations of contamination by proprietary code could arise.
However if there's that much of a problem, never mind it.  I'll just have to
take the list of function names from the post and start from scratch.

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Williams, Gerald S (Jerry)]

Dave Korn wrote:
>   Heh.  No files released, zero commits to cvs, one welcome
> post by "nobody" in each of the forums.... it's like the Marie
> Celeste in there!

I know, but the project sort of became moot when the
original purpose for it vanished. Besides, by the time
our legal department gave the OK to release the code, I
found myself scrambling to keep my job due to overhauls
at the upper management level that vaporized my entire
division. Ergo, I completely ran out of round tuits for
a while.

>   Look, since your company is happy with the code being PD,
> then maybe you should just slip me a copy in email, and I
> will re-work it.

I really would like to make it available via sourceforge
at some point. Now that there's an interest, I'd be more
than happy to clean up the site. Unless somebody with an
interest in completing the project wants to do it, that
is. :-)

The code was released as PD, so there are no copyrights
claimed. Once you get a copy, you can do whatever you
want with it.

gsw

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Dave Korn]

On 25 May 2006 14:45, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:

> The code was released as PD, so there are no copyrights
> claimed. Once you get a copy, you can do whatever you
> want with it.

  Well, I'm not 100% sure that means I can re-license it.  And IIUIC I would
need to actually *own* the copyright on anything that I want to place under
GPL.  So cgf's caution is probably correct and I should really do a clean-room
implementation of my own.

  I think it'll be ok to use the list of functions that you suggested as the
basis, however!

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Christopher Faylor]

On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 02:55:24PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>On 25 May 2006 14:45, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:
>>The code was released as PD, so there are no copyrights claimed.  Once
>>you get a copy, you can do whatever you want with it.
>
>Well, I'm not 100% sure that means I can re-license it.  And IIUIC I
>would need to actually *own* the copyright on anything that I want to
>place under GPL.  So cgf's caution is probably correct and I should
>really do a clean-room implementation of my own.
>
>I think it'll be ok to use the list of functions that you suggested as
>the basis, however!

FWIW, Red Hat's legal department (who no longer respond to my email) once told
me that incorporating public domain stuff into Cygwin was ok as long as it was
very clear that there was no claim on the code.

Unfortunately, proving that a company doesn't claim ownership is usually roughly
equivalent to having them fill out the idious cygwin assignment so, AFAICT, this
isn't usually all that useful an option to pursue.

cgf

Re: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Joe Smith]

"Christopher Faylor" <cgf-no-personal-reply-please@cygwin.com> wrote in 
message news:20060525143449.GC12123@trixie.casa.cgf.cx...
> On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 02:55:24PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>>On 25 May 2006 14:45, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:
>>>The code was released as PD, so there are no copyrights claimed.  Once
>>>you get a copy, you can do whatever you want with it.
>>
>>Well, I'm not 100% sure that means I can re-license it.  And IIUIC I
>>would need to actually *own* the copyright on anything that I want to
>>place under GPL.  So cgf's caution is probably correct and I should
>>really do a clean-room implementation of my own.
If you modify it in any way, you have created a derived work. That is very 
well established.
If your modifications are non-trivial, then you would hold copyright on the 
derived work,
so there should be absolutly no problems releasing the dirived work under 
the GPL.

There is considerable precident in the publishing industry to back this up.



>>
>>I think it'll be ok to use the list of functions that you suggested as
>>the basis, however!
>
> FWIW, Red Hat's legal department (who no longer respond to my email) once 
> told
> me that incorporating public domain stuff into Cygwin was ok as long as it 
> was
> very clear that there was no claim on the code
>
> Unfortunately, proving that a company doesn't claim ownership is usually 
> roughly
> equivalent to having them fill out the idious cygwin assignment so, 
> AFAICT, this
> isn't usually all that useful an option to pursue.
>


I suspect that if Jerry were to post a scan of a signed document indicating 
that the company does not claim authorship,
or that the company has placed the work into the public domain, it would be 
difficult for the company to claim
they did not. Now, that should really be acompanied by a similar document 
indicating that
Jerry does not claim rights to the work, as Jerry could potentially have 
some claim to the work.
For example it is possible that the contract that gave the company any claim 
to the work was never
valid in the first place. Highly unlikely, but theoretically possible.

DISCLAMER: IANAL, but I spend a lot of time reading Debian-legal, so I have 
a fairly good understanding of
how copyright works.

Re: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Christopher Faylor]

On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 01:20:57AM -0400, Joe Smith wrote:
>"Christopher Faylor" <cgf-no-personal-reply-please@cygwin.com> wrote in 
>message news:20060525143449.GC12123@trixie.casa.cgf.cx...
>>On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 02:55:24PM +0100, Dave Korn wrote:
>>>On 25 May 2006 14:45, Williams, Gerald S (Jerry) wrote:
>>>>The code was released as PD, so there are no copyrights claimed.  Once
>>>>you get a copy, you can do whatever you want with it.
>>>
>>>Well, I'm not 100% sure that means I can re-license it.  And IIUIC I
>>>would need to actually *own* the copyright on anything that I want to
>>>place under GPL.  So cgf's caution is probably correct and I should
>>>really do a clean-room implementation of my own.
>
>If you modify it in any way, you have created a derived work.  That is
>very well established.  If your modifications are non-trivial, then you
>would hold copyright on the derived work, so there should be absolutly
>no problems releasing the dirived work under the GPL.
>
>There is considerable precident in the publishing industry to back this
>up.

I'm pretty sure that you can't substantially modify someone else's work
and then change the entire license to the work.  You would own the
copyright on the parts that you modified but the original copyright
would still apply to any unchanged parts.  And, I belive that simple
text replacements of variable names, etc., would not make a derivative
work.

>>>I think it'll be ok to use the list of functions that you suggested as
>>>the basis, however!
>>
>>FWIW, Red Hat's legal department (who no longer respond to my email)
>>once told me that incorporating public domain stuff into Cygwin was ok
>>as long as it was very clear that there was no claim on the code
>>
>>Unfortunately, proving that a company doesn't claim ownership is
>>usually roughly equivalent to having them fill out the idious cygwin
>>assignment so, AFAICT, this isn't usually all that useful an option to
>>pursue.
>
>I suspect that if Jerry were to post a scan of a signed document
>indicating that the company does not claim authorship, or that the
>company has placed the work into the public domain, it would be
>difficult for the company to claim they did not.  Now, that should
>really be acompanied by a similar document indicating that Jerry does
>not claim rights to the work, as Jerry could potentially have some
>claim to the work.  For example it is possible that the contract that
>gave the company any claim to the work was never valid in the first
>place.  Highly unlikely, but theoretically possible.
>
>DISCLAMER: IANAL, but I spend a lot of time reading Debian-legal, so I
>have a fairly good understanding of how copyright works.

One of my reasons for posting what I did about Red Hat lawyers was to
make it clear that we won't be getting help there.  They don't respond
to Corinna's email either and she works for the company.  I don't think
they respond to Corinna's *boss's* mail, for that matter.  They just
don't care about Cygwin, apparently.

(although I think I'd love to be proved wrong about this)

So, any amount of opining and IANALing is not going to be very fruitful.
I'm pretty sure that Corinna is not going to just allow changes into
Cygwin just on the say-so of IANALs.

So, while someone did tell me that public domain software might be ok to
include, practically speaking, we only have one approved mechanism for
getting changes into cygwin - the person and the person's company who
makes the changes must have a signed agreement with Red Hat.

cgf

RE: Re: Handling special characters (\/:*?"<>|) gracefully

[Williams, Gerald S (Jerry)]

Joe Smith wrote:
> If you modify it in any way, you have created a derived work.  That
> is very well established.  If your modifications are non-trivial,
> then you would hold copyright on the derived work, so there should
> be absolutly no problems releasing the dirived work under the GPL.

Cygwin core code is not simply GPL'ed. RedHat owns the copyright
and chooses to release a version under the GPL. They insist on
having clear rights to the code.

If you can prove that some code is public domain, everybody has
clear rights to it. I had hoped that publishing something as a
public domain project would be sufficient for RedHat, but it
apparently is not. They want a clear trail of accountability.

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> So, while someone did tell me that public domain software
> might be ok to include, practically speaking, we only have
> one approved mechanism for getting changes into cygwin - the
> person and the person's company who makes the changes must
> have a signed agreement with Red Hat.

I'm not talking specifically about Cygwin, but it would be to
everybody's benefit if we could figure out how to incorporate
public domain software without getting the lawyers all riled
up(*). This stuff is being donated to the greater infosphere
for the common good--there should be a way to Do The Right
Thing (tm) and actually have it count.  :-)

gsw

(*) - I was really thinking of a much more colorful metaphor
      as I wrote this.