Re: Does GNUstep infringe on Apple's Intellectual Property?

[Björn Giesler]

Hi,

On Monday 25 August 2003 05:17, John Anderson wrote:
> My concern is that the interface itself (i.e. the classes, the
> methods, the functions) is directly protected by Apple's copyright,
> as in "NS" names.

IANAL, but I think that OpenStep, as a specification, specifies an 
interface, meaning that several different implementations of the 
specification may exist that can be used as drop-in replacements for 
each other. In terms of code libraries, that can only mean that the 
same symbol names are used. This means that the use of NS*, as far as 
it follows the OpenStep spec, is guaranteed to be OK.

GNUstep's implementation of Apple's *extensions* to OpenStep, however, 
could be regarded as infringement, I guess. OTOH, it might be seen as 
"reverse engineering", which is legal.

> More clearly, GNUstep is exactly (and indeed supposed to be) a copy
> of the OpenStep interface.  Therefore, what are the legal
> implications?

Since OpenStep is an open specification, this is perfectly OK.

Regards,
                --Björn

BTW Your citing the Linux/SCO "case" was certainly a joke, wasn't it?

-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Björn Giesler, IAIM, University of Karlsruhe (TH)
See http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/giesler for information.

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