On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 09:06:40AM +0100, Chris Burdess wrote: > Hello Classpath hackers, > > What do you think the recent API copyrightability ruling > > > http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/13-1021.Opinion.5-7-2014.1.PDF > > means for non-Oracle (non-OpenJDK) Java library implementations like > Classpath? It might be better to ask actual lawyers about specific cases. Maybe fsf legal can help if you have a specific case in mind. My interpretation (not being a trained legal person and especially not of the specifics of the USA court systems) of the ruling is that it is mostly a technical (in the legal sense) disagreement. It seems to depend a lot on the district or rules within a specific US court justice system. In Europe the case would be totally different for example: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/eus-top-court-apis-cant-be-copyrighted-would-monopolise-ideas/ As far as I understand the ruling the higher court just didn't like that the lower court just said the API as a whole wasn't copyrightable. They would have liked the lower court to say that the APIs as published was declared copyrightable. Then there are several defenses to declare when a similar work that might look like it is a copy still isn't infringing use. Specifically the court says that there should be a ruling about fair use instead. Which might just work out fine since the original jury in the case was very close to just declaring the specific case as fair use: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/oracle-v-google-jury-foreman-reveals-oracle-wasnt-even-close/ For the GNU Classpath library the fact that Oracle itself has been distributing it and gcj before and now after they merged with Sun, and that they explicitly said they want to make interoperability between the communities easy by adopting the exact same license seems to indicate to me they are just fine with it. I think that this case really isn't about APIs or Java in the abstract but just a dispute between two US companies. Cheers, Mark
