Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court May Decide the Fate of APIs (But Also Klingonese and Dothraki)
New submitter nerdpocalypse writes: In a larger battle than even Godzilla v. Mothra, Google v. Oracle threatens not only Japan but the entire nerd world. What is at stake is how a language can be [copyrighted]. This affects not just programming languages, APIs, and everything that runs ... well ... everything, but also the copyright status of new languages such as Klingon and Dothraki.
Software Freedom Law Center's brief regarding whether the Supreme Court should take the case or not:
https://www.softwarefreedom.or...
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
We are all aware that Godzilla is now a citizen of Japan?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
The US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction outside of the USA.
So this isn't going to affect Klingons
Why can't Google just ship an OpenJDK build for ARM instead of screwing around with breaking the portability contract of the byte code?
This whole situation is the most asinine pissing match I have seen since SCO...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If invoking an API is a derivative work of the API, then the Linux kernel is actually as infectious as the Affero GPL, and so are network APIs.
The Linux kernel clearly defines userland software as not being derivative. You can see it here. Networking APIs are part of the POSIX standard so that's not a problem, and network protocols can be copied under fair use for interoperability purposes.
Note that "calling an API" is not the question before the court. The question is whether you can copy the collection of APIs as a system for other people to call. No matter how this ruling goes, you will still be able to call an API as before.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So in layman's terms... the SFLC want the Supreme to refuse to hear the case, because they think that the copying of a trivial function, difficult to implement in any other embodiment, allows a "thin end of the wedge" argument in favor of GPL'ing everything on Android.
They specifically cite the Lotus v. Borland case in support of this.
They specifically avoid citing the Ashton Tate v. Fox Software case, because doing so would contradict their claims, and weaken the argument that the Supreme court should hear the case.
Clearly, someone needs to file an Amicus brief citing Ashton Tate v. Fox Software, and suggest that the brief needs to be heard.
Of course, the enormous flaw in this notion is that if you always have to invent new words simply to avoid copying anyone else, then nobody else is actually going to understand you. This is particularly true for things like spoken or written languages, but carries an element of truth to it for computer languages as well. While inventing any language can arguably already be challenging, inventing one that other people will actually use or adopt is usually either a function of the notoriety of the inventor, a matter of blind luck, or some combination of the two.
Since it can be argued that copyright provides a mechanism for otherwise possibly unknown artists to publish their works on the same relatively level playing field as those who may have already gained some notoriety, it seems I think that suggesting that such things should somehow be copyrightable is even at best wholly counter-productive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
All languages are "made up".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
In some APIs, "calling the API" involves implementing a provided interface and handing the reference over (eg DirectShow codecs). Where do you draw the line?
The line is fuzzy, because the law was not written clearly. That is a purpose of judges.....to clarify areas of the law that are not clear.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We nerds know what API is. Unfortunately most of the non-nerds out there can't grasp the concept of API
Most of them will eventually equate "API" with "look and feel" - and they will think that if Microsoft can get to defend their "Windows look and feel" of course Oracle can deny Google to use their Java API
Add to that Apple at one time obtained a 'rounded corner' patent, therefore, I will not be surprised if the SCOTUS ending up siding with Oracle
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yes, yes, we all know you can draw lines with DirectX.
Not without authorisation from God - IN WRITING - witnessed by two duly appointed public commissioners for oaths and a pope.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Oracle haven't thought through the consequences of this.
If they win, APIs are copyrightable and their databases using all sorts of APIs/SQL etc. are owned by their respective owners. Oracle thus have a whole database business they would lose to others.
They wouldn't even own Java clones (which is what they're trying to do by asserting copyright over the definition of the API and thus claim ownership of third party Java runtimes that were written by other companies). Because Java itself is built on lots of peoples APIs, largely taken from the C++ world.
So they think they can win this big prize (control of everything written in the language of java that doesn't use their software). But actually they would lose all their business as would many others.
But also your comment is simply incorrect, Oracle are claiming the API definition is copyrighted separate from the software that implements the API, and the document describing the API. It has nothing to do with compatibility of the Java VM or the interface Google built on it.
Oracle are betting on confusing a judge thinking its the only vulture, and it cannot see all the vulture circling around Oracle HQ waiting for them to win, and open the floodgates of lawsuits against Oracle itself.
The US antitrust authorities - and I don't know which specific agency would apply here - should have required Oracle to agree not to sue in cases like this, as a condition for acquiring Sun Microsystems for $8 billion seven years ago or whenever it was.
At least Scalia, Thomas and Alito will hammer Oracle. They tend to be very antagonistic to arguments like this. In Kelo v. New London, which was a similar abuse of intent in the law (5th amendment there), they wrote scathing dissents. Allowing APIs to be copyrighted is like allowing technical jargon (that's not trademarked) to be copyrighted. They fall dangerously close to the list of things the Copyright Office says are not covered by law.
Part of this makes me wonder if this isn't a "heads we win, tails you lose" scenario for Oracle. If they win, they get to badly hurt Google. If they lose, there's a Supreme Court precedent that allows them to clone any small competitor's products (patent considerations notwithstanding) at a 100% API compatible level and use Oracle integration and consulting to ram them out of business. It smells like a Larry Ellison strategy.
Simple solution to this problem. Find the person(s) who invented the concept of assignment operators, comments, and byte code and mount a major lawsuit against Sun for billions of dollars for copyright violation. Just front end them.
Case law actually helps the law be applied uniformly, and helps one know what is legal.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Article makes it sound like this is some silly squabble among nerds. Like an argument over a StarTrek episode.
I suspect a lot of non-nerd people may be surprised about the far-reaching implications of this decision.
Only in the same sense that someone who learns how to speak English by watching television shows, which are copyrighted, is making a derivative work of multiple sources every time he or she says anything.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I know it's a bit offtopic, but ... in the recent past, I couldn't help but come to one revelation: We allow people to make important decisions who have in no way demonstrated that they know anything about the subject. More often than not, they have actually demonstrated that they have ZERO knowledge, and, what's worse, no intention to change this in any way.
Why again do we allow these people to make decisions?
I mean, if, say, scientists would make our laws, I could live with that. Scientists usually know their subjects. That's basically their work. But politicians? Most of them are lawyers, for crying out loud. What knowledge and insight do you expect from someone who was too stupid to study something useful?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The biggest thing they changed from Java was removing all the UI code (Swing and AWT). That wouldn't have been very useful on a phone
I disagree. What's the big philosophical difference between a mouse-driven interface implemented in Swing and a touch-driven interface, other than that touch targets are bigger (roughly 48px on a side in CSS terms) than mouse targets? So Google could have just extended Swing into Swing Touch by setting the default size of certain controls.
All languages are "made up".
But only some are "recently made up". English was largely made up prior to 1923. Sindarin, tlhIngan Hol, and Dothraki were made up afterward. The 1923 date is important in the United States because it's the legal cutoff between the regime of public domain due to expiration of copyright and that of perpetual copyright on the installment plan.
Concepts don't fall under copyright law
Do the symbols for those concepts fall under copyright law? Does = for assignment? Does /* ... */ for comments?
That's what common law means.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of IBM's mainframe APIs were public and cloned regularly. One of the first reasons was to perform Job Accounting, i.e., charge for the run of batch programs based on some combination of userid, account number, CPU time and clock time used, etc. For instance, if a Job card was processed by an API in module jobctla.exe, we would rename that IBM module to jobctlx.exe, and write our own jobctla.exe. In our module, we would simply pass on the the API calls we didn't want to process in any way and for those we did want to process, we would do our own processing and then hand the call off to the renamed module. Rewriting APIs was an easy way to do pre-processing of commands.
Nope. It messes up the uniformity, as you must search all previous cases, and make an opinion as to how a future judge would rule under them.
More clear would be that any judicial disagreement with the law would wipe the law from the books, and the legislators would have to re-write it to keep a single place where one could find the law, you know, to help one know what's legal.
Learn to love Alaska
I think the Loglan/Lojban split was settled out of court.
And that the conflict was so vicious because the stakes were so small.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.