摘要：Debates over interoperability have a long history in software copyrightlaw. The basic contours of that law were established a quartercentury ago. At that time, both Oracle and its predecessor Sun laudedthe benefits of interoperability. In a brief filed by the AmericanCommittee for Interoperable Systems, a trade association that claimedboth Sun and Oracle as members in the 1990s, both companies arguedthat copyrights over application program interfaces (APIs) should notbe used to prevent the creation of interoperable programs. They wrote:If the developer of one part of the environment canuse copyright law to prevent other developers fromwriting programs that conform to the system of rulesgoverning interaction with the environment — interfacespecifications, in computer parlance — the firstdeveloper could gain a patent-like monopoly overthe system without ever subjecting it to the rigorousscrutiny of a patent examination.5
