Software depends on “interoperability”—the ability of digital products and services to work together. You should be able to send a photo from the Outlook account on your iPhone to a colleague’s Gmail address, then edit that photo on a Surface tablet before you save it in Google Drive and post it to Twitter.
The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in Google v. Oracle, a case about whether companies can use copyright law as a weapon to limit interoperability. This affects not only the apps on your smartphone but the future of American innovation.
Functional lines of computer code, known as software interfaces, connect one service to another, like a digital plug and socket. Open and interoperable systems have always been at the heart of America’s innovative software industry. Imagine if every time you went to a different building, you needed to use a different type of outlet.
Copyright protects expression, from books and movies to expressive software like the code that lets you take and edit a picture on your smartphone. In contrast, software interfaces are purely functional lines of code. Those interfaces have not been copyrightable, meaning that developers could focus on innovation rather than re-creating the “plug and socket.” That means more choice for consumers and more competition.
Oracle argues that these traditionally open and functional interfaces can be locked down through copyright. Oracle would like to end the long-accepted practice of the open use and reuse of software interfaces. This would change the rules of software development after the fact. A ruling in Oracle’s favor would threaten interoperability, letting incumbents control which products could communicate with one another.
Undermining interoperability would hurt consumers and developers alike. Some 250 businesses, computer scientists, legal experts and software developers have submitted 26 friend-of-the-court briefs in support of interoperability. Beyond our companies, Google and Microsoft, the list includes smaller developers such as Mozilla and Etsy and organizations like the Developers Alliance, the Auto Care Association and the American Library Association.
The nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology explains in its brief how open software interfaces have empowered parents to monitor their children’s glucose levels and allowed researchers to make devices more accessible for the visually impaired. Engine Advocacy, an organization representing new businesses, says that if Oracle prevails, “the costs of compliance could be staggering.” Computer scientists warn that a ruling against interoperability “threatens to upend decades of settled expectations across the computer industry and chill continued innovation in the field.”
America leads the world in innovation; the Constitution promises that U.S. law will “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Innovation depends on the ability to work together, developing new tools that benefit everyone.
Mr. Walker is Google’s senior vice president for global affairs. Mr. Smith is Microsoft’s president.
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Appeared in the October 7, 2020, print edition.
The Link LonkOctober 07, 2020 at 06:12AM
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