On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 1:47 PM, thufir <[email protected]> wrote: > On 14-10-20 01:18 AM, Robinson Tryon wrote: >> I can see how on a cursory examination one might read "it does not >> hold that SSO of all programs may be stolen", and be confused that it >> implies "some SSO may be stolen", but the next sentence states that >> (in the court's view) the elements in question were free for all under >> the Copyright Act (which I interpret to mean: not copyright-eligible). > > Interesting, I think that the above quote is from the decision by the > original trial judge, Alsup?
Ayup, https://www.eff.org/files/alsup_api_ruling.pdf > 'Though the trial court did add the caveat that it “does not hold that the > structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be > stolen,” Copyrightability Decision, 872 F. Supp. 2d at 1002, it is hard to > see how its method of operation analysis could lead to any other > conclusion.' page 42, appeals court decision > > Maybe the appeals court has it wrong, and Alsup's logic doesn't apply to > *all* computer programs, but just to libre software. Only libre software > makes the "particular elements" (method signatures, etc,) "freely available" > to be copied *verbatim*. If method signatures (and other "particular elements") are deemed to be non-copyrightable, then I'd assume that such a ruling would apply to any code that is accessible to the public, whether Free Software or not. (Admittedly, Free Software probably makes up the largest subset of such works) > So, now, for any GPL licensed program I can think > of, it's now possible, by Alsup's reasoning, to steal the SSO. On the crudest of linguistic levels, I guess that one could say that, but I think that in this context the phrase "to steal" is rather misleading. Alsup writes: --- To accept Oracle’s claim would be to allow anyone to copyright one version of code to carry out a system of commands and thereby bar all others from writing their own different versions to carry out all or part of the same commands. --- Perhaps one could use contract law or other mechanisms to prevent the creation of such 'different versions', but I believe that Alsup's insinuation is that copyrights are not as laterally restrictive as Oracle would like them to be, and cannot be used in a blanket fashion to prohibit all reuse of SSO. -- Robinson Tryon QA Engineer - The Document Foundation LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald [email protected]
