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Oracle and Google Spar Over Whether Programming Languages Can Be Copyrighted

Posted by Soulskill on from the makes-perfect-sense-minus-the-sense dept.

pcritter writes "With the Oracle v. Google trial date set for next Monday, the Judge has asked Google and Oracle to take a position on whether a programming language is copyrightable. This presumably relates to whether Google violated copyright by using a variant of the Java language and its APIs in the Android framework. Oracle, who thinks it can be, has used J.R.R. Tolkein's Elvish language as an examples (PDF) of a language that can be copyrighted. Google disagrees (PDF)."

4 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. Re:My ass by idontgno · · Score: 4, Funny

    I suspect engraving "Elbereth" on the floor wouldn't prevent Oracle from attacking me. More's the shame.

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  2. Re:My ass by interval1066 · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, but a circle of protection engraved with Postgresql specific charms might.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  3. Re:Haven't we seen this? by pak9rabid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Right....they called it C#.

  4. Re:Sure. by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sad that in 2012 people are still confused by this.

    Well if the Mayans were right they won't be in 2013