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Judge to Oracle: A High Schooler Could Write rangeCheck
mikejuk writes with an update on the Oracle vs Google Trial. From the article: "One month into the Oracle v Google trial, Judge William Alsup has revealed that he has, and still does, write code. Will this affect the outcome? I think so! After trying to establish that the nine lines in rangeCheck that were copied saved Google time in getting Android to market the lawyer making the case is interrupted by the judge which indicates he at least does understand how straightforward it would be to program rangeCheck from scratch: 'rangeCheck! All it does is make sure the numbers you're inputting are within a range, and gives them some sort of exceptional treatment. That witness, when he said a high school student could do it — ' And the lawyer reveals he doesn't: 'I'm not an expert on Java — this is my second case on Java, but I'm not an expert, and I probably couldn't program that in six months.' Perhaps every judge should be a coding judge — it must make the law seem a lot simpler..."
From yesterday; the Oracle lawyer was attempting to argue that Google profited by stealing rangeCheck since it allowed them to get to market faster than they would have had they wrote it from scratch. Groklaw, continuing its detailed coverage as always, has the motions filed today.
Obviously this competent, experienced jurist should have recused himself because of this conflict of interest.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think I'm beginning to understand why Oracle has chosen to sue, rather than innovate, they're idiots and lazy to boot! :)
For those interested: (from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3940683)
From OpenJDK:
private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
if (fromIndex > toIndex)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
if (fromIndex arrayLen)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
}
From Google:
private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
if (fromIndex > toIndex)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
if (fromIndex arrayLen)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
}
}
Reading that summary made me feel like I was taking crazy pills. So many mixed tenses. Could someone clean that shit up for readability?
Fore chrissakes, anyone who has been writing any degree of code for more than a few years has implemented a range check function, and whatever the language C, C++, Java, C#, BASIC, 80x86 assembler, they all basically look the same. If this is truly what Oracle's case boils down to, then they literally have nothing, and this comes out looking no different than what SCO's claims against Linux ended up being. It's fucking ludicrous. To claim that somehow a nine line range check function gave Google some vast market edge to my mind breaks credibility. I'm guessing this is pointing pretty heavily towards Oracle being handed their balls on a platter over this.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No. Not even a little.
If the judge's statement is even a half-truth, the code in question checks a number, and passes it somewhere if it's a good number.
That is what all goddamn code does. A dumb American high schooler could accomplish that in about twenty minutes if you refused to let them leave until they did, because if you aren't doing that, you haven't written a program! A seven year old could probably do it faster; they haven't "learned" yet that they're dumb.
The lawyer is a disingenuous jackass who assumed that the judge, like him, would see a piece of code and assume it's an arcane fucking ritual without even trying to parse it. He deserves derision.
Not being able to write code doesn't mean you're stupid.
However, equating them means you're ignorant and arrogant.
The issue of whether or not an API can be copyrighted has nothing to do with whether or not the judge is a programmer. APIs can be complex, and a lot of design may go into an API (what patterns to expose to programmers, etc.). Some programmers would not even object to APIs being copyrightable; many people use proprietary languages that are implemented by a single vendor, and would not even be affected by such a ruling (unless they also use Java).
Palm trees and 8
There is zero inventive value in that function. It is a completely standard approach that everybody writing containers has used hundreds of times.
This Judge seems to get it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Oracle's lawyers are being brilliant at what most lawyers do well: make insanely stupid arguments in order to run their clock as long as possible. It's not about justice. It's about that new yacht Oracle's head lawyer is saving up for. Those nine lines of code might be worth only $20, but the lawyers are making a killing.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Having lived in a lot of places in the world, I can assure you that Americans are no stupider than people anywhere else.
Because to do it differently would be to make the code worse. Go to your local hardware store, and look at the hammers. Despite many different manufacturers, they all look and function basically the same. The reason why is because mankind worked out the most efficient hammer design a long time ago and there is nothing left to innovate there.
Imagine how retarded competitor's hammers would have to be designed to get around a patent like the one Oracle is asserting here. This is why there is so much folly in patenting something so elementary, like 'slide to unlock', or a range check.
It's well within the grasp of most middle schoolers, and it wouldn't take long to find an elementary school child who could write it ;-)
This case is about how Oracle can monetize Java. They spent 6 billion dollars on Sun and what Google is doing without direct compensation to Oracle devalues Java. This is the first step of many by Oracle to force profits from their purchase. Ellison is fairly adept at making money, and doesn't seem concerned about whether or not he is liked. This first case of making the Sun purchase pay for itself is not going in his favor currently.