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header files are functional. Where is the creativity? | 189 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
header files are functional. Where is the creativity?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 05 2012 @ 06:15 AM EDT
API is interface and its only purpose is to bring
implementations together. Its the implementation which
contains the logic, does the work. You cannot go along and
demand to copyright your interfaces and in fact preventing
interoperability that way. You cannot go along and claim
rangeCheck(Object) being an invention and hence prevent
any other from using a similar method signature. If you
could we would end with not being longer to write interfaces
at all since the amount of combinations to come up with an
interface to do a certain thing are rather limited.

This are common words describing what they do, like
rangeCheck => check a range, and you will find them in
any dictonary. Being able to copright common words (and
not any work behind them) would be silly, stupid and would
go against any logic.

If you argue with nice and not so nice interfaces then
copyright is wrong anyways. Its design. So, go on and try to
protect your design (maybe possible now that
evenrectangle-witg-corners can be protected) but not try to
claim copyright for something that only declares your
intention but does not implement it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

header files are functional. Where is the creativity?
Authored by: PJ on Sunday, August 05 2012 @ 11:38 PM EDT
Learn to read a bit more carefully. I wrote
it as a sum up of IBM's position.

I share it, but that's neither here nor there.

And here's what you are missing: copyright law
for software isn't identical to other types. If
it's functional, it's not copyrightable, even if
it's creative, by your foggy definition, because
if there's only one way to do something, you can't
get a monopoly on it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

header files are functional. Where is the creativity?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 06 2012 @ 02:29 AM EDT
When you have to work with a bad header file, you will wish for some creativity on the author's side.
Accounting has creativity, but I don't see many copyrights on Earnings Management (aka more accurately as "Creative Accounting").

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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