[License-discuss] Copyright on APIs

[VanL]

Hi Pam,

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 11:53 AM Pamela Chestek <pamela at chesteklegal.com>
wrote:

> Van, I agree with everything you say. But that doesn't answer the same
> question as "is it open source"? Add to that the interesting possibility
> that currently-existing licenses will now reach beyond what everyone
> thought their scope was. Do we expand the meaning of "open source" to
> match? Or do we just accept it as an unfortunate outcome but not embrace it?
>

I think we would deal with it as with every change in the law: Update our
understanding, and draft/update licenses to match.

With regard to existing licenses, I don't think there is a lot we could do.
The licenses are what they are, and the law is/will be what it is. Unless
new versions of licenses are promulgated and used, we are stuck with what
we have.

For new licenses, though, I think it would be irresponsible not to deal
with the situation head-on. Do we really want the position to be "don't
mention APIs, and maybe they won't be covered"? We should be forthright
about the issue and either exclude them from coverage (similar to the Bison
license) or use them to trigger compliance.

I don't object to a prudent "to the extent that such APIs are protectable,
..." language.

(Note: Although out of scope for this discussion, this issue could be
addressed by a broadly-accepted disclaimer of coverage, using a mechanism
similar to the expanding GPL cooperation commitment, but that is
per-licensor and not universal.)

Thanks,
Van
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20190702/e0df02b9/attachment-0001.html>