OSDev.org

Posted: **Sun Jan 26, 2025 6:44 pm**

I noticed that on the Interrupts Tutorial page it mentions that the code is based on This but that project is licensed under the MIT which that should cause a licensing issue right? and could (in theory) lead to a similar situation that happened a while back (when I was a lurker with no account) in which the wiki needed to have relicensing statements to stop people from getting sued for using bare bones.

Since the MIT license requires us to use its license in the code that we use from it, in which the tutorial does not do that, could in theory lead to a possible lawsuit

Posted: **Sun Jan 26, 2025 9:21 pm**

I don't know what you are talking about. The license states:
.

Permission is hereby granted, [...] to deal in the Software without restriction[...] subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Is the IDT structure a substantial portion of the software? I highly doubt it. Most of the page is only boiler-plate code that is shared so much between operating systems that if austanss were to sue us for copyright infringement, we could just raise the scenes-a-faire defense. Most operating systems have code pretty much like this.

Another defense would be that austanss did not originate the code, either. Most of this code is not original to skylight but has been around before. That being the case, austanss does not actually have copyright over that part either, because you only have copyright over your original expression.

A third defense would be fair use. Only as much of skylight's code is used as is needed for that tutorial, and it's a tiny amount of that OS's code, the use is transformative (one is an OS, the other is an OS dev tutorial), there is no market usurption, and I forget the fourth factor.

So that is three defenses against a claim of copyright infringement at the base, and a permissive license that gives us the right to republish this stuff even if the author did have a copyright. I see absolutely no licensing issue.

Posted: **Thu Jan 30, 2025 3:54 pm**

nullplan wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2025 9:21 pm I don't know what you are talking about. The license states:
.
Permission is hereby granted, [...] to deal in the Software without restriction[...] subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
Is the IDT structure a substantial portion of the software? I highly doubt it. Most of the page is only boiler-plate code that is shared so much between operating systems that if austanss were to sue us for copyright infringement, we could just raise the scenes-a-faire defense. Most operating systems have code pretty much like this.

Another defense would be that austanss did not originate the code, either. Most of this code is not original to skylight but has been around before. That being the case, austanss does not actually have copyright over that part either, because you only have copyright over your original expression.

A third defense would be fair use. Only as much of skylight's code is used as is needed for that tutorial, and it's a tiny amount of that OS's code, the use is transformative (one is an OS, the other is an OS dev tutorial), there is no market usurption, and I forget the fourth factor.

So that is three defenses against a claim of copyright infringement at the base, and a permissive license that gives us the right to republish this stuff even if the author did have a copyright. I see absolutely no licensing issue.

Oops, I saw that it said it was MIT license, and I was not fully aware of that.

OSDev.org

Possible licensing issue

Possible licensing issue

Re: Possible licensing issue

Re: Possible licensing issue