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>an API often requires more creativity than the implementation. Sure, the implementation is also difficult to do well, but making that implementation usable by

>an API often requires more creativity than the implementation. Sure, the implementation is also difficult to do well, but making that implementation usable by others is no less a creative task. "Difficult to do well" and "creativity" does not equal "copyrightable". Mathematical proofs are hard to do well and require creativity but are not copyrightable. If the form is necessary for practical application, it belongs to the public. >The "table of contents" analogy is backwards: you don't write the code first and then extract the functions into an API. That's how you get poor APIs. You generally don't start writing prose before you have the overall structure fleshed out, either. >Do you mean that their resulting code would not be covered by copyright? Consider whatever arguments you apply to defend copyrightability of the implementation, and try to differentiate them from the API case. Perhaps you are right. Copyright may be the wrong tool for code. Patents may be the wrong tool for code. It may be time to set aside these grossly imperfect abstractions that were built for wildly different purposes hundreds of years before programming was conceived and think through something that fits this type of intellectual property better.

throwawaykf05 12y ago
> "Difficult to do well" and "creativity" does not equal "copyrightable". But how you express it is covered by copyright. A mathematical proof is not, but if you write it out so that it rhymes, that specific expression is. You can now state the same proof a thousand different ways, even those that rhyme differently. But all those original those of the same proof remain protected. I would tend to agree that copyright and patents are probably not a good fit for protecting software, and maybe a new framework is needed. But given the current means at hand, this decision is internally consistent.

throwawaykf05 12y ago

> "Difficult to do well" and "creativity" does not equal "copyrightable". But how you express it is covered by copyright. A mathematical proof is not, but if you write it out so that it rhymes, that specific expression is. You can now state the same proof a thousand different ways, even those that rhyme differently. But all those original those of the same proof remain protected. I would tend to agree that copyright and patents are probably not a good fit for protecting software, and maybe a new framework is needed. But given the current means at hand, this decision is internally consistent.