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I am very glad to see this. Having a “you can abuse copyright to have proprietary control over an API” precedent on the books had a chilling effect for program

I am very glad to see this. Having a “you can abuse copyright to have proprietary control over an API” precedent on the books had a chilling effect for programmers. Let me give you one example as an electronic musician. Once upon a time, Steinberg created an API for connecting programs which simulate musical instruments and musical effects (think reverb, echo, flanger, etc.) called VST. This API was always proprietary but everyone ending up using it, including the open source Audacity program which uses an open source re-implementation of the VST API, allowing it to use professional effects when editing tracks. Well, Steinberg decided that VST2 — the one everyone has been using — was out of date and removed all downloads to the VST2 API, since they wanted users to upgrade to VST3. While a lot of professional music making tools have updated to VST3, others have not, and a lot of tools will never be updated. Steinberg no longer has a copy of the VST2 SDK available for download; they’re really trying to get everyone to update to VST3. Now, with this horrible “Google vs. Oracle” precedent looming over everyone’s head that a company was allowed to copyright an API, Steinberg could had, in theory, said “VST2 is copyrighted, and Audacity is not allowed to use their own independent implementation of that API” (they didn’t in practice because they know it’s bad business; indeed VST3 is dual licensed, where GPL3 is one of the license options). With this precedent, the Audacity team can more easily retain their independent implementation of VST2 knowing the legal precedent saying re-implementing an API is fair use.

pyrale 6y ago
> I am very glad to see this. Having a “you can abuse copyright to have proprietary control over an API” precedent on the books was a chilling effect for programmers. It was always possible to release APIs as open-source. There's as much chilling effect about proprietary software as there ever was being careful about using licensed work, and that was never a problem. On the other hand, the hunting season on companies providing software is now open. You're a startup providing a new database, or a well-thought library? Shit, you better take the VC money before someone else does and puts you out of business. And when a company like Amazon comes with an offer, you better not be in a bargaining mood.

pyrale 6y ago

> I am very glad to see this. Having a “you can abuse copyright to have proprietary control over an API” precedent on the books was a chilling effect for programmers. It was always possible to release APIs as open-source. There's as much chilling effect about proprietary software as there ever was being careful about using licensed work, and that was never a problem. On the other hand, the hunting season on companies providing software is now open. You're a startup providing a new database, or a well-thought library? Shit, you better take the VC money before someone else does and puts you out of business. And when a company like Amazon comes with an offer, you better not be in a bargaining mood.