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Google Takes the Fight With Oracle To the Supreme Court
whoever57 writes Google has asked the Supreme Court to review the issue of whether APIs can be copyrighted. Google beat Oracle in the trial court, where a judge with a software background ruled that APIs could not be copyrighted. but the Appeals court sided with Oracle, ruling that APIs can be copyrighted. Now Google is asking the Supreme Court to overturn that decision.
(Also of interest.)
1. The don't use the Java brand and don't call it Java.
2. Its not based on Sun/Oracle sources and relies on a clean room implementation
3. Google didn't sign a licensing contract then violate it like MS did.
Hmmm, as I recall, Microsoft shipped something which was so completely not Java as to be laughable.
They'd taken an existing language, which was intended to be cross platform, and injected (as they usually do) their own platform-specific functions ... and still tried to pass it off as Java.
But code written to use those extensions wouldn't run anywhere else. Which means Microsoft basically broke the language and the cross-platform intention.
The Microsoft/Java issue was about intentionally breaking compatibility by adding their own crap.
Now, contrast that to someone taking the exact same API interfaces, and implementing them properly for compatibility. Further, look at the fact that API interfaces from UNIX have been duplicated for literally decades in order to make something which uses the same interface and allows for code portability. The interface is what you publish to allow others to use it.
So, if you want consistency, you have to remember these are actually two different issues.
Microsoft didn't adhere to the published interfaces, and just decided to add their own. That was Sun's lawyers.
Now, Oracle is saying "you can't copy our API interface because it's super secret and copyrighted". This is Oracle's lawyers.
Google is saying "you're idiots, this is how programming has worked for decades".
So, we agree you should be able to adhere to the API interface for compatibility sake. We also don't think you should be doing what Microsoft did, and do their usual "embrace/extend/extinguish" crap.
And when they got told they weren't allowed to embrace and extend, they dropped it altogether and came out with .NET.
Oracle is actually making a different argument than Sun was at the time.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Nobody ever said that Microsoft could not ship their own version of the JRE, and Microsoft newer made their own JRE.
Microsoft distributed a modified version of suns jre, based on source code licensed from Sun. And it was sourcecode licerse, which gave Microsoft problems. If they had just made their own jre, anything would have been fine(Except for the fact that they might not have called it Java(tm)
How is Google shipping their own custom JRE on phones they control 70% of the market for that different?
Android phones don't run Java, and don't come with a JRE.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's a clever lawyer trick, but Java itself uses copyrighted APIs.
I think you mean Java itself uses pre-existing APIs. As far as I know, no API has ever been copyright, and Oracle's claim is an attempt to ram through a breathtaking expansion in the scope of copyright for software.
Patent/IP Attorney chiming in.
Sure. You're very specific expression of both. You don't get to copyright the "facts" in either case. Everyone is free to copy the factual aspects of both maps and manuals. The distinction is an important one. And while not addressing maps and manuals directly in their petition, Google takes on the concept: you can write a book about art, but you don't get to stop other people from doing that art.
You can draw (and potentially get a copyright for) an outline of the world, but you can't stop other people from doing the same.
Google's argument about the API isn't all that much different: you can copyright an implementation of the API, but you don't get a copyright for the "facts" of the API: function names, arrangement, etc. The argument is that copyright, by statute, expressly does not extend to "extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." (17 USC 102(b)). This is not a trivial argument. It's also pretty important because if Oracle/Federal Circuit are correct, then you can have de facto patent protection for a century without any of the procedural protections such as examination.
Well, Sun did throw a bit of a stinkbomb with the open-source Java versions, refusing to let them do the Java Compatability tests without paying, but they finally relented on that one.
Then there's the animosity Sun had towards Tomcat, too, being a better J2EE stack than Sun's.
This was all well before Oracle had bought Sun...