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| Authored by: Chromatix on Thursday, May 31 2012 @ 08:08 PM EDT |
| I would broadly agree with this. In any declaration syntax I know about, there
are:
1) Syntax required to express functionality,
2) Names that are
uncopyrightable,
3) Only one or a limited number of ways of arranging the
above items, unless
you start taking cues from the Obfuscated C Contest, which
it is unreasonable
to do.
If you *did* take cues from the Obfuscated C
Contest, that would arguably
make your code less "efficient". So by *not*
doing so, you protect yourself
against a claim that you *could* have done so,
by sticking close to the idea
rather than expression of it. Perverse, but read
the ruling and you'll see that
it's addressed - and it's actually strangely
liberating. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 31 2012 @ 08:27 PM EDT |
As a programmer, I cannot imagine any kind of
API, in any kind of
language, that might be so unique as to
not fall under the general principals
employed by the judge
to reach his ruling.
I am anything but a
lawyer (in fact, I'm a software
developer), but I think the API of INTERCAL
could qualify. Namely
the fact that you have to be careful
an creative in how and where you use the
statement "PLEASE"
in your programs.
"PLEASE" in intercal has one and
only one function: If
you use it too little, the compiler will reject your
program
because you're impolite. If you use it too often, the
compiler will
reject your program as "excessively polite".
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 31 2012 @ 11:39 PM EDT |
Structure Sequence and Organization. Not necessarily the API itself. I am
thinking of things like C where an API is usually in .h files if the API is
extensive enough perhaps how it is organized into multiple .h files could be
copyrightable in that another implementer could put the entire API into a single
.h.
It is a stretch, but if you have a language that specifies the API declaration
files external to a source code file using that API, the choice of structure for
those might become expressive enough for copyright-ability.
The judge was probably being suitably circumspect from a formal legal
standpoint. From the stand point of practical application, I agree, it is highly
unlikely that any API SSO will fall outside the parameters set up by Judge Alsup
for the non-copyright-ability of the SSO of an API.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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