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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google (bloomberg.com)
Google could owe Oracle billions of dollars after an appeals court said it didn't have the right to use the Oracle-owned Java programming code in its Android operating system on mobile devices. From a report: Google's use of Java shortcuts to develop Android went too far and was a violation of Oracle's copyrights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled. The case was remanded to a federal court in California to determine how much the Alphabet unit should pay.
The dispute is over pre-written directions known as application program interfaces, or APIs, which can work across different types of devices and provide the instructions for things like connecting to the internet or accessing certain types of files. By using the APIs, programmers don't have to write new code from scratch to implement every function in their software or change it for every type of device. The case has divided Silicon Valley for years, testing the boundaries between the rights of those who develop interface code and those who rely on it to develop software programs.
The dispute is over pre-written directions known as application program interfaces, or APIs, which can work across different types of devices and provide the instructions for things like connecting to the internet or accessing certain types of files. By using the APIs, programmers don't have to write new code from scratch to implement every function in their software or change it for every type of device. The case has divided Silicon Valley for years, testing the boundaries between the rights of those who develop interface code and those who rely on it to develop software programs.
I know people who are actively *NOT* buying Oracle because of stupid lawsuits.
But maybe Larry doesn't care anymore, he has enough money to play, and can't spend it all before he dies.
Weird.
FFS... we need a special court for tech cases.
Too much money and power in play.
This could take decades.
On the one side you have the engineers that rely on APIs to Get Stuff Done, on the assumption that that's why the APIs exist. On the other side you have the 1% parasites who realize "oops, somebody took our work and made billions off it. Bring in the lawyers!"
The dispute is over pre-written directions known as application program interfaces, or APIs, which can work across different types of devices and provide the instructions for things like connecting to the internet or accessing certain types of files. By using the APIs, programmers don't have to write new code from scratch to implement every function in their software or change it for every type of device.
Have I completely misunderstood this case or has Bloomberg?
They certainly are working hard to kill Java. Besides the lawsuits, Oracle also gives Java lousy support and upgrade options. Few companies can make Microsoft seem the less evil alternative (C-sharp/.NET), and Oracle is one of them.
Table-ized A.I.
A ruling in Oracle's favor would shut down the ability to use Wine to run Windows-exclusive applications on your Mac because Microsoft could assert copyright in the Windows API against the Wine developers. Is that an outcome that you find helpful to the economy?
So... is 'Larry the Scumbag considered the lesser evil, yet??
Of all the bad laws being thought up in the EU, at least they got the API copyright decision correct.
APIs are not copyright-able in the EU according to their highest court.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/eus-top-court-apis-cant-be-copyrighted-would-monopolise-ideas
It's true that without the large number of Java programmers around, Android would not have had nearly as fast a rate of adoption as far as application creation went.
So? API's aren't copyright-able. Linux wouldn't exist if they were. This was settled ages ago. It's only Oracle's ability to fund the caliber of lawyers necessary to engineer an appeal that is keeping this alive. It's really just a reflection of our corrupt pay to win judicial system.
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You have to nothing to receive a copyright. It is granted to you automatically and under current law the copyright it is yours for 175 years. For the entire 60 year history of computers everyone has believed that APIs can not be copyrighted.
What happens if Oracle manages to change this?
The computer industry is going to collapse into utter legal chaos that it will likely never recover from. That's because if you make Oracle's API have a copyright then that ruling is going to apply to every API in existence since they are all still under copyright. Think about it -- consider how many APIs have been reimplemented over and over. Ownership of SQL is going to revert back to IBM allowing IBM to demand royalties from everyone using SQL. The C run-time API (like printf) is going to revert back to AT&T as owning it. What about Posix? What about game emulators? This will result in total legal chaos in the computer industry.
I used to work for Oracle. They are much, much worse! My manager pulled down his $40K/quarter bonus by billing customers for work that wasn't actually done.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Oracle claims Google was in such a rush in the mid-2000s to create an operating system for mobile devices that the company used key parts of copyrighted Java technology without paying royalties.
If this is true, it certainly isnt happening again. Google dominates smartphones and could very easily decide to phase out java for go/rust, torpedoing whatever rent-seeking strategy Oracle had originally devised. What oracle is attempting to do is nothing short of what Microsoft tried to do with TomTom's implementation of FAT. If BTRFS, percona, and maria are any indication its not the work that matters. Plenty of talented engineers are willing to devote their time and effort to avoiding Oracle. Quite frankly the Oracle Database has turned into a manacle for Ellison. Unable to prevent its inevitable loss to open source alternatives through NDA agreements that prohibit public release of independent Oracle performance tests, and unable to convince cloud-bound companies to continue forking out high dollar per-core licenses for it, The software exists as a 90s anachronism to the hubris of dotcom. Oracle Enterprise Linux was, for all its intentions, a flop, and after acquisition and rebranding MySQL is a withered husk compared to its open source counterparts.
Good people go to bed earlier.
OpenJDK came along later
C# would actually be a good language, if it weren't completely Microsoft-specific. Microsoft obviously analyzed all the common errors C++ programmers make, and tried to create a language in which those mistakes weren't possible. Combined with Managed Code, it allows them to develop more reliable software with worse programmers.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What if the positive ruling is such that somehow it only applies specifically to Java API and what Google has done with it? If so that may not be a bad outcome at all. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the Google's power, or even a good chunk of it, being transferred over to Oracle.
Larry has his own private Hawaiian island to retire to... if I were him, I would retire already!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Larry has his own private Hawaiian island to retire to... if I were him, I would retire already!
If Larry were you, he'd probably say that if he were Larry he'd retire.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The dispute is over pre-written directions known as application program interfaces, or APIs, which can work across different types of devices and provide the instructions for things like connecting to the internet or accessing certain types of files. By using the APIs, programmers don't have to write new code from scratch to implement every function in their software or change it for every type of device.
Let me take a stab at using my journalism skills to improve the clarity and accuracy of this summary:
At the heart of the issue is a technical lingo known as API, which is how programmers tell computers what to do. Since computers can only do as they're told, and only understand ones and zeroes, programmers must use a special robot language to talk to computers, which gets translated from the programmer's magical jargon to a series of ones and zeroes. Unfortunately, a series of ones and zeroes looks very similar to other series of ones and zeroes, so it can be difficult for programmers to keep track of what they're telling the computer.
That's where APIs help; they let the programmers speak more normally to computers, using a pseudo-robot language like "while iterating a data structure perform calculations on the user's social data network", which gets translated into a series of ones and zeroes like "1000101".
It's all about copyright, correct? Copyright only applies to creative expressions. Purely functional expressions are not protected. APIs only provide context for calling functions and passing parameters. They, themselves, do not perform any function but merely describe how the function should be called.
The original ruling was mistaken. Google's use was not Fair Use. What was copied wasn't subject to copyright to begin with. Google used Java APIs but wrote the code behind the APIs. Oracle invented a new copyrightable thing, Structure, Sequence, and Organization. There is nothing in law to support this view.
> ORCL Mkt cap 189.87B
> GOOG Mkt cap 726.29B
Nah, I think Google is actually pretty happy they didn't buy Sun.
IANAL but I think this decision is pretty binary - Alsop originally ruled that APIs could not be copyright. Oracle forced him to change that ruling to API could be copyright but cloning them is fair use. But now Oracle is trying to reverse the fair use ruling by the jury.
If that happens all APIs will be under copyright and the only way to clone them will be with a license. And since those copyrights are going to get constructed retroactively since the dawn of computers the only possible outcome is total legal chaos.
This doesn't matter anymore. Google are no longer the good guys who need to be defended. Now that they've abandoned "don't be evil" they're just another tech titan. Let 'em battle it out with their fellow evildoer.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Few companies can make Microsoft seem the less evil alternative (C-sharp/.NET), and Oracle is one of them.
Microsoft has open sourced the core of .NET under an MIT license, plus a patent grant. It's not hard to seem more evil than that...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This type of argument has been going on for ages in one form or another. When spreadsheets were new there were look and feel lawsuits where companies tried to claim ownership of the design of the user interface for their product. The same with all sorts of other stuff. The evolution of HTML was largely driven at first by Netscape's innovations with the standards committee just trying desperately to keep up ... sort of.
Google has benefited by making use of the Java API, how much they should pay if anything is still being argued. Personally I think Oracle should control the definition of the API but not benefit from someone else's implementation. If you publish a recipe it doesn't mean you can charge all the cooks that use the recipe to produce something. Not only that the purpose of publishing the API is to encourage people to write software that uses the API, I don't see how the direction of use can be controlled by the copyright holder.
A ruling in Oracle's favor would shut down the ability to use Wine to run Windows-exclusive applications on your Mac
First of all, I question if this is really true. It's a different case because it presents a way for executables to make system calls that work, it's not the same as an API specific to a programming language. It is very similar, I grant you that.
99.9% of WINE is the re-implementation of Microsoft libraries, just like Google reimplemented the Java libraries. There is no difference. You could just as well call the JVM an operating system, which in several ways it is.
Also, WINE is not making any money, whereas Google has made a ton of money from Android.
Most of the WINE developers are employed by CodeWeavers, which sells a commercialised version of WINE.
Double also, Microsoft benefits from people being able to run Windows applications in more places, because it encourages more Windows development.
Microsoft is trying to transforming itself into an advertising platform. Everyone that runs Windows applications without sending in as much usage data as possible to Microsoft is a loss for Microsoft.
Lastly though, I have to say think it would be awful to lose WINE. But the question is, would it be wrong?
The "commercial/exploitation rights" part of copyright are a tool to encourage innovation and competition (at least in jurisdictions that distinguish between the moral and the exploitation rights; in the US, the whole shebang is enshrined as intended to advance the useful arts etc). I don't see how extending them to cover APIs would help that.
Donate free food here
Clearly the only difference between the companies is whether they bought Sun. I mean, they both produce databases, and query databases as their primary business. Now, Oracle does it as a middleware, and Google does databases of tracking, ads and searches (in that order) which it then provides as a service, but it's the same thing. Computery-stuff is all interchangable. That's why I have web designers write all my C code for embedded devices.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
In the first court case Alsop ruled correctly the APIs were purely functional expressions and could not be copyrighted. Oracle appealed this to a bunch of Luddite judges on the Appellate court who overruled Alsop and declared that API could be copyright. In the second court cast Alsop/Google were forced to accept the ruling that APIs were copyright. The new (and correct) decision by a Federal jury was that if APIs are copyright, then it is Fair Use to clone them. Oracle appealed this to another set of Luddite judges who have now ruled that it is not Fair Use to copy an API.
This is going to end up in the US Supreme Court. On one side with have greedy Larry, and on the other side with have the potential collapse of the entire US computer industry. It is disgusting that Ellison will risk destroying the entire computer industry in a quest to get another $8B to add to his current $57B net worth.
The decades of embrace, extend, and extinguish have made many wary of MS adoption. The other extreme is how MS suddenly abandons things leaving developers anxious. For example any developer that bet on Windows Phone is not getting much on return.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yea, it's way more fun trying to find a curly bracket in the wrong place than having Python point to the exact line you have wrong.
Then whistleblow. Call the company that Oracle defrauded and let them file criminal charges against oracle and your old boss. Then make some popcorn.
But that value of an API is created not by the company that created the APIs but by the companies that invest their time and money in using the APIs.
In the case of Sun/Oracle, there are three additional factors to consider: (1) Sun achieved rapid and widespread adoption of Java's APIs by falsely claiming that they would make those APIs an open standard; that is, Java APIs would not have succeeded in the market if Sun had been clear from the beginning that they would not allow compatible third party implementations; (2) large parts of the Java APIs were not even developed by Sun or were copied from other APIs; (3) Sun/Oracle has a long history of building their products on other people's APIs.
Why should Google have to pay Sun/Oracle anything? That's like saying that authors need to pay Merriam/Webster/Oxford for using words.
The main problem with this case is that Google have never adequately explained what an API is. If you read the original testimony/filings and decision, the definition of what an API is is laughably vague, and as a result none of the lawyers know what they are fighting about. The correct definition of an API in copyright terms is a "blank form", that requires that you fill in certain information in certain boxes and deliver the form to a specified location for processing. The entity doing the processing might return information to you, or might take other actions on your behalf. The name of the function determines the address to deliver the form, and the parameters are the form fields, along with a calling convention which defines how those are interpreted. An ABI is similar, except already converted into binary/machine readable format by the compiler. This is more obvious on the web, where APIs are implemented using web forms, even if no form is displayed to the user.
This correct definition would have helped Google tremendously, because blank forms are specifically not protected by copyright law, after having been found to be not copyright-able by the Supreme Court. Oracle's SSO claims would also be seen for what they are - like claiming that organizing the forms in a bank or post-office in a particular way (in this case alphabetically) has some inherent value.
That's sad, because Java was designed to run on mobile devices from the beginning. That's why, for example, it doesn't support unsigned integers or has no type larger than 64 bits in the language.
"Why is that the case?"
First of all, look at the can of worms it opens.
Time SetTime(hr, mm, ss, ms)
That's an API. For creating some sort of 'time' construct, initialized by using a method called SetTime, and passing it the hour, minute, second, and milliseconds.
class Object {
boolean equals(Object o)
}
That's an API, you have an object, and it has an equals method, that compares itself to another object and returns a boolean based on their equivalence.
The minute you rule that an API is protected by copyright, someone gets to claim ownership of that API. And every other language, library, or tool that came afterwards is in violation.
" most languages these days are only powerful because of extensive libraries and API's"
If APIs are protected by copyright, then not only is an exact duplicate protected, then a 'derivative work' is also protected.
Most APIs for similar things are quite similar. Whether I'm using Java or Python or C# or C++ the various standard and even 3rd party APIs for for a List container, or for a Button widget are very similar, often identical. The lists all have an 'add' method, and a 'contains' method. The button has a position. size, label and property and a clicked event handler. Even when they aren't identical, surely they are clearly related -- and i could easily argue that your button api that came after mine is a derivative work ... look how similar they are.
Why it's almost like they are similar on purpose! Someone owes me a billion dollars!
Further; identical APIs are particularly useful as drop in replacements to correct buggy or crufty or non-performant or legacy solutions. We have openGL wrappers for directX, directX wrappers for OpenGL, we have 3DFX glide wrappers that allow old 3dfx games to run hardware accelerated on modern hardware. All these 'wrappers' exist to allow software written to one API to be used without modification on a 'new backend'. If companies can own and assert copyright on the API, then API wrappers cannot exist.
If you write some software against some 3rd party library, and then years later want to change the backend out, you can rebuild the software to a new API, or you can write a wrapper class for the old code to call that translates it to the new backend. The new backend has its own API. But the wrapper class is effectively a re-implementation of the original API.
It's classic software design pattern: "the Adapter pattern"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Aside from Adapters, lots of people have written initially against 'standard library' or 3rd party library functionality; and then later gone back and dropped in custom built optimized-for-their-needs solutions to those libraries. That's usually done by building against the original/standard/3rd party API and then re-implementing the API you need with your own custom stuff later on, as you need it, if you need it.
Then we have projects like WINE which implements Windows API, FreeDOS which implements the DOS API. We have all manner of 'plugin architectures' that function in like ways, but that constitutes an API. We have chip emulators that emulate the hardware API. We have hypervisors that emulate certain hardware API. We have virtual devices that emulate the physical device APIs. We have all kinds of software bits to run cpu instructions in software on chips that lack hardware support -- that's API.
The Browser DOM is an API, and the web would be very different if browser vendors could have simply asserted that other browser vendors couldn't include their DOM extensions.
Software engineering and software development has spent the last several decades under the assumption that this was all ok, because it WAS ok. It's ludicrous to change the game now. This doesn't just affect Google vs Oracle and the implementation on Android.
Changing the rules on what you can do with an API rewrites the software industry.
.NET Core and Xamarin allow use of C# on other platforms.
Sun and later Oracle were so fixated on the nonfunctional J2ME stack that they didn't see Google coming. Sun had the skeleton of what later became Android with the SavaJe acquisition but didn't have the funds or desire to make it happen. They (and later Oracle) failed to adequately invest in mobile and now Google has. Larry is simply pissed that someone other than himself is making money on something he neglected to capitalize on. To Lawsuit Larry, that's a crime - to anyone else, it's called business.
Organization? You must be joking..
People familiar with the extent of Java API's would be able to develop applications far more quickly for Android than if they had just used Java the language but come up with a whole new standard library.
That is actually what they did, but you have to implement all of java.lang (e.g. String) and obviously it makes not much sense to provide your own APIs for java.util.*, java.io.* etc.
Basically you have to implement everything that starts with java.*
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
15 years ago, I was handed a project to interface with a system where the only documentation was the Java reference implementation. The company we were dealing with did everything in Java; there was no support from them if you strayed from the safe lands of Java.
When they started doing "proper" documentation, Java was first and foremost in it. There was slight mention of other programming languages.
Now, you cannot find Java mentioned in any of their documentation. You can submit support requests for PHP, .NET, Python, or even Perl, but not Java.... You're on your own if you wander in the lands of Java.
"Part of Google’s defense focused on the idea that Java was developed for desktop computers, while Android was created for phones and other mobile devices."
If that was Google's defense then they should have lost in court. Java was developed for mobile devices FIRST! That was Java's intended use. The desktop market took over when the developers realized the potential the JVM provided.
I'm conflicted about who to root for in this thug on thug match up.
Then R.I.P. Java. It is too dangerous to develop new software if APIs suddenly acquire copyright protection because the licensing terms effectively change and could impact your business. At this point to run a business responsibly you should negotiate up front what your license terms for tools, compilers and APIs should be. Going with platforms, tools and languages that are open licensed is going to be necessary for many businesses that don't have the resources to wrestle with licenses, lawyers and sales staff with complex licensing payment terms.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's like someone patented the Oxford Comma and by extension the works of anyone who has ever used one. A programming language is very similar to a written/spoken language, an API is very similar to a grammatical style or tone of voice - it contains no substance in itself, it does nothing in itself, it's just a thing which is required to exist - everything that interacts with anything has them and there is nothing novel in the API of anything - it is literally an interface by which the thing interacts. In a more fuzzy logic/business arena: if you can control any API you write then suddenly everyone who uses your platform is effectively working for you without being paid and is forbidden from reusing anything they themselves wrote elsewhere without effectively starting over from scratch to change the style in which it was written.
What do you mean it isn't certainly Java? You do remember the federal trial concerning MS right? MS tried to embrace, extinguish, and extend with Java. As for web standards, they tried the same thing with the browser (again at the trial). Then there's the hijacking of the Open Office XML standard. I suggest you do a simple google search. Or if you are too lazy, read wikipedia.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That ship sailed 20 years ago. They tried to screw me out of severance pay when I left; I _did_ threaten to tell the company they had fraudulently billed (in fact, my taking the blame for that project not being done when half the time was already billed on it was the reason I was leaving). They agreed to give me my severance, and I agreed not to rat on them. However, they put a 30 day delay on pulling out my 401K funds, and during that time it mysteriously lost 25% of it's value.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't consider them supported well enough to use on Linux projects, but maybe someday...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
.NET Core and Xamarin allow use of a subtly incompatible, incomplete subset of C# on a very few other platforms.
> Wait, what? Int round(float) isn't what is in question here, it's what the function round does and the underlying code to execute it.
Half right.
Oracle's claim is that Google isn't allowed to have round(float) round it's input. Google says the copyright protects the *expression* of the idea, the implementation. The actual copyright statute says the idea is not protected, the expression of the idea is. Oracle says it's unlawful for Google to have a function called round() which rounds it's input, because Java has that. Google would have to call theirs round_a_number() or something, Oracle says.
Google says you are allowed to make something COMPATIBLE with java, with a different implementation. Oracle says making it java compatible was unlawful.
> This is whether or not Google has the right to implement its own JVM.
And you can't implement a JVM without having round(). HOW round works can change (the expression, aka implementation).
The API is an interface specification. It is "mathematics". As such it has neither copyright protection nor patent protection. This is akin to claiming that a "thing with a handle and you can cut other things with it" is a protected concept. It is not. Far too general and obvious.
On the other hand, if Oracle wins this then Java is basically dead. That would be a good thing.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What Google made was a Java-compatible runtime.
Oracle claims that making it compatible, using the same interface, is unlawful.
Consider anything that uses any kind of network protocol, serial, protocol, etc. If Oracle wins, the precedent is that it's unlawful to make an accessory compatible with any device which uses a non-standard protocol, because you'd be copying interface, just as Google copied the interface to Java.
Actually, OpenJDK is using the Oracle API as well, AFAIK.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Google and some others too. It was utterly demented to allow Oracle to get control of Sun.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If that is your most important issue with Python, you should probably not be writing code...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Exactly...that was my thought... Also, OpenJDK has been around since at LEAST 2008... Android initial release: September 23, 2008; 9 years ago
Agile Spaceport - You will never find a more wretched hive of scrum and villainy. We must be cautious.
>So? API's aren't copyright-able.
You're wrong. The previous Java appeal determined that APIs are copyrighted, automatically, by law. The question this time was whether, even though copyrighted, API use for compatibility purposes is fair use? The appeals court decided that it was not. Therefore, a license is required to use the API, even if the functions identified by it are implemented using completely original code. Basically, this is a fail for Google's lawyers (most of whom are probably looking for a new job today) and a win for Oracle's.
Yes, the decision does open up a legal Pandora's Box for the computer industry. To take it to absurdity: who owns the API to the English Language (the first, or at least the first definitive, dictionary)? Will Oxford sue Websters and Funk & Wagnall's and dictionary.com?
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geez -- feels like a tennis match. This case is still going on?!?!
Fair use, not fair, Out of bounds. Lob. Love.
call me when it's over.
So? Apple gained a huge benefit for their platform by freeloading BSD for which they did not pay the authors anything.
Exactly right!!
The difference is that Apple used code that was EXPLICITLY given for others to use for free. BSD gave everyone permission to use not just the API's, but the code behind the API's.
So then it would follow, if you took something like Java not under a BSD license, and tried to use it, there might be trouble if you used it in a way the license holders did not allow.
In any case Google has contributed to the development Java through the JCP.
But that is irrelevant, it's not like Oracle considered that payment for the license use in question, even if it was helpful to the Java community.
Just why do you think Google switched to Kotlin anyway, they saw this coming a mile away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Huh? M$ is still evil and still have the work world by the balls. Wanna list?
Table-ized A.I.
It describes to a person who can understand it how, at least theoretically, something works or is supposed to work, but does not itself offer any useful function or purpose beyond educating a person with a sufficient understanding of relevant source material on how whatever is described by it might be built. It's actually just a description of how the thing would work *IF* you actually built it.
It's worth noting, also, that electronic schematics are not ordinarily even considered to be copyrightable by themselves. There can be trademarks used in the schematic, or copyrighted content in it preventing wholesale copying. You can also patent whatever thing it is a schematic for, or you can keep your schematics a trade secret entirely to protect them, but if you publish a schematic there is *NOTHING* that you can legally do to stop someone else from copying that schematic and using it in something of their own design unless they have *OTHERWISE* infringed on your intellectual property (in which case it is not the copying of the schematic that is the problem, rather it is the other infringement that is actually an issue).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I was wondering why a second language suddenly appeared in the Android IDE. I'm assuming Google will be solely supporting Kotlin soon?
I wouldn't touch Java with a 50' pole.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Lastly though, I have to say think it would be awful to lose WINE. But the question is, would it be wrong?
Any exclusive right in a work of authorship that fails "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is wrong.
Ironically SQL is IBM's... So can they crush Oracle?
When Bill Joy created Berkeley Unix back in 1984 he did so by rewriting 100% of the implementation and only kept the interfaces/APIs. AT&T sued...and lost copyright and license infringements. If that hadn't happened we would not have Linux. This should be settled law.
Seriously, pep8 or GTFO.
Or don't you have coding guidelines for whatever language you're currently using?
- chrish
Yeah, but Microsoft hangs on to projects far longer than Google does.
Past Microsoft would replace a product with something completely incompatible with no notice, leaving their "partners" twisting in the wind. Example: PlaysForSure that wouldn't play on Microsoft's own player hardware. It's unclear if this trait has been jettisoned from "Current Microsoft"
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Using a lot of Novell NetWare these days? Remember when NT4 had their NetWare compatibility services, that allowed people to wholesale switch their servers overnight without even reinstalling a single piece of client software?
I'd bet that little piece of software would run afoul of the precedent set by this appeal...
Granted, Novell tripped on their own dicks enough to crash that ecosystem themselves, but Microsoft was pretty proud of how they fucked Novell back in the day.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I believe Google should win this. I also think your argument has a major weakness.
> And besides, how can Oracle copyright an API that has dozens of things that came before? round() has been around in basically every floating point language ever.
All of the words in John Lennon's song "Imagine" were around before he wrote the song. How could Lennon copyright a song that has dozens of things that came before? Lennon (and Oracle) selected "particular* words and arranged them in a particular way, a skillful way. Lennon can't copyright each word in the lyrics to Imagine, but he can certainly copyright the lyrics as a whole.
There are two reasons I think Oracle should lose:
Copyright, by statute, protects a unique EXPRESSION of an idea and explicitly does not protect the idea itself. For software, I interpret that as meaning the implementation is protected. One cannot copy/paste the source code of Unix without permission, one CAN make a new OS which behaves similarly to Unix.
In practical effect, Oracle's argument is that nobody is allowed to make a JRE that is *compatible with* Oracle's JRE. In order to make a new thing compatible with an old thing, it must use the same interface as the old. It would be bad public policy to rule that it's unlawful to make things compatible by using the interface.
Classic ASP - still supported. Visual Basic - still supported. Nearly all old versions of stuff available on MSDN. It would be easier to argue that they hold on to things for too long.
There is no doubt that they do shelve unsuccessful systems, but that could be said of any company.
I think the moral of the story is that one should wait for the bandwagon to get big enough before jumping on for the long term.
Greed is the root of all evil.
No, most people don't remember the 22 year old phrase from a company that has undergone significant change in both management and operation.
Someone asked for an example of embrace, extend, and extinguish. I posted some.
All large companies have done some bad things but in general I'd choose today's MS over Oracle any day.
And I"m not saying Oracle is better in any regards. In the context of the conversation someone asked why more people don't use .NET. I gave them specific reasons: EEE and constant abandonment.
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MS at least supported Windows Phone for a few years, and briefly allowed upgrades to W10 on even marginally usable old hardware
Only if you defined "supported" in the loosest of terms. If we just look at Windows Mobile, that is the epitome of MS abandonment from the development and customer perspective. For example from WinMo 6 to Windows Phone 7, almost nothing was transitioned from one version to the next. If you developed for WinMo 6, you had to abandon it and go to WP7. As a customers they had to abandon their phones if they wanted WP7.
But if you actually moved to developing WP7, were you guaranteed stability? No. as the transition from WP7 to WP8 also saw the move from a WindowsCE kernel to a WindowsNT kernel. As a developer you had to compile for both versions to be on them both and eventually abandon your WP7 code going forward. Also customers were again screwed as they had to buy new phones for WP8 and could not simply update their OS due to hardware requirements.
And then WP10 finally came. Did it finally bring stability? No. Again some phones (I would say most) on WP8.1 could not update to WP10. At the same time, MS themselves are starting to abandon the platform on the development side.
So if you invested years in developing for Windows Mobile/Windows Phone you were rewarded by a platform that routinely abandoned both developers and consumers.
Now what does all this have to do with Java, other than the lawsuit?
I was responding to the thread of why more developers don't use .NET under a MIT license?
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Classic ASP - still supported. Visual Basic - still supported. Nearly all old versions of stuff available on MSDN. It would be easier to argue that they hold on to things for too long.,
And if you developed for Windows Mobile/Windows Phone you are out of luck. If you were a PlaysForSure partner you were stabbed in the back when MS went with V2.0 that didn't work with your players and only worked with their Zune and then abandon that a few years later. There's many reasons why developers are wary of MS.
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I'm not a Microsoft fan, but Google has a way bigger reputation for just abandoning stuff. So bad that when Keep came out, people predicted when it would be abandoned:
That is true however the context of the thread isn't why you should pick Google over MS. The context was why developers haven't adopted .NET despite a MIT license.
Meanwhile, Microsoft still *hasn't* abandoned Windows Phone users, despite an ongoing, total failure in the marketplace:
What? Microsoft is no longer developing either features or hardware for Windows Phone as announced by Microsoft. I consider that abandoning the platform. Add to that 3rd party developers are not flocking to the platform as well as current developers are not updating their apps, I would say WP10 is dead.
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Here's my understanding.
Everybody agrees that using APIs for compatibility purposes is fair use. Therefore, it's fair use when writing Java programs to run on an existing JVM, and it's fair use when writing a new JVM that will run existing code. This covers almost all cases, and (as far as I can tell) all important cases. People can keep writing Java programs and JVMs.
According to copyright law, it's clear that APIs are copyrighted. They're creative, and they're in fixed form. Therefore, the only legal ways to use an API is to be the copyright holder, have a license, or fair use. Fair use covers all cases we're really interested in.
Oracle's claim is that Google's use of the API is not for compatibility. The claim is that Google's JVM (Dalvik) is not intended to run standard Java programs, and Java programs written for Android are not intended to run on other systems. Therefore, Google picked Java as the main Android programming language because it was familiar to programmers, not to be compatible with any existing software. Google could have picked any language, or invented one, without loss of compatibility. Therefore, they used Java and (more importantly) Java APIs merely to make Android programming more attractive.
I'm not speculating on whether Oracle's claim is true or not. However, it doesn't cover the cases where using APIs is necessary. If Oracle wins this, approximately nothing changes and there are no additional problems for software developers (except everyone involved in Java on the Android).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
APIs are not necessarily merely functional. Putting together a good API for anything complex requires judgment, and hence creativity. Given the need to express particular functionality, different architects will come out with different APIs. Creative works can be mostly functional, since the amount of creativity involved is small.
However, in order to write a Java program, you need to use the APIs. Copyright law is not intended to prevent anyone from doing anything other than limit copying in various forms, so using APIs in that way is legally OK.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Using APIs for compatibility purposes isn't against copyright law, and I believe nobody in the case is saying anything different. You use Java APIs when you write a Java program, since you want it to run on existing Java implementations, and when you write a Java implementation, since you want existing programs to run on it.
You mention the WIndows APIs for WINE. WINE exists to run existing Windows programs, so it uses the API because it has to be compatible. That's legal.
Now, suppose I find documentation for a proprietary program, and use the overall design, replicating the internal APIs. I've then infringed on the original copyright. I have to do my own overall design. I didn't have to use that, since I had to write a new program to be legal, and I can't use too many things from the old one. This has been tested in the court system.
Oracle claims that Google didn't intend Android Java programs to run on existing Java implementations, or Dalvik etc. to run existing Java programs. That's more like the situation in the paragraph above.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And being familiar to programmers is not a form of compatibility?
And it is also fair use to modify the copyright work as in satire.
"Oracle claims that Google didn't intend Android Java programs to run on existing Java implementations, or Dalvik etc. to run existing Java programs. That's more like the situation in the paragraph above."
That's absurd. Most existing java programs weren't intended to run on a smart phone, but that doesn't mean that a TON of existing java code wasn't intended to be run on android.
In the same way that Mono.NET isn't really intended to run "windows programs" and lacks tons of stuff that is in windows but the standard libraries are the same and lots of code is portable as a result, and some complete programs are compatible, even if most are not.
In mono's case,
I'm restating Oracle's claim from the lawsuit earlier If Google can show that a ton of existing code was intended to run on Android, they should win the lawsuit.
Mono.NET is, IIRC, explicitly allowed to copy Microsoft due to Microsoft's issuing a legally binding promise. WINE might be a better example. BTW, wasn't Mono.NET designed to offer compatibility between Windows and other environments for programs, among other things?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The compatibility test is for what you can do. If you want to write a general Java program, and run it, you can't do that without using the published APIs. It's a matter of functional necessity. If you don't intend to run a Java program on a standard implementation, then you can use any other API available, so you aren't forced to use the standard Java JVM and libraries. If it's necessary to accomplish something, it's fair use. If it's for convenience, it isn't.
Satire, in the US, is fair use. Dalvik was not intended nor presented as a parody of the JVM.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Back in 2005, well before Android was released, Rubin wrote, "If Sun doesn't want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language - or - 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way."
Regarding that email, Mueller noted that the judge overseeing the case observed, "Google may have simply been brazen, preferring to roll the dice on possible litigation rather than to pay a fair price [to license Java]."
Rubin's email suggests that the Android group was fully aware that it had already invested a lot of work into its Java-related platform, too much so to shift to the adoption of Microsoft's alternative language and runtime.
https://appleinsider.com/artic...
That pretty much says they did it, to use existing code they had already written.