Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
Google is a parasite, but no-one should be able to copyright an API.
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I mixed. I realize that I don't want "var a = min(b,c)" to be copywrighted such that every computer language must come up with novel syntax (api) for everything.
However, Sun (subsequently purchased by Oracle) spent years and money developing the computer language "java" and building up the business and ecosystem (developers who use java). They made money licensing java.
For Google to just take the language whole hog...but just writing their own implementation...allowed Google to avoid paying Sun/Oracle for their work. Rather than creating their own computer language (which they subsequently have), they copied java so that they could benefit from all the programmers who already knew and liked java.
I'm surprised the Borland Quattro Pro case wasn't brought up. Borland made a look/work-a-like of Lotus 1-2-3. They did what Google did. They didn't steal the actual code behind Lotus, just created their own version that was so much the same, that existing Lotus customers could switch. Borland lost.
Google should have lost. I'm not sure how you could distinguish "no one gets to own an api call" from "no one can whole hog copy a computer language"...but there needs to be a way.