[Lazarus] Google vs Oracle case - does it affect LCL ?

[Dmitry Boyarintsev]

On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 4:42 AM, Adrian Veith via Lazarus <
lazarus at lists.lazarus-ide.org> wrote:

> there is an article on phoronix
> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Oracle-
> vs-Google-Wine-API,
> which shows that the Google vs Oracle case is concerning Wine developers
> because Wine mimics the Windows-API with the function names and
> parameters. Under this light the LCL might also be affected because it
> mimics the VCL to a large degree - and many fcl libraries mimic
> corresponding Delphi libraries. What do you think ?
>

Reading the wikipedia article (referenced from the article above):
"The Court found that as a matter of law, Google's use of Java could not
have fallen within fair use,..."
..."It was not transformative in the sense of a new platform either, since
other Java smartphones predated Android"

In case if Wine, this is actually the case. Because no Windows API existed
on Linux platforms, except for Wine.
It's also the case for FPC and LCL.

I guess the bigger complaint is about:
"It was not within any example of transformation, nor intended to permit
third party interoperability, since Google had made no substantial efforts
to use them for the purpose of third party interoperability.
(In fact it found that Google had tried to prevent interoperability with
other Java and had previously been refused a license by Sun for that
reason)"

Btw, the same wikipedia article references POSIX interface. That's actually
an example of copyrighted API.
In my opinion, having API copyrighted makes sense. It's similar
copyrighting hardware interfaces such as USB, COM and HDMI ports.
(there was quite a fight around those in the past)
A well written API helps dramatically, while poorly written API requires a
lot of work with every new version of API released (compare OpenGL vs
DirectX)

At the same time both POSIX and OpenGL were created as "API" (interface)
standards.
I'm not sure with WindowsAPI or Delphi were intended as as such. They are
more platform specific interfaces (rather than cross-platform)
Borland couldn't reuse VCL with Kylix, instead they came up with CLX
instead.
Where Lazarus with sweat-and-blood keeps up with LCL.

Naturally, interfaces between FPC/Lazarus and Delphi are already quite far
from one another.

thanks,
Dmitry
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