> I was wondering whether that meant that the GPL's copyright restrictions still applied. I'm certain the FSF never intended the GPL to cover APIs, which is wh

> I was wondering whether that meant that the GPL's copyright restrictions still applied. I'm certain the FSF never intended the GPL to cover APIs, which is what this was about; the GPL is all about granting conditional rights to redistribute the code that implements APIs. (The GPL also explicitly disclaims any ability to control mere usage of the code it covers.) In C terms: An API is a .h file, an implementation is a .c file. (Unless you put actual function definitions in your .h files, which I have seen done, but that's more of a C++ thing than a C thing.) If this sounds like Oracle was attempting to trample on rights that developers have always assumed everyone has (and are therefore not fit subject for a license), that's because it is. Had Oracle won on this count, and continued to prevail, the software industry in this country would have come to a screaming halt.