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Alright; you're now allowed to read and write English, but you can't use any of the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, as they are a copyrighted API.
by GauntletWizard 15y ago
Alright; you're now allowed to read and write English, but you can't use any of the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, as they are a copyrighted API.
- 0xABADC0DA 15y agoI know that you can't copy the OED as a whole, or in significant parts. You have to purchase it. Similarly, you could copy and use parts of the Java API in your programs but not the whole API. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if Google's case is solid legally, but putting myself as a juror the Oracle opening statement I think would be very convincing compared to Google's. But my reading of the slides is probably colored though by my personal opinion that the Java API should be copyrightable. It's a substantial creative work and no two people would create the same APIs even containing the same ideas and concepts (.NET for example).
- fpgeek 15y agoAPIs should be copyrightable? So.. - Microsoft should be able to shut-down clean-room re-implementations of Windows? Like WINE and Sun's Wabi? - IBM should have been able to crush Compaq over their reverse-engineered BIOS? - Digital Research should have been able to crush Microsoft for including system calls that enabled CP/M compatibility for some programs in DOS? - ...
- 0xABADC0DA 15y agoAPIs such as Java's are original, creative works of authorship that no two people would create the same way. But they shouldn't be copyrightable because 'history would be different'... great argument there, genius.