This is also an argument that I'm not very sympathetic to -- the idea that we need to lock down an entire ecosystem and consolidate it into 3-4 giant 'stewards'

This is also an argument that I'm not very sympathetic to -- the idea that we need to lock down an entire ecosystem and consolidate it into 3-4 giant 'stewards' to protect us from those giant stewards. Arguments about bullying aside, Google was honest regarding Java. They built a clean-room implementation. That was their only obligation. Sun saw it that way too. It would have a major chilling effect on the industry if every company could decide who was allowed to interop with their products. The fact that a few extremely large, extremely powerful players could get around that chilling effect by literally owning everything makes that situation worse, not better. Tiny players who get taken advantage of don't need the world you propose -- they need a way to safely, legally interoperate with the software around them. When Microsoft says that its Windows APIs are copyrighted, should the WINE team buy Microsoft so they have permission to get Windows software running on Linux? Should Oracle buy Amazon so it can compete in the cloud?[0] > Oracle can't simultaneously argue that API-using code does not embody copyrighted material from an API, and yet API-using code embodies all copyrights in the API necessary to give Oracle the right to reimplement S3. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/01/oracle-copied-amazons-api-was-that-copyright-infringement/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/01/oracle-copied-am... > feetards Nothing to say here except please don't use slurs like this.