undefined | Better HN

0 pointsthomasahle5y ago0 comments

>> the cookbook itself becomes copyrightable.

> But what is discussed here is not the cookbook but just the table of contents.

You probably can't copy that either. That's like Oracle's example of making a new Harry Potter book with all the same chapter titles.

I don't know if there are any good examples of APIs one can make based on books..

0 comments

6 comments · 1 top-level

diffeomorphism5y ago· 5 in thread

I mean you very much can copy

Chapter 1: Introducing the main character .. Chapter 6: Introducing side character Chapter 7: Arrival at the main story place .. Chapter 17: The final chapter

In fact there are whole classifications of literature that identify basic storylines, tropes, structure etc. . The reason you couldn't copy the harry potter chapter titles exactly is because they contain specific titles, e.g. "the boy who lived", but "<my own catchphrase for main character>" as the first chapter title is again very, very common.

Also, the argument is about reuse/interoperability. Recipes are something you use and the naming is functional and it is important that it is similar enough. I am not aware of harry potter chapters being used like that, but if authors start talking about "The sorting hat" chapter as a term of the art , then yes you should be able to use that term. Similarly to how you can introduce a weapon in your novel without paying royalties to Chekhov.

CJefferson5y ago

Picking a random bit of the API, ContainerOrderFocusTraversalPolicy::getImplicitDownCycleTraversal feels to me more like "the boy who lived", rather than "Introducing Side Character" -- I don't think anyone could reasonably claim you would end up at remotely the same thing, unless you were word-for-word copying thousands of lines of API.

Aeolun5y ago

I mean, I see your point, but you kind of have to to achieve the intended purpose.

thomasahleOP5y ago

> Also, the argument is about reuse/interoperability. Recipes are something you use and the naming is functional and it is important that it is similar enough. I am not aware of harry potter chapters being used like that, but if authors start talking about "The sorting hat" chapter as a term of the art , then yes you should be able to use that term. Similarly to how you can introduce a weapon in your novel without paying royalties to Chekhov.

I agree very much. I just don't think books are very useful for expressing those ideas. Interoperability is rarely an important consideration when writing a book.

rini175y ago

Sure, if google renamed all the classes/methods, it would make a lot of difference.

imtringued5y ago

I wonder how much you can game this.

Rename java.lang.String to google.java.lang.String and make google's dex compiler automatically look in the google namespace by default.

Not allowed? How about we just hash the Java API names and then let the compiler automatically apply a mapping from hash to google name.

In the worst case Google is probably still allowed to ship a tool that renames uses of the java api directly in the source code and switches it over to whatever Google's naming scheme is. If this wasn't allowed it would be equivalent to making it illegal to not use the Java api because doing the same chance by hand would is not meaningfully different.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse