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Most clones are incompatible in some way. WINE is not100% compatible with Windows, Linux is not compatible with AT&T Unix (ever looked at "cross platform" Unix

Most clones are incompatible in some way. WINE is not100% compatible with Windows, Linux is not compatible with AT&T Unix (ever looked at "cross platform" Unix source?) My personal opinion is not about what is legal, but what I think is ethical and justified. The current system is broken and needs to be reformed. You seem to want to defend the status quo. That's your prerogative, I think you're advocating for a world that makes everyone worse off, but we can agree to disagree.

cwyers 13y ago
Well, let's talk about WINE for a second. What I said wasn't "incompatible," it was "deliberately incompatible." WINE attempts to duplicate the Win32 APIs as they are implemented in various versions of Microsoft Windows. The entire point of WINE is to be interoperable, in order to allow programs that run on Windows to also run elsewhere. WINE may sometimes fail at this (man's reach must ever exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?), but it is certainly TRYING to be compatible. By the same token, the reason that Linux implements various APIs present in UNIX is so that it is compatible with software written for UNIX (or more accurately, to make software more portable between various types of UNIX and various types of Linux). Google's use of the Java APIs is different; Google intentionally makes it so that Java applications do not run on Android and Android applications do not run on Sun's JVM. Google is not trying to implement those APIs for the purpose of interoperability. A finding that Google's appropriation of those APIs for their own runtime environment is not fair use is not a finding that WINE's use of Windows APIs in order to enable interoperability is not fair use. What's at stake here is more narrow than what several posters have surmised. You can argue that what's at stake here is still important, which is a discussion worth having, but posts in this thread about (for instance) how the PC compatible market wouldn't be allowed to exist under this ruling are mistaken.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  Does the law make a distinction between copyright infringement based on unintentional incompatibility vs intentional incompatibility? I don't see it. And why would it not be copyright infringement to implement a full API, but is copyright infringement to implement a subset of one? When Phoenix cloned the PC bios, they did it on the assumption that if they reverse engineered the complete API specification, and then had a separate group of engineers perform the implementation, there would be no infringement, because no one in the history of computer science thought API interfaces could be copyrightable. IBM was powerless to stop them, and clones flourished. With this precedent, would Phoenix have attempted the clone? Would IBM have not sued over copyright infringement of their interface? Pretty much all clean room implementations since then have proceeded on the basis that implementing someone else's API, even against their wishes, is not an infringement. It's been the default assumption for decades. To act like this Court decision has not flipped over decades of practice is putting way too much trust in the companies out there to show restraint and not unleash a tidal wave of copyright suits.

cwyers 13y ago

Well, let's talk about WINE for a second. What I said wasn't "incompatible," it was "deliberately incompatible." WINE attempts to duplicate the Win32 APIs as they are implemented in various versions of Microsoft Windows. The entire point of WINE is to be interoperable, in order to allow programs that run on Windows to also run elsewhere. WINE may sometimes fail at this (man's reach must ever exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?), but it is certainly TRYING to be compatible. By the same token, the reason that Linux implements various APIs present in UNIX is so that it is compatible with software written for UNIX (or more accurately, to make software more portable between various types of UNIX and various types of Linux). Google's use of the Java APIs is different; Google intentionally makes it so that Java applications do not run on Android and Android applications do not run on Sun's JVM. Google is not trying to implement those APIs for the purpose of interoperability. A finding that Google's appropriation of those APIs for their own runtime environment is not fair use is not a finding that WINE's use of Windows APIs in order to enable interoperability is not fair use. What's at stake here is more narrow than what several posters have surmised. You can argue that what's at stake here is still important, which is a discussion worth having, but posts in this thread about (for instance) how the PC compatible market wouldn't be allowed to exist under this ruling are mistaken.

cromwellian 13y ago
Does the law make a distinction between copyright infringement based on unintentional incompatibility vs intentional incompatibility? I don't see it. And why would it not be copyright infringement to implement a full API, but is copyright infringement to implement a subset of one? When Phoenix cloned the PC bios, they did it on the assumption that if they reverse engineered the complete API specification, and then had a separate group of engineers perform the implementation, there would be no infringement, because no one in the history of computer science thought API interfaces could be copyrightable. IBM was powerless to stop them, and clones flourished. With this precedent, would Phoenix have attempted the clone? Would IBM have not sued over copyright infringement of their interface? Pretty much all clean room implementations since then have proceeded on the basis that implementing someone else's API, even against their wishes, is not an infringement. It's been the default assumption for decades. To act like this Court decision has not flipped over decades of practice is putting way too much trust in the companies out there to show restraint and not unleash a tidal wave of copyright suits.