What should be the amount of changes in the program in order to consider the result not as a bug fix / enhancement, but as a different program?

Question

Programming

even if based on the original.

Answer 1

A name change is enough.

Answer 2

For personal or marketing purposes, it can be considered anything, only a binary comparison showed at least one difference, but for legal purposes (determination of authorship, etc.), formally, even if one line with copyright is found, it will be considered a violation. In general, as far as I know, this is decided by an examination without formal criteria, everything is taken into account from the complete coincidence of code sections (including comments) to algorithms and architecture. Experts are guided by the fact that no two people can think the same way.

Answer 3

When the usage scenario changed dramatically, then the program changed. If the code was rewritten twenty times, the interface was redesigned three times, but the use case remained unchanged - this is the same program, no matter how much the developers would like to claim the opposite.

Answer 4

MS has 3%
I think 100%.

Answer 5

Depends on the presence and characteristics of conscience.