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Google Asks Supreme Court To Rule On When Code Can Be Copyrighted (theverge.com)
Google is asking the Supreme Court to make the final call in its infamous dispute with Oracle. "Today, the company announced it has filed a petition with the Court, asking the justices to determine the boundaries of copyright law in code," reports The Verge. From the report: The case dates back to 2010, when Oracle first accused Google of improperly using elements of Oracle's Java programming language to build Android. Oracle said that Google's use of Java application programing interfaces was a violation of copyright law. Google has responded that APIs are too fundamental to programming to be copyrighted. The case has led to two jury trials, and several rulings have doled out wins and losses to both companies over the course of eight years. Last year, a favorable Oracle decision set Google up to potentially lose billions of dollars.
Google asked for a Supreme Court hearing on the case in 2014, but the Court rejected the request at the time. The company says new issues are now at play, and is asking the Court to decide whether software interfaces can be copyrighted, and whether using them to build something new constitutes fair use under the law. In its new petition to the Supreme Court, Google says the case is not only important to copyright law, but has "sheer practical importance," as it centers around two touchstones of computing: Google's Android and Oracle's Java. The Court's intervention could alter the future of software, the company argues.
Google asked for a Supreme Court hearing on the case in 2014, but the Court rejected the request at the time. The company says new issues are now at play, and is asking the Court to decide whether software interfaces can be copyrighted, and whether using them to build something new constitutes fair use under the law. In its new petition to the Supreme Court, Google says the case is not only important to copyright law, but has "sheer practical importance," as it centers around two touchstones of computing: Google's Android and Oracle's Java. The Court's intervention could alter the future of software, the company argues.
Lets hope the special interests and patent trolls don't get the court to screw up!
;)
Just my 2 cents
It's somehow pleasing to see a huge copyright holder get shafted by the laws they helped promote. Hey Google, if this stuff went into the public domain in a timely manner like it's supposed to you wouldn't have your tit in a wringer right now.
Google has no right to Oracle IP.
Just because they bought an implementation of a knockoff of Java so obvious everyone thinks it IS Java does not give them rights. Why would the Supreme Court listen to yet another ridiculous claim on Java? Huh? Why?
You fucking take that shit about BASIC back right this second.
Not commenting on this specifically, just in General.
The U.S. legal system needs many, many improvements.
It's an interface. It should not be allowed to be copyrighted.
But that is the question here... Oracle owns copyright to Java but it published an interface for making compatible software and now it's crying because Google has something that complies with the interface but doesn't pay money to Oracle. So are the Java APIs also protected by copyright? They are essentially a technical description, like a table or a measurement, which in other domains isn't protected.
This is fundamental to how people will interact with open source or proprietary software.
If Oracle wins, there will be a new movement to get a free programming language and free toolchain for it that people can use... And leave Oracle in the dirt. Kotlin will need to go all native and ditch it's Java roots.
No, Ruby and Smalltalk are not suitable substitutes. No, Python and BASIC and Fortran aren't either.
I was always taught that the x.C / x.C++ file was copyright and held the IP and must not be copied but the x.h / x.hpp etc was just interface or
instructions on how to talk to the implementation in the x.c / x.cpp file.
Any other way of handling this is just basic fucking stupidity...
fairly average c cpp asm programmer
AND i HATE PROVING IM HUMAN!
You progressives are remarkably bigoted.
>p46 "As long as the project continues to honor the terms of the licenses under which it recieved contributions, the licenses continue in effect. There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked. See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
--Lawrence Rosen
>p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license that is revocable.
--Lawrence Rosen
>p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest is revocable."
--Lawrence Rosen
Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and Intellectual property Law
>p65 "Of all the licenses descibed in this book, only the GPL makes the explicity point that it wants nothing of /acceptance/ of /consideration/:
>...
>The GPL authors intend that it not be treated as a contract. I will say much more about this license and these two provisions in Chapter 6. For now, I simply point out that the GPL licensors are in essentially the same situation as other open source licensors who cannot prove offer, acceptance, or consideration. There is no contract."
--Lawrence Rosen
----
>David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:
>"Termination of rights
>[...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.
>[...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can enforce themselves.
Which I guess means that sufficient bribes have been placed to change some minds. Nice that Google has so much money that they can apply this approach each time they lose. However, one can only ask -- Where's mine?
MySQL was bought by Oracle. Why would a "serious" database company tarnish their name with that?
I think the confusion here is because it's called an "application PROGRAMMING interface". Despite having the word "programming" in it, an API is not a program.
APIs are to programming as plumbing is to water. Or as electricity is to an electric socket. NOT the same thing at all.
It's as if we said "you can copyright electricity", and then somebody said well it's called an "electrical connector", therefore I can copyright it.
"Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
If Google loses, what happens to Unix?
I can imagine that the court would rule that merely copying the style of the API is not copyright. But copying the exact text of it, down to the names of the methods is another matter entirely.
You cannot copyright a genre of novels, or the types of characters within. But you can certainly copyright specific characters with specific names.
It flows exactly to *Nix. SCO might live again.
We would have to go through all of our applications and rename the methods. Or new legislation would need to be passed, which is unthinkable.
Interestingly, a big loser in that would be Oracle themselves. They should have bought SCO (or whoever now "owns" Unix) before starting this. Then they could have it all.
Once you get license for Chromium, you get license to program it. What google can do is prevent another browser implement the Chromium api if they own them. For example, if Chromium provides api like "readAllProvideDataAndScrewUser()". It can prevent others to implement exact same api signature.
Good. Women already took over linux in the USA.
It will just have to move back to it's roots: an "I don't give a shit about the law" hacker OS.
I hope Oracle keeps it's win.
Oh and the GPL is revocable at will and always has been, the whole thing could have collapsed at any second.
It is not the USA legalities that made linux or OSS.
It is the men.
NOT the law abiding cunts.
Here's looking forwards to the destruction of the US software industry.
Wow, I can tell you really know your stuff. No one in their right mind would use Java. Any day now everybody will see the error of their ways and stop using it.
You so smart!
It licenses the interface to develop compatible software and Google refused to license.
Al: the FSF was so insistent on the adoption of the GPL version 3
because the GPL version 2 is not operative against the grantor.
This deficiancy was, in their eyes, so fatal to the purposes that they
invisioned that they, as you have pointed out, ellected to employ
enhanced means of converting projects to version 3.
Eben Moglen's contention that the GPL 3 exists to internationalize the
GPL is a lie of omission.
It is true that that is a partial reason-to-be for the GPL version 3
but it is not the main nor most important reason for the insistence on
version 3 or "v2 or any later version".
The very heart of the GPLv3 is the addition of the "irrevocable by
grantor" clause and the "term of years" clause.
Additionally the contention by the FSF and, as I recall, Eben Moglen
that the reason the FSF only accepts code where the copyright is
transfered to the FSF - is so they may have standing to sue - is
another lie by omission.
Yes, standing to sue is vital, if you are going to sue.
But the real beating heart of the copyright assignment policy is to
prevent a programmer from rescinding license-to-use regarding his
freely given code.
Without copyright assignment, any contributor to the GNU project could
elect to rescind the gratis license grant at his pleasure, at any
time, as of right.
Without an "irrevocable by grantor" clause (as seen in the GPL version
3, but ommitted in GPL version 2 due to a mis-assumption on the part
of the drafter) there is not even an affirmitive defense of promissory
estopple.
We come to lie number three. (Neccecitated by:)
The incorrect assumption made by the
drafter of version 2 of the GPL and memorandized by Eben Moglen in
this very thread in an attempt to protect the error in drafting.
Lie number three: If terms regarding termination are proffered in a
copyright license they are the only means of termination.
This is true... If those terms are supported by bargained-for
consideration.
That is: the words Eben Moglen wrote were true; as regards to
commercial software, where the licensee has paied valuable
consideration for the terms offered.
The drafter of version 2 of the GPL was familiar with such commercial
licensing agreements. He failed in his due-dilligence if RMS did
indeed request an irrevocable-by-grantor license. The drafter stopped
his research at the typical copyright license stage, and did not
research furthur into what underlys the constuction there-of.
And thus we have the lie of ommission number 3.
(All, naturally, to protect Eben Moglen's former client and to
discourage litigation where there is, indeed, good and sufficent
cause for such litigation) (Which is all part of an attorney's
duties, I can assure you)
It's a good thing APIs weren't copyrightable in the olden days or Compaq would have been shut down on their firmware clone and there's be no PC industry and IBM would still be the bad guy and Apple would have died after their 1984 commercial and you'd be stuck with CGA video and 640k of RAM.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
... For those playing along at home, if the last ruling in Oracle's favor stands, Novell essentially owns the Linux kernel. ...
JHMFC, Are you always prone to such overreactions?
Freely-available UNIX implementations have been available for DECADES . BSD. Linux. Hell, Solaris was open-sourced at one point.
And the owners of what you call "the UNIX kernel API" did NOTHING.
Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#United_States
The butthurt is strong in this one.
Not exactly. Sun bought MySQL before the Oracle acquisition. The last CEO of Sun did a lot of nonsensical things in a desperate effort to save the company after its market changed.
Freely-available UNIX implementations have been available for DECADES . BSD. Linux. Hell, Solaris was open-sourced at one point.
And the owners of what you call "the UNIX kernel API" did NOTHING.
Doesn't matter. Estoppel doesn't apply. Novell didn't make any promises not to exert their copyright. They didn't know they could exert their copyright, until the Federal Circuit starting blathering around in not one but two idiot rulings. Depending on who you ask, they still can't. The Second, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits all say APIs aren't copyrightable at all, so the whole question of fair use is moot. The Third and Federal Circuits say they are copyrightable. The Federal Circuit went even farther, saying they're copyrightable and there's no way to make fair use of any API.
I read the 21 relevant pages from Google's writ, and I'd say it'll be granted. The second half of it hinges on fair use, and it's a weaker argument. The first half is all about the disagreements among the circuit courts, and that always attracts the attention of the Supreme Court.
Google's lawyers did attempt to address the earth-shattering ramifications if the Federal Circuit's ruling is allowed to stand, but not as much as I'd like. Hopefully they were saving the best parts of that for oral arguments. This Supreme Court has spent years asking, "Where's the harm?" and if you can't answer, you lose. If Google's lawyers successfully convey the harm, they have a good chance. They'd better describe the harm to all software everywhere though, not just the harm to Google software.
Google did point out that the Federal Circuit (full name United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) is disingenuous at best, malicious at worst, in their second overturning of the jury verdict that declared Google's use of Java APIs fair use. The Federal Circuit said that they assumed all findings of fact were completed by the jury (as they're required to do), then they contradicted both themselves and the jury and tossed out the verdict. I'm starting to wonder if the Federal Circuit botched their ruling on purpose in order to precipitate intervention by the Supreme Court.
It licenses the interface to develop compatible software and Google refused to license.
Licensing something to me that you don't own because you can't own it is fraud, not some ex post facto justification that a thing can be owned.
SCO spent years trying that shit, and ultimately lost, on every front. Their very last attempt was shut down in 2016, dismissed with prejudice, which means they're not allowed to ever make the argument again.
SCO case was about copying implementation and not interface. Since the implementation was clean and not copied, it lost the case. This has nothing to do with this case. In this case, Google accepts that it did what Oracle says it did. The question is whether it is allowed or not. In SCO's case, IBM never agreed to SCO's claim that it copied the said code.
I'm not saying you're wrong in your conclusion that the Java API can't be copyright, but I'm not convinced by your argument.
Titles of popular songs:
Come Home
Stay
One
Smile
I Love You
Given that song titles are typically 1-3 words, of course the same word is used as a title for multiple songs. In many cases there are ten different songs to hit the billboard charts with the same title.
The Java API is thousands of words. (Grotesquely oversized, some would say). The only way you end up with the same thing that Java made is if you intentionally copy them. In fact, you'd have to copy them very carefully, it would be easy to mess up and have a method take arguments in a different order or something.
With song titles, if you pick any common English word, that's probably the title of an existing song. You almost can't avoid using the the same title. With Java, it's very hard to copy it exactly. It's also very easy to write an API that's just as good, or in fact better, that isn't identical to Java.
Song titles aren't copyrighted because they are one or two words, maybe three. Other people have already used the same title before and they will again purely by chance. The same is not true of Java.
Google needed to do lots more in the first trial to make a case for APIs being purely mechanical. Appeals are about errors in law, not in the case made by the party I agree with.
davecb@spamcop.net
You've got some santorum between your teeth.
> MySQL was bought by Oracle. Why would a "serious" database company tarnish their name with that?
My first guess was, "to kill it."
There was a while there after Microsoft bought FoxPro, where they sold both MS Access and FoxPro. Soon it was just MS Access.
I'd love to find a law that lets Google win this. I haven't seen a good one yet. Maybe Congress could make a law about interoperability, if Congress can ever do their job.
It's not one sentence. You can use one sentence from a book. You can't use thousands of sentences. And certainly not arranged in the same in the same chapters (objects).
Google has all the same stuff, thousands of words, arranged in the same structure. We're not talking about two or three words like a song title, or a sentence. The Java API is thousands of words - a complete book. I can't think of any law that allows copying thousands of words, though I wish I could.
It's not like using the sentences from a book, though. It's more like using the index of the book.
An API is not software, and having a list of 1000s of functions does not copy those functions. The creative work is unviolated.
Google indexes the web. I would hate to think that Google search might go away because the courts ruled that an index of copyrighted works violates the copyrights of those works!
OK. I take it back. Only because BASIC stomps the dogshit out of Java.
Google is pretty confident in the outcome seeing as how they've all but aborted their hedge.
> OK. I take it back. Only because BASIC stomps the dogshit out of Java.
10 GOTO HELL
I read the 21 relevant pages from Google's writ, and I'd say it'll be granted. The second half of it hinges on fair use, and it's a weaker argument. The first half is all about the disagreements among the circuit courts, and that always attracts the attention of the Supreme Court.
Lawyers are trained to be convincing, and they are by tradition only giving one half of the case. Thus when you read one side's argument (or sit in court listening to one side's argument), it will usually sound convincing. To get a clear view, it is necessary to read both sides. Even better, read the judge's conclusion. But don't make your analysis based on only one side's lawyers. They are biased by design.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's not one sentence. You can use one sentence from a book. You can't use thousands of sentences. And certainly not arranged in the same in the same chapters (objects).
It can be fair use. To claim fair use, you need to consider all of the four factors. Copying a large portion doesn't prevent a use from being fair use.
"Using most or all of a work does not bar a finding of fair use. It simply makes the third factor less favorable to the defendant." Wikipedia suggests copying entire TV shows (which is more than thousands of sentences) as an example that was ruled fair use.
If you have time I strongly recommend reading the court's finding. It is clear and well reasoned.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Maybe Congress could make a law about interoperability"
Leave Congress out of it. When is the last time that collection of fuckwits did anything right and helpful? If we are lucky the government shutdown will last so long that people will start wondering why we even need the government. All the critical functions are not effected by the current shutdown.
Worst case is there will be a new *nix API developed to be Open. Means rewriting almost all software ever written.
Much of this will be outsourced to India. Major stuff ups.
Every software engineer should be hoping Oracle wins. We will be on the gravy train or years fixing up the mess.
You don't understand their claims. At all.
You are correct, and Jesus fucking Christ, why should he have to understand the cluster fuck of a situation this is? Copyright law should be pretty simple.
This is what we get when we let a bunch of fucking lawyers start doing stupid shit like copyrighting code in the first place. Code is math and algorithms, period. You cannot copyright math. Additionally, why don't you have to release source code to secure a copyright? If you don't, then it is a trade secret that you are getting copyright protection for. The whole point of the system is creating something of value (not idiocy like one click purchase, that's the covered by the 'obvious to a professional' part of the deal), and then sharing the details with the public in exchange for a short term monopoly.
If we keep going down this road, more and more really stupid shit like this will happen. Ban ALL software patents and end this madness.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If interfaces can be copyrighted then WINE and ReactOS are dead unless they receive the blessing of Microsoft.
If WINE is dead, Steam on Linux is also dead.
If interfaces can be copyrighted, the message then is: if it's not an ISO standard so similar, don't touch it.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
If Google wins it's a win for the software world, if Google loses it will be mayhem the likes of which no one has ever seen. And yet amidst that chaos, Oracle will suffer tremendously (do they have the copyright on every API they've ever used in their commercial database ? I think not).
If Google loses, the Supreme Court will have handed IBM (and who's bigger and has a longer computer history than them) a mace that will destroy the software world. Lay back and enjoy the destruction. From the ashes a new open source mouvement will emerge.
A better analogy would be if you wrote a book. Then I wrote a book with a different book title, but used all the same chapter titles that you did. Except the actual content of each chapter is different from yours.
Oracle is basically saying that writing a book with the same chapter titles is copyright infringement.
Fuck off, do nothing anglo bitch.
The GPLv2 makes no promises either. It is freely revocable by the grantor.
Freesoftware people claim NOOOO LIES ARREST THIS MAN FOR UNLICENSED PRACTICE OF LAW!
(OR DISBAR HIM!)
You're right the amount of copying isn't the only factor. The four factors are:
the purpose and character of your use (is it commercial, transformative?)
the nature of the copyrighted work
the amount and substantiality of the portion taken
the effect of the use upon the potential market for the original
Google fails the first. It's commercial. Original Java is a programming API, Google's copy is a programming API; there is no transformation into something else.
Google fails the second. There have been lots of programming languages. Google not only could have made their own language different from Java, but they HAVE since done so, while also publishing a copy of Java.
Google fails the third factor. They copied thousands of lines
Google fails the fourth factor. They wanted to license Java for Android and Oracle wanted to license it to them. Google basically decided to go ahead and use Java commercially, in the same way that Oracle intended to use it, and just not pay the license fee. Oracle was trying to sell Java for phones via other avenues as well.
You're correct, you don't understand. First, copyright and patent are two different things.
Second, what you can't patent is the laws of nature, including the laws of physics and the laws of mathematics. So you can't patent gravity - you CAN patent an elevator, which uses the laws of physics. You can't patent " x+y = y + x", you can patent machines that use gears and levers (which are multiplication). Java is not a law of nature. In fact in may be an abomination of nature. :)
Thank you for the response, though I feel you don't address my
question. Happily though, I spoke with an acquaintance and it was
determined that the subservience to the license (i.e. agreeing to be
bound by the GPL2) could not be offered as consideration as its
restrictions were not the licensee's to offer at the time of
acceptance of the license. The licensee had no rights to offer as part
of the contract, as the contract had not yet given them any rights to
give up. The terms put forth by the GPL2 are only restrictions that
are part of the license.
Furthermore, as stated above, it should seem quite self referential -
I can't offer my acceptance of a license as consideration, because it
is what I am trying to accept.
As I am sure you are aware, under US law there is no contract if both
sides have not provided consideration. This leaves us in the strange
place of gratis licenses being suggestions.
Cheers,
R0b0t1
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Would be nice to see the industry where women rule over the men who actually do the work, fall in the USA.
"Thanks for all your free work linux mmmaaallleeesss, here's a CoC and some punishment if you disobey us!" ..
Google is mistating merger.
Walker v. Time Life Films, Inc., 784 F.2d 44 (2d Cir. 1986), is a great example of merger. It was a movie about cops in the South Bronx. Like another movie about cops in the South Bronx, "the scenery would include drunks, stripped cars, prostitutes, and rats." That's not a copyright violation, the court ruled, because ANY MOVIE about Bronx cops would have those sorts of things.
What's not protectable are elements that EVERY WORK in the genre tend to have. Space movies have laser weapons, and spaceships which inexplicably have wings.
Computer languages have functions like copying a string, which may be called copy, strcpy, strncpy, string.Copy, or just "=". Merger says can't complain that another language, much like yours, has string copy, because that's part and parcel of writing a programming language - they all have that, it's needed.
You said "In the Java language, there is only one way to declare a function". The key words there are "in the Java language". In other words, "if you're making an exact copy of Java ...". Google has no inherent right to make and sell a copy of Java.
Merger would apply if you could say "the only way to make a programming language is to ...". We know that making a programming language doesn't require duplicating Java (from the users' point of view), but most languages don't. Most programming languages do a lot different, a lot smaller, and a lot better.
When Google says "in the Java language there is only one way", what Google is really saying is "the only way to copy Java is to copy Java". Well it doesn't work that way.
And yet, at the end, MySQL was just about the only thing actually making any money for Sun.
Let's try looking at this from another angle.
I have a right to make a space fighting movie. The general idea used in Star Trek, Stars Wars, etc isn't copyright protected. What is protected is the storyline, the particular collection of characters, character names, catch phrases, etc. So let's try translating what you wrote to such a situation. You said:
--
Google's claim is that the abstract Java API is a "system or method of operation", and that it includes the specific names as part of that.
--
Do I have the right to use the specific names of Star Wars characters such Yoda, Han Solo, Princess Leia, etc in my space movie, because all of the character names are part of the idea of a space movie? Obviously not. I can make a movie about space, I can have a hero. I can't name my here Han Solo.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Yeah that's a more realistic analysis. The court decided the second factor in favor of Google though. It's an interesting read, even though it is long. I strongly suggest reading the decision.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not just that, both companies are Left leaning companies. So even assuming that the justices would be biased towards entities that are pro Republican (not that it means much these days), they'd have little to choose from in this particular case.
The thing that's interesting is - how much of tech expertise do these justices need? Obviously, none of them know the first thing about coding. So the most I can assume is that the plaintiffs would have to highlight high level of appropriation in order to make the justices even begin to understand the issues at stake. But when those concepts are at that high a level, chances are that they encapsulate extremely broad concepts (kinda like Amazon's one button shopping), enabling industry-wide monopolies. From what I understand, the root of Google-Oracle's dispute is the Java VM. While Snoracle's VM was essentially memory based, Google's is register based. Would that not be significant enough a departure for Google to have made from Oracle, since it would have required some significant code re-writing to pull that off? Or would simply changing the memory mode that the VM operates in be inadequate a change? And most importantly, are the likes of Sotomeyer or Gorsuch or Roberts gonna grasp any of that?
Nice trolling, but even if Linux were to die, there are still the BSDs that are available. Besides, Google has been looking more at the BSDs since their license is more compatible w/ what they need, and so have the other major companies. Also, is GPL 2.0 revokable? Even the FSF and Stallman haven't tried it, as that would end 99% of the GPL market - namely Linux.
Maybe they should seriously resume work on the HURD?
This is totally dumb. This is like saying the first implementation of an index, foreword, glossary etc for books can actually be copyrightable and that all books that implement it are in violation.
As far as computing goes, names of methods, functions, API's, control flow etc are really just implementations of things that occur in real life for automation.
Over the years it has boggled my mind how companies can use everyday words as their brand name and hence can shutdown legitimate usages of the object itself, such as apple, acorn, bell etc.
The world has gone bonkers.
Original Java is a programming API
Java is a programming language
The API (actually APIs, there are many) is a list of function/method names and types, and their parameter names and types.
Oracle's claims are that copying the text describing the API is copyrighted and copying the description is not protected by fair use.
Allegedly, Google distributed copies of the API description with the Android development kit.
I suppose one possible alternative Google could have used was have their development kit installer automatically download and run the Java development kit installer.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
The problem is that software falls in this grey area between discovery, invention, and creative work. However, the creative work aspect is weak despite the code as art examples because you can make an artistic toaster without toasters generally falling under copyright.
Being what it is functionally, an API should not be copyright-able and neither should software. Most software shouldn't be patent-able either. Very little is actually inventive and most algorithms are better argued as a discovery than an invention. Complicated math was true before you stumbled on it and the same is true of algorithms. None-the-less I doubt that is what the court will rule.
Which was actually a great way to get acquired by Oracle and make money for shareholders. Mission accomplished.
Java is slow and shitty, software written in it almost always leaks and it's a nightmare to support.
Do you know why people use java? Because schools were obsessed with teaching java.
Btw thanks for the link to whichever decision that is. I'll read through it a bit later. I take it that's a court that ruled in favor of Google. I'm curious to read that because while I *want* Google to win, I can't imagine how they can under current law.
I take it you're not a programmer, or not a very good one. There is a VAST difference between a very good programmer and a beginner - the problem does not in fact define how the solution must be written, and every programmer would write the same thing.
Linux and Windows are vastly different because Microsoft didn't *discover* an operating system, they *created* one. (Somebody else created DOS). Creating new things is called being creative.
> Complicated math was true before you stumbled on it and the same is true of algorithms.
"The first search result should be Snopes" isn't a mathematical truth. It's not only not a mathematical truth, it's not even a truth, but an opinion, an editorial decision. Editorial opinions can be written using letters of the alphabet (which pre-existed!), and other characters on the keyboard such as "+" and âs. The fact that the concept of square root exists doesn't make it a mathematical fact that you should buy a stock when we the square root of the trading volume is greater than the CEO's age; that's an opinion. (A stupid opinion).
The fact that algorithms can easily give dumb answers demonstrates that they aren't mathematical truth - because they aren't even truth, they are opinion.
ReactOS requires 96 MB, so I'm going to say it's not just like Windows. :)
In fact, it was discovered that ReactOS developers copy/pasted code from Windows (via a disassembler), so indeed there are copyright concerns. Microsoft didn't care enough to even comment about it. Perhaps that was because ReactOS has dozens of users, but anyway Microsoft didn't indicate that they *care* about ReactOS doing blatant copyright violation, copy-pasting from Windows.
If Google were making billions of dollars distributing ReactOS on Chromebooks (Winbooks), then I bet Microsoft would care, and a court could decide how much ReactOS infringes, and if any of that infringement is fair.
The court actually brought that up. Google makes their own index of the web. if I were to steal a copy of Google's index and sell it, they may be able to sue me for copyright infringement.
Google's index is fair use of the snippets they use, the court has ruled, because it's transformative. You make a web page about iPad repair, Google makes an index of the web. Their use of a snippet from your page doesn't replace your page, in fact it makes your page more valuable for having been indexed.
I've read most of the opinion (ruling) and so far it's page after page of why Google should lose. I was thinking you had linked to a ruling FOR Google. I kinda want to skip to the the ruling to find out, but I kinda like the suspense too. :)
This ruling could affect interoperability, which is why I'd like to see Google win, but I don't think current law is in their side. I may come across a solid argument of why the law is on the side, but I haven't yet.
So far I've come across why the law *should* allow it (why someone wishes it lawful), and people repeating Google's very flawed arguments, arguments that very clearly misstate the law.
Sounds to me like Oracle is f**ked no matter what.
CAPTCHA: fetish
That's my fetish.
" Also, is GPL 2.0 revokable? Even the FSF and Stallman haven't tried it, as that would end 99% of the GPL market - namely Linux."
In the USA, yes. A license without an attached interest(usually $$) is revocable.
That is why the FSF has always required copyright assignments for those who wish to contribute to it's projects (and other large OSS projects do the same (but not linux))
Found the Java coder.