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Derivation is the process of creating a document which starts out not from scratch, but from duplicating an existing document called the source, except the stored passwords; so that while the new document referred to as the derived document may accept additional contents and modification, it can not make changes to contents marked frozen in the source, except through the source itself.
An ordinary copy is different from a derivation because the former does not create a relationship with its original. The new copy is independent of the original and may be modified at will.
A derived document may break its relationship with the source only if the latter specifies that it may be done so. This is refferred to as thawing. Once thawed out, the relationship is lost forever, and the document becomes independent of the source just like an ordinary copy.
4/13/2006, 1:24:02 PM
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