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Worrisome, but distingishable cases | 451 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Worrisome, but distingishable cases
Authored by: Tkilgore on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 11:47 PM EDT
> A Java program will return a "method not found" error
if you give the computer the wrong name for a method. In that regard, it is
more like a wall plug, where every device that wants electricity must have a
plug. While the original design of the wall outlet & plug may have been
creative, there simply isn't any way to get electricity without a compatible
plug. And the evidence shows that Google merely copied the wall plug, not the
whole device attached to it.

Well, that is part of the problem, isn't it? Namely, that if one takes things to
extremes in the way that this case seems to be doing, you are actually wrong
about this.

As an extreme but perfectly feasible example, it is perfectly possible to do the
following:

-- turn off the power at the main.
-- open up the wall socket, and remove the plug leaving two bare wires and a
bare ground wire
-- cut off the plug for whatever appliance you want to hook up, bare the wires,
and splice them onto the wires hanging out of the outlet in the wall
-- go back and turn on the main again.

If you have messed something up (for example, if you have not reversed the
connection of the "hot" wire and the "cold" wire while doing
this) then you are going to have a problem which is probably accompanied by
sparks and other excitement.

But if you have done everything carefully and with requisite knowledge, it will
work just fine.

See? You really didn't need that plug after all! By similar reasoning, Google
did not "need" to use those APIs, either.

You don't like this line of reasoning? Well, I don't either. But all I needed to
do in order to come up with it is to apply a bit of Oracle logic.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

coin prices are less worrisome
Authored by: xtifr on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 03:31 PM EDT
As someone else pointed out above, the coin prices were ruled as individually
copyrightable. That puts it in a whole different category from this, where the
individual names are not copyrightable. Easily distinguishable.

---
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes them soggy and hard to
light.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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