[Lazarus] Embarcadero vs Lazarus/FPC (Oracle vs Google)

[michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be]

On Tue, 8 May 2012, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm following the trial between Oracle vs Google and wondered about
> the following... Judge Alsup told the jury to assume API's are
> copyrightable - something Alsup still has to determine later during
> trial. Now if he does rule that API's are copyrightable, how will this
> affect the Lazarus and Free Pascal projects? Both the latter projects
> copy Embarcadero's API's verbatim.

Well, not verbatim. There are differences.

Now, if he so judges, that would mean the end of the wine, samba and many 
other open or closed source projects.

I suspect that this would be taken to a higher court by the FSF and 
other organisations  as Redhat, Linux.org.

They would all have to close shop after such a ruling.

In each case, we are not US-based; a ruling by a US judge does not affect us.

At worst it would mean FPC/Lazarus cannot be used in the US.

Michael.