swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on Nov 16, 2019 17:01:15 GMT
From Ars Technica, SCOTUS has agreed to review the federal appeals court ruling that APIs are copyrightable, ruling against Google and (in my opinion...) threatening the infrastructure of software development. The summary line would seem to agree with me: "A 2018 ruling on API copyrights could cause problems for the software industry." Y'think? The article itself is informational, but some of the promoted comments are very well written and shine light on the importance of the case. I suspect that the promoted comments list rolls, so just in case that happens here's a couple that I found very useful: - tricorn's comment here, emphasizing the difference between interfaces/API's (not copyrightable) and implementations (copyrightable),
- Fearknot's comment here, on the ridiculously broad ruling from the federal appeals court, and
- edrowland's comment here, covering some of the historical usage of API's and why the exist. SCO v Novell is even mentioned in this one.
From the article, the court asked the federal government whether the case merited review, and were told that it didn't; that the federal court's ruling was correct. That was followed by a flood of opiions from other sources (scholars, developers, companies other than Oracle... ) that apparently convinced the court to take the case. It seems that there may be some hope after all. Fingers crossed...
|
|
swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on Mar 4, 2020 20:08:44 GMT
|
|
swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on Mar 18, 2020 18:55:42 GMT
|
|
swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on May 12, 2020 22:49:14 GMT
Steven Vaughan-Nichols has an article out on ZDNet about the current state of the Oracle v. Google case. According to him the case may actually be decided without having to do with API copyrights. I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but he quotes University of South Carolina IP law professor Ned Snow: He then goes into a history of the case's decisions and how this theory could affect the decision of the court. It's a good read. Part of me (only a small part...) would like to see SCOTUS rule on the case with API's in mind, simply because it would be good to know once and for all where this specific issue stands. I'd also like to see Oracle unable to pursue that issue in yet another case. But at the same time, I'd like to see this case (along with all the suspense it holds for the software development industry) finally decided.
|
|
swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on Sept 18, 2020 19:25:39 GMT
Might be old news, but: Arguments (by phone) are set for Wednesday, October 7.
|
|
charlieturner
Veteran Member
Above ground, and still breathing.
Posts: 37
|
Authored by charlieturner on Sept 18, 2020 21:17:35 GMT
Yay! Something might be happening.
|
|
swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
|
Authored by swmech on Sept 20, 2020 4:37:32 GMT
Aye. Now if we could just see some traction on the SCO v IBM case...
|
|