Here is a great analogy for Software APIs: They are the same as the ingredient lists in a "100 traditional recipes" book. Recipes have a name, they have ingre

Here is a great analogy for Software APIs: They are the same as the ingredient lists in a "100 traditional recipes" book. Recipes have a name, they have ingredients and they have detailed instructions how to make the end result out of the ingredients. The detailed instructions are copyrightable but the recipe name and the list of ingredients are not!