Re: On the one hand
> Remember that the only thing that forces things like Linux to be open in the way it currently is is the strict interpretation of copyright laws.
Copyright for code: Yes. Copyright for APIs: Hell, no.
A good part of the SCO wars was about the claim that infringing code implements the same API as Unix and therefore is owned by the copyright holder of Unix (SCO).
Which at the time was eventually rejected by the courts.
Now in this case a clean-room re-implementation of an existing API IS regarded as copyright violation. That's outright dangerous.
To that end Linux and other O/S software that cleanly re-implements existing APIs might even be endangered by the Oracle/Google ruling...