I suspect what we will see happen is the District Court will rule that it was fair use, it will go to the Federal Circuit again and then the Federal Circuit will overturn the fair use claim. As the Federal Circuit is incredibly pro-IP, I suspect they will be unpersuaded by any claim otherwise.
At that point, if SCOTUS does not take up an appeal, the computer science world will have a big problem. If APIs are copyrighted and reimplementing libraries violates copyright, then:
What of all the projects that have implemented LIBC, and used glibc's API and headers? e.g.: Is musl now GPL?
What of any OS or project that has implemented a POSIX layer? (Is this the decision SCO needed to finally sue someone for Linux finally violating SCO's copyright?)
What of any project that implements x-plat APIs? As another comment pointed out, Microsoft's Project Islandwood re-implements iOS APIs. But Xamarin, Cordova and other projects all ingest APIs and reconfigure them to make them accessible on multiple platforms. Are they contaminated by copyright now?
If the Federal Circuit decision stands, software might have finally encountered the lump it can't digest as it eats the world.
At that point, if SCOTUS does not take up an appeal, the computer science world will have a big problem. If APIs are copyrighted and reimplementing libraries violates copyright, then:
What of all the projects that have implemented LIBC, and used glibc's API and headers? e.g.: Is musl now GPL?
What of any OS or project that has implemented a POSIX layer? (Is this the decision SCO needed to finally sue someone for Linux finally violating SCO's copyright?)
What of any project that implements x-plat APIs? As another comment pointed out, Microsoft's Project Islandwood re-implements iOS APIs. But Xamarin, Cordova and other projects all ingest APIs and reconfigure them to make them accessible on multiple platforms. Are they contaminated by copyright now?
If the Federal Circuit decision stands, software might have finally encountered the lump it can't digest as it eats the world.