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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 30 2012 @ 12:10 PM EDT |
A copyright on a language is not well accepted, and an API is arguably just a
language, so there is arguably no way in which either can be copyrighted, or
put
in the public domain.
Under this theory, perhaps dedicating to the public is unrelated to copyright,
but
a statement of goodwill toward the public using such ideas (pretty much as
expressed by CEO-at-the-time Schwartz), and a statement of intent not to
use legal wrangling and sleight fo hand (as we are now seeing) to restrict such
use.
IANAL[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 30 2012 @ 12:29 PM EDT |
Yeah, it reads more like a laches/estoppel argument. "Sun told everybody
this was free to use, and we relied on that promise. They shouldn't be allowed
to turn around now and sue us for using it."
IANAL[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: hardmath on Monday, April 30 2012 @ 12:51 PM EDT |
Publication of the specifications for the Java VM was accompanied by an explicit
invitation to the public to create independent implementations, promising help
to make such an implementation consistent with the spec but without any
licensing of the specifications required for such undertaking.
Licensing of the Java trademark aside, I'd say this was a public dedication.
Much the same seems to apply to the API specifications, although if any
specification license were needed, both Google and Apache had it in spades as a
result of there EC membership on the JCP and of signing the JSPA.
I'm worried that we did not hear more explicitly about the JSPA and its
provisions for undertaking independent implementations at trial. However
numerous parties did accomplish at least partial implementations that never
passed the TCK.
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"Prolog is an efficient programming language because it is a very stupid theorem
prover." -- Richard O'Keefe[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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