"What is copyrightable is creative expression," said Julie Samuels, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation "What is not [copyrightable] is functional information. The programming language is not. You can't copyright a language. It's what you make of that language."
This seems to assume that creation of a (computer programming) language does not involve creative expression. (I understand that writing a compiler for this language certainly does.) This may have been right in possibly older times when languages were not explicitly designed; does not sound right anymore.
Also, would you call sizeof(A) to be a part of the language (it is built into C/C++), or is it more like an API?
No one is saying that designing a language is uncreative. The distinction is not between creative and non-creative.
The question is between purely creative and functional. Functional things are usually not covered by copyright while creative things are. Things which are both need to be considered more carefully.
A computer language would never be copyrightable anyway because it is not a fixed expression. It's a set of rules for expressing things and that is never covered.
And APIs have never been covered because they're purely functional, regardless of the level of creativity involved.
>> A computer language would never be copyrightable anyway because it is not a fixed expression
This helps! Thanks.
As you stated yourself, APIs do seem to fall in the same category. I think the distinction of APIs from language is very complex as there are things which may blur the boundary between the two.
"What is copyrightable is creative expression," said Julie Samuels, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation "What is not [copyrightable] is functional information. The programming language is not. You can't copyright a language. It's what you make of that language."
This seems to assume that creation of a (computer programming) language does not involve creative expression. (I understand that writing a compiler for this language certainly does.) This may have been right in possibly older times when languages were not explicitly designed; does not sound right anymore.
Also, would you call sizeof(A) to be a part of the language (it is built into C/C++), or is it more like an API?
[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57429147-92/oracle-gets-a-c...