Re: OpenGL bindings for Ada

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Daniel Wengelin says

"The interface specs are there to enable people to write
software on top of them, which is exactly what you are going
to do. there is absolutely no way that anyone can publish an
interface spec and having restrictions on writing software
that use that interface."

Unfortunately this seemingly innocuous and non-controversion statement
is in fact the product of wishful thinking. People can and do claim
intellectual properly rights in interfaces (e.g. Apple's claim to the
idea of a windowing interface, or Lotus' claim to their macro language,
the latter being used to prevent Borland from distributing a product
that reads macros written in this language.

Daniel, what you say *should* be true, but it is far from clear that
courts will eventually understand the wisdom of this position. 
Especailly in the US, where the fundamental purpose of IPR's is
to encourage innovation, it is particularly ironic that anyone
would argue that protecting interfaces promotes innovation, but
this is exactly what some people *do* argue.

This of course can start a long and interesting thread, but it really
does not belong on CLA :-)