Re: Question about "Conditions for Using Bison" in Bison 2.0 documentation

[Paul Hilfinger]

 > Hans Aberg <address@hidden> writes:
 > 
 > > the output of a copyrighted program is rarely viewed as being
 > > covered by the copyright of the program that made it.
 > 
 > No, actually it's quite common.  For example, if I run the traditional
 > /usr/ccs/bin/yacc that is shipped with Solaris 9, the output file
 > y.tab.c contains the following lines:
 > 
 > /*
 >  * Copyright (c) 1993 by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 >  */
 > 
 > There is no other wording granting permission to copy, so under the
 > Berne convention you have no right to copy the output file y.tab.c
 > unless you have some other agreement with Sun.

Actually, I believe that the Berne convention gives no standing
whatever to written copyright notices of this sort.  Instead, if I
produce a copyrightable work, that work is protected by copyright
unless I take steps to make it otherwise.  Here the issue is works
that are produced by the operation of copyrighted software.  I don't
know what the default status is of works produced by X's use of Y's
copyrighted programs, but I rather suspect that such products belong
to X unless the license granted to X by Y explicitly makes other
provisions.

Paul Hilfinger