Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

I'm split.

IBM wanted companies to embrace SQL - because then people implement applications already compatible with their database product, and conceptually could migrate without rewriting their applications.

Amazon wanted companies to embrace S3 - for the same reason. Or maybe they didn't, but they decided that the API was the least significant compelling part of their product - that people would still choose S3 regardless of whether other storage offerings had the same API - for the cost, and durability.

Sun wanted Google to use Java. Because more developers using the language, regardless of the underlying implementation is better for the entire ecosystem.

Oracle doesn't.

So to some degree i do feel like consent matters here. It doesn't matter if Oracle copied Amazon's S3 API illegally if Amazon doesn't care enough to pursue it.

Finally, I hate arguments that say "It's just the API". We all know a good API makes or breaks developer tools.

Ultimately, I feel like it goes without question that a decision in Oracle's favour will cause irrevocable damage to the industry and permit all sorts of bad actors to start looking to purchase ownership to APIs just so they could sue those they consider infringers.

But I can't help but feel that ultimately Oracle has a point :(

> But I can't help but feel that ultimately Oracle has a point :(

Copyright is not some innate right. Interfaces should not be copyrightable just because they require some level of competence to design.

If it was a patent then at least the term would expire, but copyright lasts a very, very long time. Car companies would love to copyright mechanical interfaces and so prevent anyone from making aftermarket parts.

> Copyright is not some innate right. Interfaces should not be copyrightable just because they require some level of competence to design.

The purpose of copyright, according to the constitution is "[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts". So generally, things should be copyrightable if granting the copyright results in more and higher quality work. If APIs are indeed protected, there it is plausible argument that we will have more of them and they will be of higher quality.

> If APIs are indeed protected, there it is plausible argument that we will have more of them and they will be of higher quality.

Sure, but that immediately brings to mind the question of whether such fragmentation will be a hindrance to technological progress. And there's little doubt about which way the evidence tilts on that question—there's way too much mainstream software that would not have been legal without the right to reimplement an API without a license. So then it becomes a question of whether it is better for the law to promote good API design, or to promote actual useful software.

The idea that giving people an effectively eternal copyright interest in making interoperable software would improve software strains credulity.

It seems extremely likely that the human race may not exist long enough for current works to ever have their copyright expire.

> The idea that giving people an effectively eternal copyright interest in making interoperable software would improve software strains credulity.

Why would it? Giving a company the right to prevent interoperability does not necessarily mean they will invoke that right. It also might promote alternative APIs potentially fragmenting the market, but also inventivizing various approaches. It's not clear that this is the case, but it's not clear that it isn't either.

> ... but also inventivizing various approaches

You may as well argue standards have lowered innovation.

> Giving a company the right to prevent interoperability does not necessarily mean they will invoke that right

I hope that whoever created int max(int a, int b) is benevolent because just about every programmer has reinvented that at some point. What about Response get(String url) which returns an HTTP GET response. We have probably all written that at some point and most HTTP libraries implement it.

> I hope that whoever created int max(int a, int b) is benevolent because just about every programmer has reinvented that at some point. What about Response get(String url) which returns an HTTP GET response. We have probably all written that at some point and most HTTP libraries implement it.

FUD. You're using extreme arguments that traditional copyright law handles them well. API functions like "max" or "get" are so basic and general that they would not be protected by copyright law because they are not original "creative" works... a "max" function can only be written in a few ways that don't really rise to the level of creativity.

However, a massive amalgamation of functions and classes, could be protected. I don't see any theoretical reason why they shouldn't, just practical ones based on what the software industry has expected as standard behavior.

It means most will or alternatively their next of kin 10 or 30 years later. The human race hasn't proved benevolently disposed without a positive social norm to abide by in the entire REST of human history.

Given the choice between honest work and preying on our fellow human being its always easier to exploit. This is why despite being proposed as a means to inspire creation copyright theoretically expires 7O years after you die and realistically never. Once someone has conceived of a way to extract value out of their fellow human beings that extraction becomes a right regardless of how it effects civilization as a whole and most of this value doesn't even flow to creators it flows to soulless intermediaries who have inserted themselves between creator and consumer. Why given the opportunity to exploit more would they NOT?

> Given the choice between honest work and preying on our fellow human being its always easier to exploit. This is why despite being proposed as a means to inspire creation copyright theoretically expires 7O years after you die and realistically never.

Your argument is not really about intellectual property rights, and is more about property rights and capitalism generally. If you don't believe in property rights or investment, then sure, IP rights don't make sense either.

I believe in property rights with reasonable limitations like taxation on same. I do not believe in IP at all beyond say trademark protection making it possible to know what you are buying.

The purpose is actually so that nobody can make Mickey Mouse merch. Everything else is obfuscation.

That is an argument for the idea of copyright itself. It's not an argument in favor of the current system and it also proves no justification to expand the current system.

> That is an argument for the idea of copyright itself. It's not an argument in favor of the current system and it also proves no justification to expand the current system.

You're wrong. The constitution grounds copyright (and other IP rights), in utilitarianism. Meaning, if granting stronger protection promotes overall welfare, then that is justification.

The problem with utilitarianism is that it's very difficult to determine what is greater "overall welfare". By its nature, it's an empirical decision. Once you start invoking data (rather than basic rights), lots of people and companies will come out of the woodwork to promote their own data points.

We will have more of them, but they would be of _lower_ quality. Because they could no longer build off one another. You would start to see different API's because they _had_ to be different, not because they were better.

For an example of how this plays out, look at the proliferation of desktop GUIs in the late 80s and into the 90s. Everybody was throwing in gratuitous differences in the hopes of making their look and feel "different enough" to avoid a lawsuit. So we ended up with a mess: swapping the location of "OK" and "Cancel" buttons, every platform's scroll bars behaved differently, "Trash" vs "Recycle", and so on. There was some well-intentioned experimentation to see if the status quo could be improved, but those good ideas couldn't spread and become universal.

> look at the proliferation of desktop GUIs in the late 80s and into the 90s. Everybody was throwing in gratuitous differences in the hopes of making their look and feel "different enough" to avoid a lawsuit. So we ended up with a mess: swapping the location of "OK" and "Cancel" buttons, every platform's scroll bars behaved differently

I don't see this as a mess at all. I see this as very positive experimentation and eventual consolidation. Would it really be better if one company came up with a GUI and everyone latched on to it?

> Sun wanted Google to use Java. Because more developers using the language, regardless of the underlying implementation is better for the entire ecosystem.

> Oracle doesn't.

> So to some degree i do feel like consent matters here. It doesn't matter if Oracle copied Amazon's S3 API illegally if Amazon doesn't care enough to pursue it.

If consent matters, then Google implicitly received it from Sun, but had it removed afterwards by Oracle. So if you actually support Oracle here, I don't understand how you can say "consent matters". The consent was given, yet you yourself don't consider it in Google's favor.

> Sun wanted Google to use Java. [...] Oracle doesn't.

By your reasoning, IBM could spin-off a division with intellectual property rights to SQL, sell it to Google for 10B, who could then claim "we never agreed SQL should be free!" and sue Oracle into bankruptcy

Maybe they should! :D

Isn't that how the whole SCO vs. Linux lawsuits worked?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes

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