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Supreme Court May Decide the Fate of APIs (But Also Klingonese and Dothraki)

Posted by timothy on from the will-people-finally-stop-saying-frak? dept.

New submitter nerdpocalypse writes: In a larger battle than even Godzilla v. Mothra, Google v. Oracle threatens not only Japan but the entire nerd world. What is at stake is how a language can be [copyrighted]. This affects not just programming languages, APIs, and everything that runs ... well ... everything, but also the copyright status of new languages such as Klingon and Dothraki.

1 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. So in layman's terms... by tlambert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So in layman's terms... the SFLC want the Supreme to refuse to hear the case, because they think that the copying of a trivial function, difficult to implement in any other embodiment, allows a "thin end of the wedge" argument in favor of GPL'ing everything on Android.

    They specifically cite the Lotus v. Borland case in support of this.

    They specifically avoid citing the Ashton Tate v. Fox Software case, because doing so would contradict their claims, and weaken the argument that the Supreme court should hear the case.

    Clearly, someone needs to file an Amicus brief citing Ashton Tate v. Fox Software, and suggest that the brief needs to be heard.