Re: Legal issue with classes within Cocoa but not in OPENSTEP ?

[Gregory Casamento]

Yen-Ju,

--- Yen-Ju Chen <yjchenx@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>   I know GNUstep can exist because OPENSTEP is a open standard.
>   But I just curious that can GNUstep add new classes
>   which are within Cocoa but not in OPENSTEP ?

Yes, we can.
 
>   For example, NSToolbar and NSDrawer.
>   Can Apple ask GNUstep to take off these classes ?

They can ask, but we're not obliged to revmoe them.   

APIs, in general, cannot be copyrighted.  For example, I could start working on
a clone of the Windows API tomorrow and MS couldn't do a thing about it (see
the Wine project for an example of this).   The same goes for Apple's Cocoa
API.  The code which *implements* those APIs can be copyrighted, though.  
Apple's specific implementation of Cocoa is copyrighted by Apple, of course.

>   Not intend to start a long discuss thread,
>   but just curious about the possible legal issue.
>   Hope it is not a stupid question. :D

No worries. :)   I'm not a lawyer, but I believe from my knowledge of the
subject that what I'm saying is correct.
 
>   Yen-Ju

Later, GJC

=====
Gregory John Casamento
-- bheron on #gnustep, #linuxstep, & #gormtalk ----------------
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