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APIs, as _Google_ told you, are not blueprints.
Authored by: jbb on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 10:44 PM EDT
APIs, as Sun's CTO told you, are not blueprints.

When Schmidt testified before Congress saying APIs are not blueprints he was the CTO of Sun:

When we discuss interfaces, it is important to carefully note the distinction between an interface specification and an actual product, which has interfaces that conform to the specification.

Interface specifications are merely the words that describe the interface and which allows two components to work together or interoperate. They are not blueprints nor recipes for actual products. Let me repeat that, interface specifications are not blueprints nor recipes for making knockoffs or clones.

... With respect to intellectual property rights, Sun strongly believes in and will defend the rights of intellectual property owners to maximize their returns on product implementations. At that same time, we believe that interface specifications are not protectable under copyright.

The article goes on to say that Judge Alsup is not going to allow this to be seen by the jury because it is "[h]istorical information that is too old [and] has only marginal relevance to Google’s equitable defenses". It would be very bizarre if the fact that APIs are not blueprints would have changed during that time. Sure, policies can change but facts don't.

It is a shame that the judge disallowed this and then lets Oracle go on about APIs being blueprints. Letting Google cite the factual claims without the policy claims would have been a reasonable compromise. Nonetheless, whether the jury gets to hear it or not, the fact remains that it was Sun's CTO who said APIs are not blueprints (although I'm sure Google says it too).

---

Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we’re in — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

"Update 3:" ==> "Update 4:"
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 09:42 AM EDT
There are two updates labeled as "Update 3".

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

inconsistence in article
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 10:28 AM EDT
claimed:

Wait. First Jacobs and now Reinhold say APIs are a
blueprint, and yet Reinhold says, when asked if APIs can be
too big:
Yes. Humans are bad at managing long lists of uncorrelated
information.

but that is NOT what's been said:[quote]

Oracle: Is it possible to make a package too big?

Mark Reinhold: Yes. Humans are bad at managing long lists of
uncorrelated information. [/quote]

a package is a container not an API! you could put all of
JAVA in one package and searching for a API would indeed
become troublesome.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

now => no
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 09:29 AM EDT
accurately responded to with a yes or now

should be:

yes or no

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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