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This case is going to be especially relevant for Microsoft now that they are cloning Apple's iOS APIs: https://dev.windows.com/en-us/uwp-bridges/project-islandw
by petilon 11y ago
This case is going to be especially relevant for Microsoft now that they are cloning Apple's iOS APIs: https://dev.windows.com/en-us/uwp-bridges/project-islandwood https://dev.windows.com/en-us/uwp-bridges/project-islandwood
In my opinion implementing someone else's API should be allowed under the fair use provision of the copyright law. This is needed so that whoever came up with the API does not hoard applications developed for the API and stifle innovation and competition at the platform level, as Microsoft did for many years with the Win32 API.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoWhat's even more amusing is that Microsoft sided with Oracle in this case. Looks like that's going to bite them in the ass soon.
- tankenmate 11y agoNot really, they'll pay off Apple. Who it will really hurt is start ups that don't have the money to license. If APIs are held to be copyrightable and not subject to fair use then this will lead to reduced innovation in the US. A similar ruling in Germany went the other way and stated that APIs are functional and hence not copyrightable.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoApple doesn't need the money. What they do need, however, is developer lock in which is probably non negotiable.
- andybak 11y agoHowever there is probably a quid pro quo somewhere in there that will give Microsoft leverage. So the previous point still stands, with one minor modification. The giants will come to terms and the small-fry will be screwed.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoSteve Jobs thought the same thing when he showed Bill Gates the Macintosh OS for the first time.
- andybak 11y agoHardly the same. Apple wasn't a 'giant' then, neither really was Microsoft. The tech landscape is very different now.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoI disagree. Apple and Steve Jobs learned an important lesson from that "quid pro quo" meeting with Bill Gates that they'll never ever forget. reply
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lightbritefight 11y agoGood thing he had copied it wholesale from Xerox PARCs first. Saved them both some time.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoYour history is incorrect, though. Apple was authorized by Xerox PARC to use their technology in exchange for allowing Xerox to buy 100,000 shares in Apple before their IPO.
- hga 11y agoI would use the word "concepts" rather than technology, although I'm sure there was some of that as well. The general UI, though, came from Douglas Engelbart's late '60s oN-Line System (NLS), the subject of the Mother of All Demos. Pretty much everything, windows, the mouse, just no graphics. It was much copied, e.g. I'm think the Lisp Machine had the same basic GUI working by the time work on the Apple Lisa started, it was certainly reliable and somewhat polished as of the fall of 1979/1980. If you're a student of this sort of history, it's a bit sobering how little "new" stuff we're really doing, it was all conceptualized and generally at least prototyped by the end of the '60s.
- XorNot 11y agoOn the other hand nothing will get it reversed quicker then pretty much every juggernaut lobbyist wing being turned against it. It's going to turn around and sting Oracle just as quickly as they think they profit from it.
- Joeri 11y agoApple and microsoft have had a cross-licensing deal for decades which allows them to use each other's ip as long as they don't create an outright clone of the other guy's product.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoAren't the API's used in Islandwood a clone of iOS API's?
- petilon 11y agoYou can clone the API without cloning the product.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoWhether the clone clause is applicable to only products would require examination of the agreement.
- Joeri 11y agoRegardless, if the rumors are true apple is about to release a surface tablet clone (iPad pro), so they might not be so trigger happy out of fear of retaliation.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoHow exactly is the rumored iPad pro a Surface clone? Additionally, without the optional and expensive keyboard, could you not call the Surface an iPad clone by your definition?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cm2187 11y agoActually doesn't that make class inheritance a violation of copyright? If you expose a class that inherits from a base class (say stream).
- talideon 11y agoTime to start working around that by using composition not inheritance! No, wait, that won't work. To make composition work, you still need to be able to share interfaces.