Can the APIs of free and open source software be copyrighted? Patented? If a company (say, Oracle) gives a programming system away for free (say, Java), can they later say to another company (say, Google), "Hey, yeah it's free, but we didn't intend you to use it that way, so for you it's not free." If Google creates Android (which is also free) on top of Java (which, remember, is free and open), can Oracle claim Google made money on it and sue Google for, oh, say, $8.8 billion?
Sure, why not? Its free as the air to download most operating systems. But can I therefore co-opt the sites logo and reputation to enrich myself just because there's no money on the front end? Java, while commercially free to consumers, is still trademarked and run by licensing agreements. Oracle paid billions of dollars to put that product out in the hopes of making billions more on the back end, just as Google does on its search engine. Open sourcing is common to get a product out en masse... but its not an invitation to steal the product design.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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