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Authored by: clemenstimpler on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 08:50 PM EDT |
The "phone number" analogy is weak because anyone
can publicise and
instruct people to use different numbers.
You are in fact
rehearsing a point made by Oracle: Google could have organised their directory
differently. This is why I said:
So Google published its own
directory. This directory had to follow the expectations of clients using Sun
robots before.
You must keep in mind that the 'customers calling
robots to their house' are Android app developers. They expect that core
functionality is present when they write their Java app.
They call a library
via the API in order to get a job done they do not want to do themselves.
Relearning dial up numbers in this context is equivalent to learning a new
language.
And keep in mind that protecting 'sequence, structure, and
organization' via copyright implies that in some cases you may have to change
the functionality involved. It is not enough to change
'plumber.repair.kitchensink' into
'pipe-and-water-technician.repair.kitchensink'. If I understand Oracle
correctly, you have to change that into
'pipe-and-water-technician.repair.faucet.and.drain' or
'pipe-and-water-technician.repair.faucet.or.drain' in order not to copy SSO.
This is what the whole problem is about: There are only so many ways to describe
the functionality of an API in a specification. If this is protected by
copyright, there might not be any way of expressing the desired functionality
that is not covered by copyright ('pipe-and-water-technician.fixing.kitchensink'
may be a derived work, based on
'pipe-and-water-technician.repairing.kitchensink).[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 25 2012 @ 09:16 PM EDT |
> The "phone number" analogy is weak because anyone can publicise
and instruct people to use different numbers.
And you can write a different API and ask people to use it, but it will break
any machines that rely on calling those numbers automatically.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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