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Having written an IDE, an API, and having gone through the copyright process for software before, I have at least a little understanding the current debate between Google and Oracle. While the general consensus seems to be that Google is right, I disagree. Here are my reasons.
1. There is very poor support for software copyrights at the U.S. Copyright Office. This is true to such an extent that it is practically trade interference. Like or not, the copyright office is almost universally unwilling to review file formats that are aren't developed by Microsoft.
The costs associated with patents are extraordinarily high, and the procedures for using the patent system is so obfuscated that it is meaningless for software. It might be practical to create a filing system for APIs that are separate class of design patent. But the real issue here, is nobody in the USPTO or the the Copyright Office wants to serve the software industry.
API copyrights provides an abbreviated basis for for dealing with the copyright office, and provides an easier mechanism for courts to understand. It is trivial to rename elements of source code in a piece of work and make it appear to not be the same work, though fundamentally it is. Contrary to this APIs must be the same to be useful. This means that distinguishing infringement is easier for them, which makes it easier for me to establish a protectable space for my work.
2. Protocols are underdeveloped. One of the huge arguments made by Google supporters is that API copyright will break protocols. Yes they will. This is a good thing. We should be doing more in protocol development and less in presentation development. It is a simple fact that civil rights in domestic communications is a technically achievable thing that has very little support from the commercial sector. Backwards compatibility has created market pressures that have preserved insecure systems architectures, and that has had a very negative effect on civil rights.
API copyrights will break backwards compatibility. But more importantly, they will preserve the market space of forward compatibility. Which is to say that API copyrights will have a positive effect on mitigating Embrace Extend Extinguish (EEE) business strategies. This is very good for FOSS in particular, and it will be good for the Internet, because it will force a more diverse protocol stack into existence. Sorry IETF, but we are way past the point where there is any excuse for the current state of the TCP/IP Internet.
3. If you are writing clean code, you are writing an API. If you are using Object Orientation correctly, everything you do during the development cycle contributes to the creation of an API. The only exception is the main() loop, which aggregates all of these API calls. Which means (drum roll) if you write clean code in a modern programming language, you are writing protectable code.
The semantic differences that people make over API vs. code are ridiculous. The Copyright Office currently accepts "compendiums" as copyrightable works. An API is a compendium of function calls, sans the underlying functions. But BOTH are copyrightable. There is nothing in an API copyright that prevents you from copyrighting the underlying source code as well. C has always done something similar by separating header and source files. So does your header file deserve less copyright than your source code? Hardly.
All the API copyright does is create a legal namespace that is unique to your project. It is more akin to a trademark than it is copyright or patent. But in any case, there is a need for lawfully protectable namespace in software.
4. It will fragment the software industry. Software engineers are notoriously cantankerous characters. If small software projects and library writing become more protected by copyright, then independent software development will be more profitable.
5. The whole case might be a put-on. Maybe Google is just shouting: "Don't throw me in that briar patch!", to each judge as they pass by. Both of these companies have huge back catalogs of software, all of which would be massively more litigable if Oracle wins. I believe this to be true and regard the variability of the outcome as slight. If they are playing Potemkin village to the highest court in the land, well that is their prerogative. They paid the lawyers to put on the show after all.
YMMV
Anonymous
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @02:47PM (3 children)
"I don't know how a software can escape the clause of "method of operation" (of a computer)."
By that logic an auto repair manual would also not be copyrightable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @03:52PM (2 children)
Very good example. Because the steps involved in carrying out a particular repair job are not copyrightable.
1) Elevate car.
2) Remove oil plug.
3) Allow oil to drain out.
4) Remove Filter
5) Put New Filter On.
6) Restore oil plug.
7) De-elevate car.
8) Fill car with oil.
You are more than welcome to create an auto repair guide with those 8 steps listed. You can use the exact words that I used there, because none of them are original expressions and none of them show any creativity in the expression. Although if you use periods on all steps and omit the period on Step 4 then I can prove that you actually took the expression of my work and copied it, just as cookbook makers used to include a false recipe to prove copy. That little thing aside, the facts contained within auto repair manuals are not copyrightable. You just can't copy the text and pictures directly but have to set your own form for them.
You are also more than welcome to build a car where the above 8 steps must be followed periodically - no auto maker can copyright the steps involved with an oil change.
So, why are protocols and interface standards copyrightable again?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19 2019, @04:26PM (1 child)
I recommend you mosey on down to the auto parts store and check the title pages of the repair manuals.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 19 2019, @07:37PM
I didn't say the manuals weren't copyrightable, just the opposite. I said the facts and processes contained in them are not. I recommend you learn what copyright covers and what it does not. Lest you believe a front page telling you, "you can't copy any part of this," not realizing that you can write whatever you like and the question is still open to legal interpretation. Then again, I bet you believe them when they say, "This broadcast is copyrighted by NFL Productions for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of this game without the consent of NFL Productions is prohibited," too!
This sig for rent.