On 10/23/2014 05:13 AM, Kern Sibbald wrote:
On 14-10-23 06:49 AM, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
Hi Thufir,
My understanding is, and I know Luke disagrees violently,
I doubt he's the only one; perhaps the others, like me, just can't be
bothered to entertain that an API can be copyrighted, and calling it an
SSO doesn't make it any more sensible.
is that SSO is a *useful* shorthand for API.
No shorthand is needed. They are distinct concepts. Both three letters
long. :-)
Maybe this is already clear, but perhaps on should stress that API =
"Interface specification or template" and SSO (in this case) =
"copyrightable code" that implements the API.
The appeals court write about the SSO of an API. So, no, I disagree
with that interpretation, based on the usage by the appeals court, and
that, when Alsup writes about the SSO of a computer program, I don't
think he means the implementing code, but, literally, the Structure,
Sequence and Organization of, in this case, the 37 Java API's.
If Alsup meant the implementing code, then he would've written that,
instead of the SSO of the computer program. In the contentious,
inflammatory remark by Alsup, he was generalizing to any computer
program, of course. I think this was a deliberate choice on his part in
considering the broader question of the purpose of copyright itself,
because it's been suggested, since I think the beginning, that this case
could go to the Supreme Court.
(Yes, Alsup does draw the conclusion that because the elements of the
Java API are freely available (and I would contest that notion), this
makes the SSO available to copied. I don't take that at all to mean
that the SSO is, or can be equated to, the implementing code. Google
never said that it didn't copy the method signatures, but did maintain
that the implementing code was farmed out.)
The wikipedia entry on SSO seems, to me, very even handed.
-Thufir
