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From TechDirt: Top Oracle Lawyer Attempting to Gaslight Entire Software Community: Insists APIs are Executable:
Last week, the Solicitor General of the White House weighed in on Google's request for the Supreme Court to overturn the Federal Circuit's ridiculously confused ruling in the Oracle/Google case concerning the copyrightability of APIs (and whether or not repurposing them is fair use). Not surprisingly, as the Solicitor General has been siding with Oracle all along, it suggests that the Supreme Court not hear the case. Of course, it does so by completely misrepresenting what's at stake in the case -- pretending that this is about whether or not software source code is copyright-eligible
[...] Except... that's not what this case is about. Even remotely. Literally no one denies that software source code is subject to copyright. The question is whether or not an Application Programming Interface -- an API -- is subject to copyright. As we've been saying from the beginning, the most frustrating thing about this entire case is that you have non-technically savvy lawyers and judges simply refusing to comprehend that an API is not software. It's not executable code. It's not "source code" for software. An API is a set of specifications for allowing the access of data, an application, or service. It's a "method of operation," which is simply not subject to copyright law. Indeed, back in 1996, the Supreme Court ruled in Lotus v. Borland that a user interface to a computer program is not subject to copyright under Section 102(b) as the interface is a "method of operation."
Whew! At least the .h files in C/C++ would never be considered an API and are thus safe.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 01 2019, @11:59PM
I think the root of the problem is the lawyers don't understand the API is an idea.
Lawyers are VERY familiar with the concept that you can't copyright an idea, thus something like a blank form cannot be copyrighted. Sorry just can't do it. And to us software dev people its intuitively obvious that an API is like a blank form that interfaces with a system behind the scenes. But thats just one analogy you can interpret as applying to the system.
So how do you convince a lawyer that an API is an idea? I really donno. I mean, working it from the angles we know, it makes sense. But they're working from a different philosophical angle.
They do kinda have a point. .c file, .h file, whatever its all arbitrary what you stick in which file. Sure .c files are interpreted into code, but, dang it, people pre-process .h files all the time to handle cross compilation and other porting oddities. It takes a fair amount of a CS education to teach someone how to think in terms of good API designs. So maybe crappy API designs are copyright-able if they implement more than just ideas.
Lawyers are going to get all confused by static vs dynamic linkers, too.
In the long run I think if you want FOSS-style open and free as in freedom use of your API, you probably should license the API as such.