Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Rod Pemberton Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: The Wikipedia article on Forth Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2017 15:00:25 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 42 Message-ID: <20170312150025.08dc0d21@_> References: <680318eb-535b-4595-96c6-3bf7e7f2928c@googlegroups.com> <81c490f2-711c-4fe1-b055-a0c6b8d62bf1@googlegroups.com> <87r32kk3yp.fsf@nightsong.com> <90d87260-6074-41ee-89b2-4a61c8610a52@googlegroups.com> <87fuj0jz9d.fsf@nightsong.com> <2017Mar12.141811@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> NNTP-Posting-Host: ZTD62cW/Uw8bymX5ok+0NA.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:55712 On Sun, 12 Mar 2017 14:59:45 +0000 Alex wrote: > On 3/12/2017 13:18, Anton Ertl wrote: > > Alex writes: =20 > >> My current concern is the ambiguous status of copyright on APIs; it > >> will catch someone out, sooner or later. =20 > > > > What kind of "catch" do you expect? =20 >=20 > Copyright on APIs is the subject of quite a lot of litigation. In > Oracle vs Google (Java API) Oracle lost; there is an appeal > outstanding. The defence was based on the doctrine of "fair use" but > that is a uniquely US confection. The EU have (unclearly) declared > APIs not to be copyrightable; but then there's the issue of EULA > terms that restrict access & limit what may be done, and they have > not yet been adequately tested in the courts (in fact in the US, so > far all of them have been won by the licensor). I don't think we've > seen the end of it yet. >=20 =46rom a post of mine here not quite a year ago: "In the U.S., APIs are copyrightable, but they are not necessarily protected by their copyright. This was due to the Bateman v. Mnemonics court case which ruled that the software interface is not protected by copyright when compatibility with the interface is needed by others. Basically, the court said you can copyright APIs, but the legal system wouldn't enforce that right where it interfered with free market use or compatibility with other software. There are a half-dozen other U.S. court cases which came to the same basic conclusion. Oracle is attempting to overturn that in their lawsuit(s) with Google over Java." I should add, "for financial motives," to that last sentence. Rod Pemberton --=20 All it takes for humanity to conquer the world's toughest problems is to hope, to believe, to share, and to do, in cooperation.