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Jury Rules Google Violated Java Copyright, Google Moves For Mistrial
eldavojohn writes "Details are thin, but the long-covered Oracle v. Google trial has at least partially been decided in favor of Oracle. The jury says Google violated copyrights with Android when it used Java APIs to design the system. Google moved for a mistrial after hearing the incomplete decision. The patent infringement accusations have yet to be ruled upon."
The jury was instructed that APIs were copyrightable. They found that Google infringed Sun/Oracle's Java API. But the judge will actually decide later whether APIs are in fact copyrightable (which question will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court before it's all over).
So what the jury actually decided doesn't mean much. It means that Google copied the Java API. Well, yeah, we knew that already.
Those APIs are providing access to a service. They are not charging for using the API, they are charging for the service. Not the same thing at all.
Well, I, for one, support Google.
They are in the business to sell advertising. If you do not buy advertising, then you have probably never paid a dime directly to Google. I hate to say it, but invading privacy is just part of the business. How MUCH a part of the business is definitely open for debate, however.
It is a balancing act. No invasion of privacy = no money. Too much = evil.
I admit that everything that they have done has NOT been perfect, and there have been many mis-steps. However, for a company of their size, they do indeed manage to be the least evil. To me, Apple is very very evil. Microsoft is evil. Sony is evil. Google is fairly benign.
Name another company that size that is as friendly to open source software. Name another one that gives you as much stuff for free (yes, I know -- paid for by advertising to you). Name another company that actually CARES about not being evil. Apple and Microsoft simply care about the bottom line -- period.
No, Google is not perfect, but they could be a LOT worse, and they seem to actually care.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
The truth doesn't need to be pleasant to be informative.
Google didn't, Apache did. Google just used Apache Harmony's standard library.
What groups funded/helped with the Apache Harmony project? IBM and *Oracle*.
Now Oracle is suing Google for using the software that *Oracle* helped develop, because they bought the original implementation and want a cut of the Android money.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Maybe so, but this case has nothing to do with those abuses. Google took Apache Harmony (you know, a free, open-source, Apache-licensed implementation of the Java APIs...not GPL, but still open source) and built Android.
Sun was happy about it, Google was happy about it, the Java language got more widely used...
Oracle had a different point of view, wanted money, and had trouble convincing a jury who was *told* to assume that the APIs were copyrightable that the few remaining copyright claims Oracle brought were valid.
...also, in Europe, they just decided rather definitively that APIs are not copyrightable.
The worst part of this all is that now we go on to the "patent" part of the trial, which is just silly because we're talking about software (turning one number into another number based on a set of rules...aka an algorithm, which is not patentable subject matter).
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
The issue is that Google set out with j
The Java API manual and recreated them ALL with the same names and function calls, etc... That's pushing it even for open source projects.
As opposed to Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman starting with the UNIX manual and painstakingly recreating all the APIs?