On 14-10-19 01:26 AM, lkcl . wrote:
On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 5:52 AM, thufir <[email protected]> wrote:
On 14-10-17 08:52 AM, lkcl . wrote:
the reverse-engineering was at several different levels:
I think your missing a key point, which is that you reverse-engineered,
which is exactly exempt:
you are correct in that the reverse-engineering *itself* is irrelevant.
however if it is an *API* that has been reverse-engineered and that
API is considered to be *copyright material*.
please ignore the fact that the material derived has been
reverse-engineered in samba, wine and many other software libre
applications.
there is no link to reverse-engineering.
it is the fact that the APIs which *have* been implemented [by a
means and method that ****HAPPENS***** to be reverse-engineering] are,
through this dangerous precedent that will be used in case-law to make
****ALL***** APIs copyrighted material, that is the most dangerous
concern.
is that clear where your confusion lies?
is that clear enough now exactly what the issue is?
l.
You've muddied the waters beyond all...something...at least for me. So I
quoted everything.
Ok, make this concrete. We're talking OpenJDK. Let's ignore the GPL
for the moment, and just consider copyright. So, OpenJDK can be reverse
engineered, resulting in ReverseEngineeredJDK, which can be completely
proprietary. You're concerned that the SSO of ReverseEngineeredJDK can
be copyrighted? Why are you concerned about that?
(Ignoring Apache Harmony, just because.)
(By SSO, I read that to be "API" by another name, at least that's my
take. Wikipedia has an entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure,_sequence_and_organization
which doesn't make it that much clearer, because the cases cited are
sometimes called into question by the appeals court, but sometimes they
quote those cases -- it's complex.)
What's the possible downside to ReverseEngineeredJDK being protected by
copyright? Or, rather the API/SSO of ReverseEngineeredJDK being
protected by copyright. it's certainly no worse than the fact that
OpenJDK and its API/SSO itself being protected by copyright...
To go on a complete tangent, the interesting question, to my mind not
directly addressed by the appeals court, is whether or not a fork of
ReverseEngineeredJDK would be protected. Is it required to reverse
engineer the entire JDK just get the "good parts"? But, those are
tangential to the central issue: what are the downsides to this
decision, if not overturned, and if applied to other situations.
Or, my take, what are the downsides to overturning the appeals court!
Finally, while not stated by anyone, I think it's widely assumed that a
trivial API, or SSO if you prefer, can't be "protected" by copyright.
The fuzzy part is where to draw that line between an API that's not
creative to one that is. Which, I guess, is where the lawyers come in ;)
-Thufir
