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Oracle Claims Google 'Directly Copied' Our Java Code
itwbennett writes "On Wednesday, Oracle amended the lawsuit it filed against Google in August, saying that 'approximately one third of Android's Application Programmer Interface (API) packages' are 'derivative of Oracle's copyrighted Java API packages' and related documents. In particular, 'the infringed elements of Oracle America's copyrighted work include Java method and class names, definitions, organization, and parameters; the structure, organization and content of Java class libraries; and the content and organization of Java's documentation,' Oracle says. 'In at least several instances, Android computer program code also was directly copied from copyrighted Oracle America code,' Oracle alleges."
Fire up Patty at Grocklaw./.... this is identical to the IBM vs SCO case
Oracle makes Java unusable, by being Oracle.
Maybe there's more here. Maybe Google took actual, non-open Java code, but it looks a lot like the SCO suit to me. That Oracle is saying that using the same header files (AKA APIs) is infringement. We all know that to make a work-alike system, the strings in the header files (APIs) need to be the same. They really look the same, even if you create them from scratch by following the published specs.
This seems like Darl's work, all over again.
***Is Oracle trying to pull a SCO here? (i.e. it does something like what our code does, therefore it's ours).***
Lawsuits are written by lawyers. Being a lawyer means that you don't actually need to know what you are talking about, you just need to sound like you do.
I agree, that this stuff other than indenting, comments, layout probably is not copyrightable. My understanding is that basically, you can not copyright the only way to express something.
I'm in no way shape or form a lawyer. Does formulating this in the way they have give Oracle access to the Google code to see if the code was in fact copied byte for byte from Oracle rather than simply implementing the same externally interface?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Does formulating this in the way they have give Oracle access to the Google code to see if the code was in fact copied byte for byte from Oracle
You mean this code?
which is totally what she said
The code in question is publicly accessible, just not licensed for this kind of use. Once you violate the license, your right to copy that code goes poof.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Very unlikely actually. You forget that Java on the desktop doesn't make much money - it's far more lucrative to make it free, get people addicted and use Java elsewhere that makes more money - enterprise and mobile devices.
Forget smartphones for a moment, as they are but a tiny drop in total phone sales. The vast majority of those phones ('dumbphones' or 'featurephones') allow apps, and have for years. Those phones run Java, and Sun made (and Oracle makes) a killing licensing Java technology for all those handsets - both from the handset manufacturer and the carriers. And with the hundreds of millions of phones made annually, that's a lot of money.
Oracle's not going to give up such a lucrative source of cash anytime soon. And Android's Java implementation is in the direct line of fire because of it.
under a very specific license. if you copy code, yet don't abide by the terms of the rest of the license, you are in violation of copyright.
Postgres, like most other really awesome open source projects, is not for sale. To anyone. For any price. That's one reason Microsoft, Oracle, et al hate them so much - when it was startup companies, they could always pull out the checkbook and make the problem go away. With the FSF, Apache, Mozilla, and so forth, they can't.
I am officially gone from
Isn't the code for Sun's standard java library GPL along with the rest of OpenJDK? If so, it should be completely legal to copy it as much as you want.
Not all of Sun's Java code went into Harmony et. al. So, maybe.
However, I am both puzzled and worried by Oracle's motivation here. It sounds to me like Oracle is actually going to kill Java by making it impossible to adopt in the name of trying to leverage the (very expensive) IP they bought along with Sun.
Sounds like we need a new, and truly open, language and runtime for the 21st century.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
There are a few minor differences but the names are exact. This is troubling unless the specifications list or name them. However, the variable declarations may not be protected elements.
This isn't surprising if the both pieces of code are trying to do the same thing.
The types are the same but the names are not exact.
There are slight differences mostly due to style of the programmer which is to be expected in clean room implementations.. Android versions sometimes squeezed code into one line where Oracle's version spread it to multiple lines. Android's if statements sometimes used braces {} even if it was not required whereas the Oracle version did not. Android did not always use the same structure (i.e. while instead of do while and for iterator instead of while {iterator.hasNext()}
Except the private variables in the beginning, I would lean towards clean room implementation. There is a lot of line by line exactness however they do not appear to be nontrivial parts of the code and there is enough slight differences to where it could be explained by clean room implementations.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.