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0 pointsnequo3y ago0 comments

I have only skimmed. But lines 23 and 24 on page 23 also reference Copilot's autocompletion of Quake III's `Q_rsqrt`[1] and mention that it is under GPL2.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27710287

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williamcotton3y ago

I doubt that anything other than Carmack's comments are covered. See the "Filtration" section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction-Filtration-Compari...

"In computer programs, concerns for efficiency may limit the possible ways to achieve a particular function, making a particular expression necessary to achieving the idea. In this case, the expression is not protected by copyright."

"Finally, material that exists in the public domain can not be copyrighted and is also removed from the analysis."

That code is specifically optimized for efficiency and there were similar approaches floating (get it?) around in the 1980s.

rrobukef3y ago

The magic-constant is not optimal there exist better alternatives. It is not necessary to implement this function and should be copyrightable. It is also not a trivial part.

On the other hand, Microsoft may only need to show "Hey, we got this code from FooBar under this license and this license and ..."

rat99883y ago

Why should it be copyrightable. It's just a way to calculte inverse square root. This falls under the public, in my non lawyer opinion. Such small snippets do not qualify, usually, for copyright.

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