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Oracle Vs. Google and the Right To Use APIs

Posted by samzenpus on from the my-precious-code dept.

jfruh writes "Even as an EU court rules that APIs can't be copyrighted, tech observers are waiting for the Oracle v. Google trial jury to rule on the same question under U.S. law. Blogger Brian Proffitt spoke with Groklaw's Pamela Jones on the issue, and her take is that a victory for Oracle would be bad news for developers. Essentially, Oracle is claiming that, while an individual API might not be copyrightable, the collection of APIs needed to use a language is. Such a decision would, among other things, make Java's open source nature essentially meaningless, and would have lots of implications for any programming language you can name."

44 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Instruction sets can be licensable by mveloso · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Intel licensed the x86 instruction set to AMD.

    If an instruction set is licensable, then an API can be too...although it's unclear from what I've read if the licensing covered the instruction set itself or the right to manufacture something compatible with that instruction set. Either way, that should cover the API.

    1. Re:Instruction sets can be licensable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yet you do not see Intel going after the likes of dosbox, virtualbox, virtualpc, vmware, bochs....

      Me thinks the instruction set license was an easy way out for most parties instead of a long drawn out court battle...

    2. Re:Instruction sets can be licensable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      x86 instruction set is licensed to AMD as part of a patent-licensing agreement -- because parts of the instruction set itself are patented. E.g.,:

      Intel believes that Global Foundries is not a subsidiary under terms of the agreement and is therefore not licensed under the 2001 patent cross-license agreement. Intel also said the structure of the deal between AMD and ATIC breaches a confidential portion of that agreement. Intel has asked AMD to make the relevant portion of the agreement public, but so far AMD has declined to do so.

      Copyright != patent protection. Oracle has never claimed that Google violated its patents (probably because it doesn't hold patents protecting the Java API). It's worth noting that patenting the API would clearly make it patent-encumbered and thus, potentially susceptible to exactly the kind of Shenanigans that Oracle is trying to pull. Of course, if it was patent-encumbered, then the industry would [probably] know about it, and would steer clear, as appropriate. Basically, Oracle is trying to have its cake ("open") and eat it too ("license").

    3. Re:Instruction sets can be licensable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      As someone who worked in x86 Architecture, I'm pretty sure (though I'm not a lawyer, so get their opinion definitively first) that the issue here is not the instruction set Per Se, but various physical implementation details that would occur building real circuits to produce a processor chip.

      So, for example, that's why various software-based x86 emulator/simulator writers have not been sued.

    4. Re:Instruction sets can be licensable by exomondo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oracle has never claimed that Google violated its patents (probably because it doesn't hold patents protecting the Java API).

      Yes they did, in fact that was the initial basis for this court action. The copyright portion is being resolved first then it moves on to the patent portion of the lawsuit.

      It's worth noting that patenting the API would clearly make it patent-encumbered and thus, potentially susceptible to exactly the kind of Shenanigans that Oracle is trying to pull.

      Java is quite heavily patent-encumbered.

      Of course, if it was patent-encumbered, then the industry would [probably] know about it, and would steer clear, as appropriate.

      Well no, that would be silly, because it is patent-encumbered but the GPL status of Java means that GPL implementations - like OpenJDK - get an implicit patent license as well as all downstream projects.

      Basically, Oracle is trying to have its cake ("open") and eat it too ("license").

      Just because something is open doesn't mean it can't be patent-encumbered, if you understand the patent-specific elements of the GPL this should be quite clear.

    5. Re:Instruction sets can be licensable by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Shame you posted that as AC: it's exactly correct. The issue with instruction sets is that there are often very few sensible ways of implementing a specific instruction in hardware. The canonical example of this is the MIPS unaligned load / store patent. If you can figure out a way of implementing an unaligned load that doesn't involve the mechanisms covered in the MIPS patent, then you are free to do so. If you can't, then you need to license the patent from MIPS to be able to implement the instruction. The x86 instruction set is quite baroque, and is completely full of patents, especially newer parts like SSE. It's basically impossible to create a moderately efficient implementation without stepping on a load of patents.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. hope we luck out by Eponymous+Hero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the rest of us who know what we're talking about have to sit around and wait for outsider judges and juries to decide the context of things far outside their grasp. it takes years for an engineer to become competent in these technologies, and now we have bus drivers and secretaries deciding what applies to us and our trade in the span of mere weeks. can we get specialized jury selection for cases involving specialized knowledge?

    --
    insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
    1. Re:hope we luck out by sribe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...and now we have bus drivers and secretaries deciding what applies to us and our trade in the span of mere weeks...

      If you'd been following the case you'd know that this judge has been working very hard, for months, to understand the issues and make sure the jury is presented with well-formed questions and good background. How good a job he has been able to do, I don't know because that would require wading through hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pages :-)

    2. Re:hope we luck out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The expert knowledge in the case is supposed to come from the expert witnesses.

      You don't really want the jurors to be too deep in the field; in particular, you don't want the jurors to be privately disagreeing with the explanations of the expert witness.
      Why? Because the jurors are not examined. An "expert juror" could decide the case based on a prejudice that is never heard in court, and neither of the sides get the opportunity to challenge. A jury with few preconceptions is good for transparency.

      Besides, how likely is it that such a jury would be unbiased? Would they rule against Google despite the implications for IT if Oracle wins?

    3. Re:hope we luck out by gman003 · · Score: 4, Funny

      What we need is a professional, full-time expert in car metaphors, who can go before the court and say "This case here is like a carburetor..."

    4. Re:hope we luck out by zbobet2012 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why? Because the jurors are not examined. An "expert juror" could decide the case based on a prejudice that is never heard in court, and neither of the sides get the opportunity to challenge. A jury with few preconceptions is good for transparency.

      but just what an API is. That can be taught adequately in about two hours.

      This is wrong, and provably so. 30% to 60% of CS students never make it pass the first class. Literally, 30-60% of the population can't program. To quote the linked paper "It is as if there are two populations: those who can [program], and those who cannot [program], each with its own independent bell curve."

      Statistically speaking your try to teach someone in two weeks which some where around 60% of people literally can't be taught. The authors posit as to why this is, but the important fact is your asking a population to judge something 30 to 60 percent of them will never understand.

    5. Re:hope we luck out by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...and now we have bus drivers and secretaries deciding what applies to us and our trade in the span of mere weeks...

      If you'd been following the case you'd know that this judge has been working very hard, for months, to understand the issues and make sure the jury is presented with well-formed questions and good background. How good a job he has been able to do, I don't know because that would require wading through hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pages :-)

      The key point about juries is that they are 'of your peers', people equal to and in a similar position to the people being tried. It does not seem to me that in this case bus drivers and secretaries are in any useful sense 'peers' of software engineers - they lack the knowledge, concepts and language required to form a considered opinion of this case. It's like having a jury of Indonesian rice farmers adjudicating on the Enron case: it doesn't work because they cannot reasonably be expected to understand the arguments. It really doesn't matter how well intentioned or well read the judge may be: without a common language, communication isn't possible (which is, actually, precisely what the case is about).

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    6. Re:hope we luck out by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      (A separate post, because it's rather tangentially off-topic)

      Thank you for showing me that paper. I like a good laugh in the morning. More seriously, what the hell is this elitist ivory-tower bullshit, and who approved this?

      The premise is that a given percentage fail the programming class, and therefore must be unable to learn to program. In fact, there's a significant percentage (I've heard as high as 25% back when I was teaching, but don't have sources at the moment) that fail every introductory course, in every academic program. They're the freshmen who can't handle the college environment, don't do homework, or have to leave partway through the semester. That percentage is lower (though still present) for each further year, and that's not even considering actual academic problems like simply having a bad teacher for this or a previous course. The researchers immediately discount all language or environment choice as irrelevant, based on their personal teaching experience.

      The paper claims that they're making a test for innate programming ability, that can be taken with no prior programming knowledge. Their example question includes variable definition and formatting syntax, and even requires knowledge of what language is being used before an accurate answer can be given. As an experienced programmer myself, I can identify three answers (out of 8) that could be correct, just based on the paradigm being used.

      A few choice quotes from the paper, illustrating the researchers' methods:

      In a bizarre event which one of the authors insists was planned, and the other maintains was a really stupid idea that just happened to work...

      We believe (without any interview evidence at all) that they had had no contact with programming...

      Anonymisation introduced diculties, because some students had forgotten their nicknames. Comparison of handwriting and some inspired guesses mean that we got them all.

      And one of their sample questions, with at least four answers:

      The _________-controlled loop is used to do a task a known number of times.

      Perhaps most entertaining is their analysis. Rather than actually deem any particular answer as being "right", the researchers instead look for consistency, where the same subject answered the same way both before and after several weeks of instruction. The subjects whose answers remained the same were found to correlate well with those who passed the class. In essence, if you fail this ability test, but do it consistently, you're more likely to pass the programming class.

      Finally, they examine the results of students who entered the program with high entry test scores (the so-called high achievers) and those who were admitted to the program mainly to boost numbers (the low achievers), and found that the students who did well on tests scored higher on another technical test.

      One more quote, to conclude:

      We have speculated on the reasons for its success, but in truth we don’t understand how it works...

      Yeah. That's pretty clear.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by pseudofrog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We all know you're OverlyCriticalGuy / FooTech / CmdrPony / etc...

    Google not allowing bots to access their site is in no way comparable to Oracle's claims. It's absurd on several levels.

    Also, you must be one hell of a typist. You posted your reply one minute after the story was posted.

  4. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a certain amount of irony here, considering your username. An API is an interface to use something. Search results are the product of its use. There is a before-and-after, or cause-and-effect, type relationship between the two. Claiming that an API is not copyrightable has nothing to do with whether a custom, specific product produced by an API is copyrightable. It's non sequitur. Slashdot gives me an interface to type in this comment, but that does not mean that Slashdot owns what I type. One is an API to use it, and the other is the product of the API.

    Your argument falls flat because it was not well constructed. Assuming it was, your second claim also falls short. Google does is not required to allow bots to use their services. Complaining that bots are being blocked doesn't hold weight. Claiming that it's a double standard because Google can hit your servers is irrelevant. Server owners have the ability to detect bots and prevent them from scanning their sites too. Google actually uses a specific user agent and has reverse DNS that resolves to google.com so that you know for sure that it's a Google bot scanning your site. Personally, I don't think anyone would want to prevent Google from scanning their web sites, and companies have failed because Google elects to stop scanning (delisting them). But if you wanted to, you certainly could. Google wouldn't complain.

    Although your arguments are poorly constructed and contain multiple logical fallacies, your hostility against the delisting is interesting. Were you personally affected? Why would anyone really want to use a different search engine if that engine is simply going to show Google results? Where's the value add? Wouldn't it make more sense to nerdrage against Google's privacy policies, wardriving, de facto age discrimination, or something like that? Why pick bot filtering?

  5. If Oracle wins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... I move to the EU.

    At least there is still one region in the world where the hairless monkeys haven't gone completely insane.

  6. Judge Alsup is on it... by sconeu · · Score: 5, Informative

    He has asked the parties to brief him in light of the EU decision.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  7. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by ADRA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    robots.txt grumpy, if you don't want to join the link economy.

    Google, apple, or any company, organization, etc.. If API's are implicitely copyrighted by definition, all open standards are suspect, all transparency, who the hell knows what happens with the concept of fair use.

    The other thought was that Google's web page has never has been an API. Its an end user access mechanism to their service (which hosts a collection of useful information). If you want to use their service, you abide by their TOS which specifically forbits scraping. I've never signed an NDA for using a programming language, but it bet if I did, I'd be just as liable for breaking the terms of use as any Google scraper would be for abusing Google's service.

    --
    Bye!
  8. Matters of fact vs. matters of law by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 2, Informative

    waiting for the Oracle v. Google trial jury to rule on the same question under U.S. law.

    This idea seems rather broken. Juries are supposed to decide matters of fact and courts are supposed to decide matters of law. Whether an API is copyrightable is purely a matter of law, not fact. What the hell's going on here? This decision is the judge's responsibility.

  9. Patent suit still pending by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oracle has never claimed that Google violated its patents (probably because it doesn't hold patents protecting the Java API).

    The case was in fact about patents before it became clear that Google was very likely to prevail on Oracle's patent infringement allegations. At that point, Oracle decided to add a copyright infringement claim. The suit over U.S. Patents 5966702, 6910205, and RE38104 is still pending and will be resolved after the copyright suit concludes.

  10. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The parent is NOT an insightful post. A troll, maybe.

    What Oracle is trying to claim is a new flavor of copyright on previous areas that have been declared by judges as not copyrightable. The key is, not copyrightable. Oracle is making the big reach here.

    Stop trying to conflate a completely different issue here because you don't like Google.

    Sun also seemed to use similar tricks in the past, IIRC, against Tomcat, JBoss, and at least one open source implementation of Java on Linux that Sun did not want to be run against their compatibility test suite, etc. In time, good sense prevailed, in that Tomcat became the blessed reference implementation for a Java web app server, the OS Java clone was allowed to run against Sun's tests after much pressuring by various groups (and Sun actually put some effort into Linux-based versions of Java ecosystem, etc). But at least they didn't have the temerity to outright claim "copyright infringement" back then. It was as ludicrous then as it is now.

  11. Jury, pretend that the API is copyrightable. by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    The question submitted to the jury was one of fact: "Let's pretend that the API is copyrightable. Was it copied?" After the answer comes back, the judge will decide the question of law as to whether it was copyrightable in the first place.

  12. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by simula · · Score: 2

    You are mistaken, Google does not attempt to copyright its search results. In fact, they found Bing was copying their search results and publicly shamed them about it, but never claimed infringement of any kind.

  13. Turn-about by evil_aaronm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wouldn't Oracle be guilty of this, as well, to some extent? Oracle couldn't possibly be using a 100% "clean" environment for their product or development systems. If they use C and standard libraries, they're using, in effect, copyright-able APIs.

    1. Re:Turn-about by nurb432 · · Score: 2

      While that is true, is the API for C in the public domain or controlled by a company? If its a company, does this company want to milk people or just say 'go ahead and use it'.

      Being copyrighted by its self does not mean good or bad things, it just 'is'. Its how that copyright is used is what matters.

      Just think about how the GPL, BSD, etc copyrights work.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  14. Far beyond programing languages by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If API's can be restricted like this, it would go far beyond simple languages. Think about the concept of what an API actually is..

    Even something as apparently benign as replacement parts for your washer could be restricted and eliminate cheaper 3rd party parts. Even if its not electronic in nature, just claim that nothing can be compatible enough to hook up to your 'widget connector version b'.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  15. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by pseudofrog · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article you link to:

    So, all this bandwidth waste was triggered by my own stupidity. I asked Google to download all the images to create the thumbnails in Google Spreadsheet. Talking about shooting myself in the foot. I launched the Google crawler myself.

    You're using Google's service, so you have to play by their rules. They have no obligation to give you their data in the exact way you want.

    Again, it's incredible stupid to compare this to Oracle's actions -- there's no basis whatsoever for you to make this connection. You seem to be arguing that because Google won't let you get your way they shouldn't be able to defend themselves when sued. That, or something equally childish and inane.

  16. Will be huge for ColdFusion by devleopard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ColdFusion was about the only language (in my experience - sure there's others) that you needed to pay for the runtime for your code (in a production environment; development version was free; The "Express" version went away around 2001 or so). Then along come Railo and Open BlueDragon, and there were open source alternatives. The "language" itself is pretty basic (most developers get by using just 5 tags), but the power of it comes when you use the various feature tags that are more akin to APIs (cfchart, cfpdf, cfsearch, etc). Railo and OpenBD of course implement all these tags. Whereas Oracle doesn't "sell" Java, Adobe sells ColdFusion - if Oracle wins, Adobe has 100% motivation to eliminate their competition. (Should also point out that OpenBD's lineage comes from New Atlanta, which sells commercial version of Blue Dragon - MySpace was built on this.)

    --
    The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
  17. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by vakuona · · Score: 2

    Not the same. You use Google's API to access their service. Very different from a programming API. Google has no obligation to let you access their services for free, they choose to do so, and also choose to make those people who want to access their services programmatically pay for the privilege.

  18. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by pseudofrog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't pay to use the API, you pay to access their data on their servers. You must know this.

  19. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by cmdr_tofu · · Score: 2

    This is a little different. You are free to implement your own search engine and implement a Google RESTful API but do not actually hit google.com. If Google objected to (or demanded payment) for you using their API independent of their services, then it would be the same thing.

  20. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by andydread · · Score: 4, Informative

    This pathetic attempt to blame Google for the fact that we may never be able to use free or documented APIs ever again is ridiculous. Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft started this war with software-patents. And now Oracle is trying to get APIs ruled as copyrightable. It's really egregious behaviour on the part of these incumbent tech corporations to use these sleazy litigation tactics against any successful open source product. Just spare us the bullshit. Microsoft promised this war way back with their Halloween documents and now they are getting help from Oracle and Apple.

  21. Re:Bad summary. by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

    Google didn't do a clean room implementation of Java with Dalvik

    The VM itself? No. But they did base their class libraries on Apache Harmony, a clean room implementation of the Java APIs. [for which Sun refused to license the Java Compatibility Kit anyway - the shenanigans started long before Larry got involved]

  22. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by Vairon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What are you talking about?

    I see no evidence that Google is asserting copyright over search results. Go ahead do a search and look for a copyright symbol...there is none.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=linux

    As a comparison do a Bing search and Microsoft does assert its copyright at the bottom of every page.
    http://www.bing.com/search?q=linux

    Copyright has nothing to do with terms of service. Google is under no obligation to let you or anyone else use their service in a way they don't want. That's completely different than Oracle asking the government to fine Google for supposedly violating their copyright on something that is possibly not copyrightable like an API. Oracle is not alleging that Google violated a terms of service. They are alleging that Google needed a license in order to copy copyrighted material.

    Google created their service and for the most part they can decide how the service is used. If someone is using their service in a way that hurts Google they are within their legal or moral rights to not provide that service in a way that hurts them. Just like as a website operator I can decide how my web server is used. I can choose to ban Google's IPs if I don't want them to access my service. I can use a robots.txt file to instruct their HTTP agent to ignore certain pages. If my website's content is copied in a way that is not covered by fair use I can ask the government to fine those who are violating my copyright but that is separate from determining what IPs may use my web server as a service. Just like Google could choose to ask the government to fine someone who violated their copyright in a way that is not covered by fair use.

    Can you cite any references where Google has alleged that someone violated their copyright on a search result that you believe is covered by fair use?

  23. Slashdot Mandatory Notice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    ANNOUNCEMENT

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    They will be using a number of sockpuppets, including Bonch, Sharklaser, CriticalAnalysis, Overly Critical Guy, TechLA, TechNY, TechCar and many others.

    Their presence in this discussion indicates:

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    Please avoid posting anything of value in this discussion. Treat all who do post with contempt and mockery.

  24. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by rosciol · · Score: 2

    Google will ban you from accessing their service the instant their algorithm detects it's not an actual human being making searches and viewing their ads. Even if you behave nicely with your scripts and rate-limit them not to hit Google's servers badly.

    I can't see how this is even remotely relevant to the topic at hand. All it sounds like is you have a bone to pick. The fact that Google references other peoples' content - which, as a search engine, is by definition what they're supposed to be doing - does not mean that their service is not value-added, and that they are not entitled to withhold the results of their algorithms from other people wanting to programatically utilize those results for their own purposes. If search were easy, and not resource intensive, there would be more search engine competitors and people wouldn't keep coming back to Google. I see no reason they shouldn't be allowed to protect those results from people violating their completely reasonable terms of use (the darn thing is free already, what more do you want?), and you haven't provided one.

    What, exactly, is your reason? Google custom search engines are a perfectly viable option for most use cases, but apparently you'd like to pass off their search results are your own, or you'd like to create an ad-free version of Google? I have no idea, because, again, you haven't actually given a reason why you should be allowed to do something that, in general, I don't think should be allowed. Why should a competitor be allowed to scrape Google's search results?

    On the other hand, Google has no problem hitting your servers and causing more than $1000 fees for the owner for nothing.

    You like straw men, apparently. Anyone who doesn't like Google hitting their servers can easily disable indexing entirely, or rate limit the indexing process. That is, Google actually respects robots.txt files, which is more than I can say for a huge number of other crawlers out there on the Internet. Before you go complaining about something that can actually be controlled by a halfway competent sysadmin, maybe you should worry more about the bots that don't actually play by the rules, and have no intention of doing so? They're far more of a problem.

  25. Pleading the Seventh by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Judge Alsup is pleading the Seventh: "no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law." This way, the jury's verdict on the facts is on the books no matter what questions of law the Court of Appeals remands back to Alsup, and there's no need for an expensive retrial.

  26. Or we can laugh when they win and are sued ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · · Score: 4, Insightful
    After all, if all APIs are copyrightable, IBM wants to talk to Oracle about royalties for SQL.

    And Dennis Ritchie's estate would like to talk to them about all the royalties they need to cough up for using the c standard library.

    And Bjarne Stroustrup and Bell Labs want to talk to them about royalties for using classes, and the whole dot syntax, and the whole of Java being just a poor man's c++.

    There is absolutely no way that Oracle is going to win this one - even they know that the immediate consequences would be disasterous for them, as the whole world drops Java for anything else.

    --
    Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
    1. Re:Or we can laugh when they win and are sued ... by Barbara,+not+Barbie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You missed the entire point - you do not need a license to implement a java runtime - the license is for the use of the Java name, the coffe-cup logo, certification that your implementation meets the requirements of the TCK, etc.

      In addition, Java was fragmentted by SUN. Java ME (mobile edition) is an absolute mess, with major incompatibilities, so the entire "OMG Android fragments the java platform" argument is a lie. It's even more of a lie because Android is not Java.

      Sun's former CEO has testified that there's no problem with people making unlicensed implementations - the java language is open and free for anyone to use. Oracle has stipulated in court that this is true. Same as the c language is open and free for anyone to use. Same as if you're not happy with the c++ STL, you're free to implement your own version (and there are multiple implementations of the STL). BASIC. Pascal. C#. While you can copyright an implementation, you cannot copyright the idea behind the implementation, any more than you can copyright the rules of a game.

      As for Android being commercial - so what? Anyone is free to implement a Java-to-whatever translator, just as Google bought a Java-to-dalvik translator called Android. Just like you're free to implement a BASIC-to-c translator, or a Java-to-c translator. The language is free for anyone to use. Even Oracle has agreed - in court - that this is the case.

      Oracle thought they'd get a big payday from patents, but most of those have been struck down by the USPTO reviews, so now they're down to whining about stupidity like 9 lines in a sort routine that aren't even theirs - they were imported from the timsort routine in python.

      --
      Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
    2. Re:Or we can laugh when they win and are sued ... by Doctor_Jest · · Score: 2

      You're right. Microsoft made an incompatible implementation of Java... they called it C# *rimshot*

      It's funny... laugh.

      --
      It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
  27. What will Oracle say when pinged for license fees? by FellowConspirator · · Score: 2

    It seems that if Oracle successfully argues this point, everybody that provides Oracle with a library is going to demand a license fee. Imagine if Brian Kernighan decided that the C standard library ought to be generating more (well, some) income...

  28. Oddly by Greyfox · · Score: 2

    When I search Google for "Oracle", I'm quite surprised to find the first hit is not for the goatse.cx guy. Perhaps they're waiting to do that until after the case is over?

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  29. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    You don't need to hit refresh, you just buy a subscription and see the story turn up with a red banner half an hour before comments are permitted. Of course, if he'd done that then I'd expect a relevant post, rather than the obligatory barely-on-topic rant about Google that seems to crop up in every story about Google. I'm not exactly a fan of Google (or any other major tech company at the moment), but can we try to keep the criticisms on topic please?

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  30. Re:Can search results be copyrighted? by avjt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tried the links -- and the Bing link didn't show the copyright notice anywhere. Then I realized that Bing has identified my country, India. Clicked on that, changed it to United States - English ... lo and behold, the copyright notice appeared at the bottom of the page! Now what's going on?