So... appellate reasoning is even more likely to be founded on spirit arguments and not loopholes or context-free text readings. "Intent of the framers" is, ob

So... appellate reasoning is even more likely to be founded on spirit arguments and not loopholes or context-free text readings. "Intent of the framers" is, obviously, very much an argument about spirit and not text. As always, there's a good wikipedia page to start from when discussing this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_and_spirit_of_the_law But in this particular case it's sort of a silly argument anyway as it cuts better in the opposite direction: the DMA is a big and complicated law and can be interpreted in a zillion ways. If courts and regulators are allowed to read laws as strictly as they want, I can all but guarantee that Apple is in violation of something.