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Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

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Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#11

Post by sysk »

desdiv wrote: post #8
lmm wrote: post #4

APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The documentation is though, so be sure you're not infringing on that. Any license agreement you or your company have with Slack might "ban" you from doing this; you might e.g. lose your access. That will be a contractual matter between you and them though, not anything criminal. IANAL; you should probably get actual legal advice.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#12

Post by cmdrfred »

desdiv wrote: post #8
lmm wrote: post #4

APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The documentation is though, so be sure you're not infringing on that. Any license agreement you or your company have with Slack might "ban" you from doing this; you might e.g. lose your access. That will be a contractual matter between you and them though, not anything criminal. IANAL; you should probably get actual legal advice.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Can't they use something trademarked in the api? for example you have to send 'Slack chat connect' to connect the api so open source stuff can't connect without violating their trademark?

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#14

Post by joeyspn »

What technologies did you use? XMPP? Node? ... I don't think your are infringing any copyright as long as you are not making profit from it. Reverse Engineering is legal, specially when done with the aim of interoperability... and what you are seeking is an interoperable server right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#15

Post by dsr_ »

sysk wrote: post #11
desdiv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.

A blackbox implementation (no access to original source code) is clearly ethical. The purpose of an API is specifically to allow interoperability with software that you don't write; the presence of a competitor (open source or not) who re-implements the server side of your API is a Good Thing for a competitive market place.

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#16

Post by mikebike »

sysk wrote: post #11
desdiv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.

Several open source cloud projects (OpenStack, Eucalyptus, CloudStack, OpenNebula) implement the Amazon EC2 API. Eucalyptus is the only one that formally obtained a license from Amazon.

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#17

Post by jahewson »

desdiv wrote: post #8
lmm wrote: post #4

APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The documentation is though, so be sure you're not infringing on that. Any license agreement you or your company have with Slack might "ban" you from doing this; you might e.g. lose your access. That will be a contractual matter between you and them though, not anything criminal. IANAL; you should probably get actual legal advice.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Google however are trying to take the case to the Supreme Court to get that API ruling overturned. IMHO they will succeed, as the federal circuit's ruling is controversial to say the least. I doubt there's anything to worry about here but strictly speaking, we'll have to wait and see.

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#18

Post by sysk »

joeyspn wrote: post #14

What technologies did you use? XMPP? Node? ... I don't think your are infringing any copyright as long as you are not making profit from it. Reverse Engineering is legal, specially when done with the aim of interoperability... and what you are seeking is an interoperable server right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality

Ah, interesting question. I had never implemented a chat server before and initially read the IRC/XMPP specifications but Slack felt like a "superset" of both (federation/p2p wasn't a priority for me) and I was more familiar with web protocols.

The stack is Node.js and PostgreSQL (I probably reinvented some kind of message queue). There is a "dumb" websocket server that just receives/sends events from/to the backend server. Both the websocket and backend servers can scale horizontally.

I haven't written any XMPP/IRC gateways for now though I suppose it wouldn't be that difficult to do.

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#19

Post by [deleted] »

joeyspn wrote: post #14

What technologies did you use? XMPP? Node? ... I don't think your are infringing any copyright as long as you are not making profit from it. Reverse Engineering is legal, specially when done with the aim of interoperability... and what you are seeking is an interoperable server right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I wrote a Slack compatible server. Can I open source it?

#20

Post by antaviana »

sysk wrote: post #11
desdiv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>APIs themselves aren't copyrightable, as we saw in Google's recent lawsuit. The most recent ruling said that APIs, by themselves, are copyrightable[0]. The case is back to the district court now to determine whether the wholesale copying and reimplementation an API falls under the fair-use defense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

Depressing indeed. Are there any other open source projects that are API compatible with a proprietary product/service? Is it ethical? I feel like it is but would be interested to hear HN's opinion.

As far as I know, AWS Aurora (not open source) is supposed to be a 100%-compatible implementation of MySQL API.
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