|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 07:41 PM EDT |
Same problem Oracle have.
Even if the law does swing that far then they should have complained about it
years ago.
If the law does change to that extent, expect most software dev. to move
offshore in a hurry as well. Doing business in the US would become
unsustainable.
Most manufacturing would also move offshore as well I suspect. Unencumbered
"interfaces" are what makes large scale manufacturing viable.
Well, O.K. just accelerating the trend, but it'd hurt.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 10:25 PM EDT |
Well it could affect much more than just these in theory. One interesting point
is that If an API itself has copywrite because it has SSO etc and you can't copy
it this also means you can't call it without an explicit license to do so. This
is because to call the API you have to 'copy' the api definition to do so. This
means that if a company makes a library/DLL/interface and someone uses it and
the maker gets upset then could they sue? Could companies like Microsoft sue
every IT company they don't like because they might be using an API without
'permission'. This is a big reason why copywrites on API's would be very bad
law.
The only good thing is there are many other laws that you can use to defend this
kind of attack. Governments would also quickly step in if this silliness were
to happen on anti competitive grounds if nothing else.
Michael[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 10:38 PM EDT |
They would pretty much be avoided like the plague by everyone.
At the very least, the courts would rule that releasing the API constituted an
implicit license for everyone in the world to use the API for any purpose, thus
destroying lawsuits like Oracle's.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
| Authored by: tknarr on Saturday, April 28 2012 @ 11:58 PM EDT |
It's even more fundamental. IBM wrote the BIOS for the original PC, and
established the API by which everything communicates with the BIOS. IBM asserted
copyright over the BIOS API, and lost. It's been at least 20 years since
any PC used an IBM BIOS. Translation: if Oracle wins, every
single IBM PC-compatible system in use today is infringing on IBM's
copyrights merely by existing.
Those copyrights haven't expired. IBM
hasn't asserted them solely because a court ruled that the API wasn't protected
by copyright. If Oracle wins, IBM should simply raise it's claims again citing
the new ruling and asking an injunction against every single maker of
PC-compatible systems and motherboards and demanding the destruction of every
single piece of infringing equipment. That should get somebody's
attention tout suite. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
