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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, May 20 2012 @ 04:08 PM EDT |
It's been a while since anyone assigned me homework, but
because I'm such a free thinker and an independent mind
etc., and because I'm just as knowledgeable in matters of
software as those "bloggers", let me quote part of my reply
to pem which explains my reasoning (did you read my long
comment, parent of "And BTW"? The one where I specifically
discussed Wine?). Here's my thinking:
I'm not
afraid because successful upstart products rarely rely on
cloning an "incumbent"'s API to achieve success, and cloning
of an API is rarely (if ever) a necessary requirement in
building a successful competitor. Google+ does not attempt
to clone Facebook's APIs (and this incompatibility is not
considered by anyone to be a main component in Google+'s
lackluster performance so far); C# did not clone Java's API;
and, perhaps most pertinent to this discussion, Android did
not clone most of Java's API - only 37 packages. For
example, it cloned neither Java ME's GUI APIs nor Java SE's,
and those are, arguably, the most complex API required for
mobile app development. This hasn't stopped Android from
becoming more successful than Java ME.
So I'm not worried, because even if APIs could be
copyrighted, it will have very little implications on
competitions (just like it never has so far).
OTOH, many vendors may choose to freely distribute their
APIs under open-source licenses, even more permissive than
the GPL, chosen by Sun and rejected by Android. They may
choose to do so in order to encourage adoption of their
product. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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