10 ms·

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The c

by desdiv 11y ago

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc.#Appeals_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
angersock 11y ago
That's bloody depressing.
sysk 11y ago
Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.
- dsr_ 11y ago
  A blackbox implementation (no access to original source code) is clearly ethical. The purpose of an API is specifically to allow interoperability with software that you don't write; the presence of a competitor (open source or not) who re-implements the server side of your API is a Good Thing for a competitive market place.
  - masukomi 11y ago
    to extend on that idea, I'm fairly certain that a "clean-room" reverse engineering of a competitor's product HAS been shown to be legal. That is to say, as long as you can prove that the person(s) doing the reverse engineering didn't have any access to proprietary information about the workings of the product they were reverse engineering.
    - treffer 11y ago
      The classic example is the reverse engineering of the IBM BIOS for 'IBM compatible' machines. And it was done with 2 teams, one analyzing and one implementing. But that predates my existence :-)
    - vsync 11y ago
      Which is why the appeals court decision was so shocking.
- mikebike 11y ago
  Several open source cloud projects (OpenStack, Eucalyptus, CloudStack, OpenNebula) implement the Amazon EC2 API. Eucalyptus is the only one that formally obtained a license from Amazon.
- antaviana 11y ago
  As far as I know, AWS Aurora (not open source) is supposed to be a 100%-compatible implementation of MySQL API.
- jarin 11y ago
  Errbit is API-compatible with Airbrake https://github.com/errbit/errbit https://github.com/errbit/errbit
- kazinator 11y ago
  Linux is a reimplementation of proprietary Unix interfaces. WINE is a clone of the Windows API. ReactOS is another one. Also, we should include implementations of software that encodes or decodes data formats, such as audio/video/image codecs. There are numerous examples of free implementations of software that works with proprietary formats, which are analogous to a proprietary API.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
cmdrfred 11y ago
Can't they use something trademarked in the api? for example you have to send 'Slack chat connect' to connect the api so open source stuff can't connect without violating their trademark?
- glesica 11y ago
  AFAIK trademarks don't work that way. You can "use" a trademark in a text or computer program more or less freely. What you can't do is do business under the trademarked name, or offer a competing (or substantially similar) product for sale that uses the trademarked name. Trademarks aren't so much about "IP protection" as they are about preventing consumer confusion, thus the standards are different. IANAL.
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    Makes sense, then maybe this would prevent him from listing slack anywhere on the repository as it might confuse users that this is a legitimate client.
    - cookiecaper 11y ago
      It's a matter of degree. CentOS infamously chose to refer to Red Hat as "a prominent North American Linux vendor" and completely deleted the term "Red Hat" from everything out of an abundance of caution after receiving threats from Red Hat's lawyers, but that's probably overboard. It's generally allowed to use trademarks as "nominative uses", i.e., in direct reference to another's product that's not designed to create confusion. He would probably be fine to put in his README something like "An open implementation of the chat API provided by Slack". He definitely shouldn't use the term "Slack" in the name of the repo. Like most non-flagrant potential IP violations, no one can really say for sure until a court hears the case and makes a judgement as to whether the use is fair or unfair, or likely to cause confusion among consumers or not. IANAL.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Trademarks are about IP protection, but the exclusive right in the mark -- the thing that is property -- is the right to use the mark to market products in a particular domain.
jahewson 11y ago
Google however are trying to take the case to the Supreme Court to get that API ruling overturned. IMHO they will succeed, as the federal circuit's ruling is controversial to say the least. I doubt there's anything to worry about here but strictly speaking, we'll have to wait and see.
tzs 11y ago
That cases raises an interesting precedent issue that I have not been able to find the answer to. Let's assume that the Supreme Court decides not to take the appeal, so the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable stands. What courts is this precedent for? Generally, the way precedent works is that if appeals from court X go to court Y, then the decisions of court Y are precedent for court X. If court Z is not on the appeals path from X, then the decisions of court Z are not binding precedent for X. For copyright cases, appeals normally do NOT go to the CAFC. They go the Courts of Appeal for the circuit in which the court appealed from resides. E.g., copyright cases from district courts in the 2nd Circuit go to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In general, that is the appeals path from the Federal district court. Copyright cases aren't specifically singled out. Oracle vs. Google was tried in the 9th Circuit. If it has just been a copyright case, the appeal would have went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, it was also a patent case, and patent cases are singled out. They are explicitly diverted from the normal appeals path and go to the CAFC. If the case is also some other kind of case, such as a copyright case or an antitrust case, the CAFC is allowed to hear those aspects too. So does this mean that if P sues D in the 9th circuit over copyright, with no patent issues or any other issues that would bring the appeal to the CAFC, then the district court would only use the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for precedent (which I believe disagrees with CAFC), and ignore CAFC's Google vs. Oracle copyright ruling? Even more confusing, suppose P sues D over copyright and patents in the 9th Circuit. The district court figures that the case, if appealed, will go to the CAFC, and so follows CAFC precedent for the copyright aspects. Now suppose after the court rules, neither party appeals the court's decisions on any of the patent issues. The only appeal copyright issues. Does the case still go to CAFC? Or does it go the 9th Circuit? If it goes to the 9th Circuit, do they apply their own copyright precedent or CAFC precedent?

by desdiv 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

angersock 11y ago

That's bloody depressing.

sysk 11y ago

Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.

dsr_ 11y ago
A blackbox implementation (no access to original source code) is clearly ethical. The purpose of an API is specifically to allow interoperability with software that you don't write; the presence of a competitor (open source or not) who re-implements the server side of your API is a Good Thing for a competitive market place.
- masukomi 11y ago
  to extend on that idea, I'm fairly certain that a "clean-room" reverse engineering of a competitor's product HAS been shown to be legal. That is to say, as long as you can prove that the person(s) doing the reverse engineering didn't have any access to proprietary information about the workings of the product they were reverse engineering.
  - treffer 11y ago
    The classic example is the reverse engineering of the IBM BIOS for 'IBM compatible' machines. And it was done with 2 teams, one analyzing and one implementing. But that predates my existence :-)
  - vsync 11y ago
    Which is why the appeals court decision was so shocking.
mikebike 11y ago
Several open source cloud projects (OpenStack, Eucalyptus, CloudStack, OpenNebula) implement the Amazon EC2 API. Eucalyptus is the only one that formally obtained a license from Amazon.
antaviana 11y ago
As far as I know, AWS Aurora (not open source) is supposed to be a 100%-compatible implementation of MySQL API.
jarin 11y ago
Errbit is API-compatible with Airbrake https://github.com/errbit/errbit https://github.com/errbit/errbit
kazinator 11y ago
Linux is a reimplementation of proprietary Unix interfaces. WINE is a clone of the Windows API. ReactOS is another one. Also, we should include implementations of software that encodes or decodes data formats, such as audio/video/image codecs. There are numerous examples of free implementations of software that works with proprietary formats, which are analogous to a proprietary API.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

cmdrfred 11y ago

Can't they use something trademarked in the api? for example you have to send 'Slack chat connect' to connect the api so open source stuff can't connect without violating their trademark?

glesica 11y ago
AFAIK trademarks don't work that way. You can "use" a trademark in a text or computer program more or less freely. What you can't do is do business under the trademarked name, or offer a competing (or substantially similar) product for sale that uses the trademarked name. Trademarks aren't so much about "IP protection" as they are about preventing consumer confusion, thus the standards are different. IANAL.
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  Makes sense, then maybe this would prevent him from listing slack anywhere on the repository as it might confuse users that this is a legitimate client.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    It's a matter of degree. CentOS infamously chose to refer to Red Hat as "a prominent North American Linux vendor" and completely deleted the term "Red Hat" from everything out of an abundance of caution after receiving threats from Red Hat's lawyers, but that's probably overboard. It's generally allowed to use trademarks as "nominative uses", i.e., in direct reference to another's product that's not designed to create confusion. He would probably be fine to put in his README something like "An open implementation of the chat API provided by Slack". He definitely shouldn't use the term "Slack" in the name of the repo. Like most non-flagrant potential IP violations, no one can really say for sure until a court hears the case and makes a judgement as to whether the use is fair or unfair, or likely to cause confusion among consumers or not. IANAL.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Trademarks are about IP protection, but the exclusive right in the mark -- the thing that is property -- is the right to use the mark to market products in a particular domain.

jahewson 11y ago

Google however are trying to take the case to the Supreme Court to get that API ruling overturned. IMHO they will succeed, as the federal circuit's ruling is controversial to say the least. I doubt there's anything to worry about here but strictly speaking, we'll have to wait and see.

tzs 11y ago

That cases raises an interesting precedent issue that I have not been able to find the answer to. Let's assume that the Supreme Court decides not to take the appeal, so the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable stands. What courts is this precedent for? Generally, the way precedent works is that if appeals from court X go to court Y, then the decisions of court Y are precedent for court X. If court Z is not on the appeals path from X, then the decisions of court Z are not binding precedent for X. For copyright cases, appeals normally do NOT go to the CAFC. They go the Courts of Appeal for the circuit in which the court appealed from resides. E.g., copyright cases from district courts in the 2nd Circuit go to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In general, that is the appeals path from the Federal district court. Copyright cases aren't specifically singled out. Oracle vs. Google was tried in the 9th Circuit. If it has just been a copyright case, the appeal would have went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, it was also a patent case, and patent cases are singled out. They are explicitly diverted from the normal appeals path and go to the CAFC. If the case is also some other kind of case, such as a copyright case or an antitrust case, the CAFC is allowed to hear those aspects too. So does this mean that if P sues D in the 9th circuit over copyright, with no patent issues or any other issues that would bring the appeal to the CAFC, then the district court would only use the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for precedent (which I believe disagrees with CAFC), and ignore CAFC's Google vs. Oracle copyright ruling? Even more confusing, suppose P sues D over copyright and patents in the 9th Circuit. The district court figures that the case, if appealed, will go to the CAFC, and so follows CAFC precedent for the copyright aspects. Now suppose after the court rules, neither party appeals the court's decisions on any of the patent issues. The only appeal copyright issues. Does the case still go to CAFC? Or does it go the 9th Circuit? If it goes to the 9th Circuit, do they apply their own copyright precedent or CAFC precedent?