On Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Micha Feigin wrote:
Question is, is it enough that there is one non-GPL implementation I
can link against exporting the same API, does this now make the work
non-derived of the GPL API?
More to the point, does the API fall under the GPL or the results.
The answer is: it depends. If your intentions are GOOOOD then maybe it's
ok. If your intentions are BAAAAD then not. If your intentions are
BAAAAD but your product serves the current interest of the DHS^H^H^H
nation, then you win. If your intentions are GOOOOD but you step on the
toes of someone who can copyright dictionary words then you are an alien
suspect of anti-american activity. If you are not rich enough to afford
the lawsuit(s) then it does not matter, because it means that you have
lost, and you might even have to change your name even if you win.
Common sense says that an API established by someone and released as a
standard for other's use is open and legit, as opposed to an in-house
API that was stolen by a spy from a locked safe (the status of reverse
engineered APIs is gray even in common sense scenarios). Then, both the
library implementor and the application implementor write against the
API (they don't even need to talk to each other). This is programming by
contract (nothing to do with law) at its best. The GPL as applied to the
kernel is using these terms of common sense imho. With the exception of
the aggregation clause which is gray-ish but defendable (if the
aggregate uses parts and functions of the kernel then it is not a mere
aggregate - this is the position of Linus himself afaik). However common
sense plays no role in law as you know.
Trying to apply simple logic here fails because the system is not
consequent (notice how I keep saying this - one could say that the
determinant of the solution matrix is negative ... and fluctuating).
APIs are not licensable/patentable, but ink cartridges and their innards
function (as in API) are, while their refilling is not. Yet licenses
that stipulate what can or cannot be done with software or other
licensed work (like music recordings or books) after sale are enforced
(to the point where the US copyright office had to issue a specific
time-limited waiver so the blind can hear closed caption from encrypted
dvds while they prepare for emigration in view of the expiry of the
waiver), while licenses that stipulate what can or cannot be done with
other recipients and devices and their refurbishing are striken down. It
depends on whence the winds of pre-election (or post-election, for a
change) populism and Franklin effigies are blowing on that day. To be
fair, there is also the third kind of cause that affects the
establishment of 'precedents': on those days when neither populism nor
Franklin effigies affect the 'logic' 'true' legal logic affects it. This
obviously adds a third unknown to the previous two since no difference
is made between legal precedents established during populism, Franklin
winds and 'just' logic.
The end effect is a soup. Legal minestrone a la usa. I think that if
someone would try to program the current set of precedents in a computer
as Horn clauses (as it was done with tax laws afaik) and check for
consistency then the machine would lock up hard immediately.
I do believe that I venture here to the very gray areas of the GPL that would
be rather difficult to defend in court, much more then making a non-GPL program
impose as a GPL one though and is much more an ethical or theological question
than the original one.
Yup. The idea that a published API is not patentable/licensable while it
is an otherwise ordinary publication (printed on paper etc) is one of
the many departures from consecvence and logic in the current
patent/legal system which I hold for secret marketing ploys by
Alka-Selzer (who make the relevant stomach pills to required relieve the
effects of trying to understand this 'logic'). Talking about 'logic' in
a license and its application under these circumstances is a sort of a
recursive negative definition a la GNU (GNU is not Unix).
As a short appetizer (I want percentage from Alka for this) did you know
that the RIAA was formed as a consortium of patent holders in radio and
telecommunications technologies for the purpose of exploiting said
patents without litigation, which litigation had stifled the development
of radio until then (in the 1920s) ? So the patent holders formed a
non-corporation whose members agreed not to sue each others over patents
and intellectual property. That would be a pretty close definition of a
cartel, but the powers that be looked the other way for the common good
(see under populism ?). Thereafter radio flourished and the RIAA patents
were used by everyone for the common good (of the RIAA members). The
MPAA is organized along very similar principles. And guess what ? Now
they sue others for using competing technology in various ways (like
decss and mp3) who 'violate' the terms of after-sale licenses (unlike
refilling cartridges, refilling an mp3 player is not the same thing ? -
one has to be consequent in one's inconsequence I think). So to make
things better, these two guys joined their little hands:
http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/000555.php
and will continue to publish FUD and raise taxes on recordable media
about how many records they would have sold if naughty users wouldn't
and hadn't soandso.
It's a system, and it works (for them). Licenses, patent litigations and
other IP wars are just various aspects of the same system. Don't try to
understand. Just get things done and do your best not to run afoul of
the 800 billion dollar Borg.
Imho there never was, there is not, and there never will be a perfect
license. Licenses are graded by the number of FUD damage points they
might inflict on a misuser. Anybody who would have to sue the majority
of his users over license breaches would be a loser, financially at the
very least. Enough with the war of words.
Peter
PS: I am trying to make my living using high tech, some of it of
american origin, like software and microprocessors. I write about these
things as a result of my attempts to study the subject. One should
remember that I am just a humble observer of a far away country when
througths of shooting the messenger cross the reader's mind ...
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