The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

> "Adam D. Ruppe" wrote
>> On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 10:01:41AM -0400, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>>  snip trademark explanation
>>
>> Conceded.
>>
>>> No, the difference is that the code is copyrighted.  If you build the
>>> code
>>> from reverse engineering, it is a derivative work.  The verbal
>>> description
>>> is a description of the ideas, which are not copyrightable.
>>
>> Would it be fair to say information about the ideas is fine to spread,
>> but information about the specific implementation isn't?
> 
> Hm... depending on the information about the specific implementation, that
> might be debatable.  For example, if you wanted to have a competing
> library that used the exact same API (i.e. a swappable replacement), I'm
> not sure that would be considered infringement, as there is no way to
> create a binary
> compatible API without copying exactly (e.g. Lesstif).  Most likely, this
> API is described in a document, so you could potentially write a new
> header file that had the same function names, but that wasn't a copy of
> the
> original header file.  But surely, if you describe the exact
> implementation, it is infringement.
> 
> Description of the concepts behind the implementation should be fine.
> 
> Please note, I am not a lawyer, so don't take this as legal advice ;)

I have seen commercial libraries implement exact same API as other
commercial libraries, and only been considered as healthy competition - it
is the same with Wine and their re-implementation of Windows API's - it
isn't possible to copyright or otherwise restrict the "use" of API's for
such a purpose - you cannot just copy the headers the API is described in
though - ref the MinGW windows header project.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango