[praptak]

> if the official API was GPL

Assuming APIs are copyrightable to start with. There is no broad ruling that they aren't (except maybe in EU: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120502083035371 ) but Oracle tried to claim copyright on APIs and failed.

[narcissus]

Isn't the Oracle case more about the definition of an API (what I would consider to be the header files, for example), versus this, which is more of an implementation of an API, though?

[jakejake]

Agreed, I should have clarified that I meant hypothetically if the author started out with some example code that was supplied by the API owner under the GPL.