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Oracle Will Officially Appeal Its 'Fair Use' Loss Against Google (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The massive Oracle v. Google litigation has entered a new phase, as Oracle filed papers (PDF) yesterday saying it will appeal its loss on "fair use" grounds to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. For a brief recap of the case: after Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems and acquired the rights to Java, it sued Google in 2010, saying that Google infringed copyrights and patents related to Java. The case went to trial in 2012. Oracle initially lost but had part of its case revived on appeal. The sole issue in the second trial was whether Google infringed the APIs in Java, which the appeals court held are copyrighted. In May, a jury found in Google's favor after a second trial, stating that Google's use of the APIs was protected by "fair use." Oracle's appeal is no surprise, but it will be a long shot. The four-factor "fair use" test is a fairly subjective one, and Oracle lawyers will have to argue that the jury's unanimous finding must be overturned. There are various ways a jury could arrive at the conclusion that Google was protected by fair use. The case will go back to the Federal Circuit, the same appeals court that decided APIs could be copyrighted in the first place. That decision overruled U.S. District Judge William Alsup, the lower court judge, and was extremely controversial in the developer community. However, the same decision that insisted APIs can be copyrighted clearly held the door open to the idea that "fair use" might apply. Unless Oracle pulls off a stunning move on appeal, its massive legal expenditures in this case will be for naught.
people are saying that
There must be Oracle employees who actively post here at /..
What do you think of this? What should the rest of us think of you and your employer?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Will he now?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
So long as there's an appeal process, such as higher cours, it would be dump for any company to not pursue it.
Eg, look at Apple having, after a third round, finally reversed the appear court in the federal court, the Samsung lawsuit on their slide-to-unlock paten which they stole from their own client. How Effin nasty is that? Because of Samsung, Apple had to remove the slide-to-unlock from iOS 10 screwing with everyone (I hate unlocking my thumb id phone with the stupid click-through). Apple got the decision finally reversed some 2 weeks after iSO 10 shipped.
Now a similar scenario is presenting itself for this Oracle-Google suit. For anyone on the admin board, working for the shareholders, would be hard-pressed to attempt to reverse that decision as well.
Disclaimer: I work for Oracle. But nowhere near the Java group, administration or legal dept. This is purely my opinion and I dont get to profit from this case, one way or another.
Since (only a subset of) the Java language is used to produce byte code for the ART, and not Java classes, there's no reason that Google can't just use only a subset of another language to the same effect - C++, Object Pascal, even a bastardized version of BASIC or Hypercard/Hypertalk and its descendants. Or something completely new ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
... is that I saw this all coming the moment Google announced they would use Java for Android. It was clearly obvious to me (and I assume anyone else actually paying attention) that Oracle had "open sourced" Java (without really open sourcing it) specifically as a patent litigation trap for such big companies as Google. Of course, Google doesn't like being told what to do so they called Oracle's bluff.
One or both of these companies is going to find out they've made a huge mistake. Either way, we all lose. Java always sucked, and, I feel, as evidenced by this, has primarily been used for evil rather than innovation.
They basically have to actively pursue an appeal or they could risk lawsuits for breach of directors duties or some such against the board.
Maybe we could call it "The Darl". Oracle is winning this year's Darl award.
Do you have ESP?
Probably. I dont know enough about administration or legal to assert this but I sure would be ticked if my investment portfolio administrator didn't pursue all venues possible for ensuring the portfolio's profitability. And those guys (funds manager) are probably the one who would sue a company for now appealing such a case.
...that Oracle is the Donald Trump of the computer world.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I think you mean if either of them win everyone loses
One Raging Asshole Called Donald Trump?
That doesn't work as an acronym. But it sure fits otherwise.
oracle should clone the closed google android api and then give it free.
anyways, the reason android won and j2me lineage ended was that sun and then oracle did fuck all nothing with it and when they did add api's as ratified they were so terribly thought out that nobody could use them for any commercial apps! like the j2me file api's. to create a file to save something accessible from another app you needed to answer minimum 3 times yes to a security prompt as the user! THREE FUCKING TIMES! thats two more than to send a sms!
oh and sun ran projects to make exactly basically what android is(minus accessible linux) for like 8 years, never managing to do it. they managed to add modern ui blocks into j2me just before everyone axed j2me support. that was around 7 years late!
actually my bet about that is that execs at oracle/sun just looked at feature tickbox excel sheets and thought everything was honky dory and never tried to actually _do_ anything with the api's. and about getting rid of those security prompts via signing? you would have had to sign against every operator(!) roots - and for non operator phones you would have been screwed over even if you got manufacturer signing (which by the way was more expensive than signing up for apple developer account for 4 years(!)) since the user would still have been pestered by security prompts to do anything with the apps(and the user could not have turned them off either). ..and no it was not properly thought out security either, since trivial non billable stuff was behind more security prompts to the user than stuff that cost the user actual money - and further it would have pestered them so much that they would either just stop using apps or just get used to pressing yes ten times to pay for and download and open a music file.
also most of the j2me api suggestions came from operators who were fighting each other to death, so they would try to put in stuff that if implemented to the spec would make it unusable and pester the user way too much while they would leave the pre-spec implementation in their own phones. what a fucking mess.
Do you really think Google would give a shit if Oracle used the SSO of their private API's? I don't. It's just SSO. Although, I don't quite see what Oracle would get out of this besides a bunch of method signatures they wouldn't know what to do with.
Anyone else think Oracle will become the new SCO?
Is this because this course of action ensure the portfolio's profitability, or rather that the legal department is looking at their interest before the business and the brand?
The third, of course is Hillary, now that she's eyeing a war with Russia over Syria by shooting down Russian planes in her no fly zone.
Or maybe people think wars are better when a Clinton starts them? This war can be more equal, they've made sure that gays and women can be drafted for it.
Is that like complaining by yourself in the shower?
I daresay that if you tell your shareholders "We are dropping the case because it would be extremely expensive to pursue and the odds of victory are exceedingly slim" then your shareholders don't have a any cause of action to sue you. By not wasting money on a lawsuit you probably can't win you are protecting shareholder value.
To sue Oracle for dropping this case now would be akin to suing your fund manager for not investing your retirement savings in lottery tickets. Sure you lost out on the possibility of retiring a multi-millionaire but the odds of that possibility was so astoundingly low that if he had done so you could sue him for 'investing' your retirement savings so recklessly.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I don't disagree with patent reform issues, but what everyone fails to notice is that Google DID rip Oracle off. The above are two separate issues that constantly get conflated. They did it, and they should have to pay, they are not above the law.
Sounds like a lawyer's wet dream
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
All I can tell you that when I came to ORCL as part of the SUNW acquisition, we were not given any choice. Windows laptops. We were all told by the boss' boss: don't ask for anything ESPECIALLY a raise, do what you are told and don't make waves. It was, as they say, downhill from there.
I hope Oracle sues itself out of existence. I don't know any use human being that enjoys Java anyways. What a mess.
One practical problem with an alternative implementation of the Java platform is that a developer is forbidden to distribute an incomplete, work-in-progress implementation to the public. Per the "License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations" in the Limited License Grant of the Java Language Specification, only a complete implementation that "fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality" and passes the test suite may be published. This forces all alternative implementations into a cathedral model rather than a bazaar model and places an entry barrier of having to find a huge chunk of funding before having a chance to receive any related revenue. Further more, the test suite itself appears to be incompatible with permissive free software licenses.
Google DID rip Oracle off [...] and they should have to pay
Then how should interoperability with a platform implemented as copyrighted computer programs be achieved, other than through copying the interfaces needed to interoperate with other software developed for the platform? If you believe instead that one ought not to attempt to interoperate in the first place, then how does it benefit the public to give a platform's owner the power to chill interoperability through copyright law?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Oracle should stop taking Google to court and actually work with Google to keep/get Java in to Android.
Sounds like Oracle is gonna pull an SCO!
Shut up ugly
So just don't call it Java.
That avoids trademark infringement, not copyright infringement. See Tetris v. Xio , about a deliberately renamed video game workalike. In order not to infringe, it probably has to be as different from Java as C# is.