Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Your original code is never a derivative work. You retain copyright to the code you wrote yourself, even if it's combined with GPL later. GPL even contains this interesting clause:

> You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.

So to answer your question: no, unless you've copied bits of GPL library into your code (or similar that would be judged as a copyright violation).

There's also a crappy situation of Oracle vs Google that made APIs copyrightable, so now it's not entirely clear if your code + your rewrite of library is still yours if it uses an API of the GPL library.



> Your original code is never a derivative work[...]

> > You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.

> So to answer your question: no, unless you've copied bits of GPL library into your code (or similar that would be judged as a copyright violation).

Actually that clears a lot up for me, and I'd have considered myself reasonably knowledgeable when it comes to copyright in general; I think I had a few conflicting ideas about what it means to be an original work. Thank you.


> unless you've copied bits of GPL library into your code (or similar that would be judged as a copyright violation).

Which might happen very easily: one #include and you might be there.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: