copyrightable APIs? (was RE: namespace protection compatible wit

[Angelo Schneider]

Well,

You can look it up in a standard law book I guess.

I have that not at hand and not the time acctually to do it, I'm in a
copyright case in court on monday .... still preparing my stand.

Angelo

Chloe Hoffman wrote:
> 
> Not to sound harsh but......Do you have any support for these
> categorical statements? Please cite some European case law, statutes,
> legal texts, etc. Inquiring minds want to know.
> 
> >From: Angelo Schneider
> >To: forrest at mibsoftware.com
> >CC: license-discuss at opensource.org
> >Subject: Re: copyrightable APIs? (was RE: namespace protection
> compatible wit
> >Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 18:42:49 +0100
> >
> >Hi!
> >
> >In Europe APIs are not "copyright able".
> >No idea about the US.
> >
> >However if you publich them in a book, the book of course is
> >copyrighted.
> >However you can not prevent anyone to write a software against a
> given
> >API.
> >Same is true for data formats. (In Europe dataformats e.g. a flat
> file
> >format for a word processor are not copyright able)
> >
> >Regards,
> > Angelo
> >
> >Forrest J Cavalier III wrote:
> > >
> > > > ----------
> > > > Von: Forrest J Cavalier III[SMTP:FORREST at MIBSOFTWARE.COM]
> > > > Gesendet: Freitag, 20. April 2001 13:50:06
> > > > An: license-discuss at opensource.org
> > > > Cc: forrest at mibsoftware.com
> > > > Betreff: copyrightable APIs? (was RE: namespace protection
> compatible wit
> > > > Diese Nachricht wurde automatisch von einer Regel
> weitergeleitet.
> > > >
> > > How can you copyright an API? Isn't it simply a
> > > collection of facts?
> > >
> > > Perhaps you could copyright the formal parameter
> > > names, and certainly the documentation in a header
> > > file.
> > >
> > > But the facts of
> > > function name,
> > > return type(s)
> > > parameter type(s)
> > > are just facts. There is no creative expression involved.
> > >
> > > Forrest J. Cavalier III, Mib Software Voice 570-992-8824
> > > http://www.rocketaware.com/ has over 30,000 links to
> > > source, libraries, functions, applications, and documentation.
> >
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Angelo Schneider OOAD/UML Angelo.Schneider at oomentor.de
> >Putlitzstr. 24 Patterns/FrameWorks Fon: +49 721 9812465
> >76137 Karlsruhe C++/JAVA Fax: +49 721 9812467
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelo Schneider         OOAD/UML         Angelo.Schneider at oomentor.de
Putlitzstr. 24       Patterns/FrameWorks          Fon: +49 721 9812465
76137 Karlsruhe           C++/JAVA                Fax: +49 721 9812467