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CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

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Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#141

Post by d_theorist »

iwwr wrote: post #112
Udo wrote: post #108

What's most striking to me is how easily this could have been avoided, everybody knew what liabilities would arise from betting your entire mobile platform on the goodwill of a competitor. With the massively overqualified talent pool Google hoards, they could absolutely have implemented a completely new language, compiler, and VM themselves. I'm sure this alternative must have been at least on the table. Does anyone…

If anything, Google's desire to reinvent the world has held them back here. They could have just forked OpenJDK and made their lives easier, in retrospect. Into this went their irrational fear of GPL (describing it as 'viral' or 'infectious'). The fact remains that not even Google can reinvent the world in their image. Building a whole new language at the same time as a legacy-prone ecosystem requires too many moving…

I'm not sure I understand why forking OpenJDK would have been legally distinct from a from-scratch re-implementation. In both cases, Google is re-using the APIs that Oracle is claiming ownership over.

EDIT: I just realised that OpenJDK is released by Oracle. Never mind!

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#142

Post by curt15 »

felipeerias wrote: post #48

I am curious about the implications of this lawsuit for Free SW. Claiming copyright over the Java API is not that far from claiming copyright over a C header, and most projects do just that. On the one hand, RMS has said that "just using structure definitions, typedefs, enumeration constants, macros with simple bodies, etc., is NOT enough to make a derivative work. It would take a substantial amount of code (coming f…

Why does being a "derivative work" depend on the copyright status of the original work?

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#143

Post by dekhn »

hammock wrote: post #133
allemagne wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple had the luxury of being the first to sell smartphones, they could do it in whatever language they wanted. Android could never have tried to do the same thing.

Apple were not the first smartphones. Without even nitpicking on Palm, etc, you're forgetting Blackberry.

I wouldn't call the blackberries smartphones. They were feature phones where one of the features was a proprietary email system.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#144

Post by lsaferite »

jdright wrote: post #131

> Bicks moved on to another e-mail, which he was allowed to put up on the courtroom screens. The message was a note from Andy Rubin to upper management, laying out strategic options for Android. One option was to do a deal with Sun, while a second option to go ahead and use Java without a license, but the company would "make enemies along the way." If it weren't for the dreaded consequences to the industry, I would l…

You think they should lose based on them breaking a law or you would want them to lose because you don't like them? If it's the latter I guess it's a good thing you don't like Oracle a little more.

As you pointed out, this case had far ranging consequences for the software industry and any personal opinions of how much you personally like or dislike any company need to be 100% put aside.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#145

Post by e40 »

d_theorist wrote: post #141
iwwr wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, Google's desire to reinvent the world has held them back here. They could have just forked OpenJDK and made their lives easier, in retrospect. Into this went their irrational fear of GPL (describing it as 'viral' or 'infectious'). The fact remains that not even Google can reinvent the world in their image. Building a whole new language at the same time as a legacy-prone ecosystem requires too many moving…

I'm not sure I understand why forking OpenJDK would have been legally distinct from a from-scratch re-implementation. In both cases, Google is re-using the APIs that Oracle is claiming ownership over. EDIT: I just realised that OpenJDK is released by Oracle. Never mind!

Exactly. And, let's be honest, the position Google took would have been supported by Sun. They would have wanted other implementations of their API.

Oracle is only doing this because they can. They have the money. They have the desire (to fuck with Google). So they do it.

I really don't get the anger toward Google. I don't think they did anything wrong here. If they did, it will haunt a lot of other companies than just Google.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#146

Post by BuckRogers »

mikekchar wrote: post #113
metafunctor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that API documents (say, interface code and it's documentation) are works that fall under copyright. This case is more about fair use. Is Google's usage of the Java APIs fair use, or a copyright infringement?

This is a very common misunderstanding of fair use. Fair use is copyright infringement. It's just a legal defence when you are being sued. This is one of the big problems with fair use in the US. If you intend to use a fair use defence, you will almost certainly go to court. You will not get a summary judgement of "Oh that's obviously fair use, so we don't have to have a trial". This means you will have to pay a lot…

Wouldn't an Oracle win be good for Free Software? Google isn't the good guy here, they wanted to create derivative work without GPL'ing it. Which they considered a "virus" and "infectious". I see companies like Google trying to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone wants to lean on someone elses work but not use GPL or license their own as such.

It's only bad for the industry as it exists today. Tomorrow hopefully when Oracle wins this as it appears to be a slam dunk, libre software becomes the norm rather than the Frankenstein's monster that Android is. I would either do it all in-house as Apple did with iOS or if you want to create a derivative work, use GPL'd code. Google didn't want to do the hard, time consuming work of API design. If it was the easy part, why didn't they do it?

Open and shut case in favor of Oracle. And after a rough adjustment period, I think it will promote Free Software to new heights industry-wide when they win.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#147

Post by scholia »

metafunctor wrote: post #36

Is it Oracle's position that all implementations of the Java APIs (or partial implementations) are illegal, unless it's specifically allowed by Oracle? That sounds ludicrous. What about unit testing libraries, for example?

You won't like this, but....

Sun's documentation specified that the APIs were copyright, and in an email on March 24, 2006, Andy Rubin wrote that: "Java.lang apis are copyrighted ... Sun owns the brand and ip [and} Sun gets to say who they license the tck to" (edited for clarity).

That was before Sun went open source.

By 2007, Google was making serious efforts to "scrub" its code for references to Java. In 2010, it said the "bad words" were "Java, License and Patent".

On April 9, 2008 Google's Alan Donovan wrote an internal email to java-users@google.com explaining how to turn off "Sun proprietary API" warnings issued by the Java compiler.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful...

It's pretty clear that (a) Google knew it was using copyright materials and (b) trying to conceal the fact, rather than taking out a license.

On May 9, 2014, the Federal Circuit court ruled that the Java APIs are copyrightable.

https://www.eff.org/files/2014/11/10/oracle_v_google_13-1021...

Arguing that bad laws are bad does not stop them from being laws....

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#148

Post by [deleted] »

coldcode wrote: post #127

One basic travesty not covered in these comments is that a jury of people who have zero clue what software is or how they work are being asked to judge an entire industry on a topic they can't possibly understand. Sadly in civil cases the concept of a jury of your peers is not a right. In reality a jury of software engineers and the like would make more sense since they at least understand how software is put togethe…

[deleted]

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

aries1980 wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenJDK was released around the same time Android was announced as imminent, and only a little before Android was released. Google could not have forked OpenJDK for Android at launch without doing a bunch of rework and delaying the launch, because the work they did getting Android ready mostly predates OpenJDK.

According to the Wikipedia, there is a 2-year diff between the two release: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenJDK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28operating_system%29 .

No, May 2007 to September 2008 isn't two years, it's 1⅓ years. And Android had been in the works for years before that. (Even before the 2006 promise by Sun that Java would be released as open source.)

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#150

Post by mikekchar »

BuckRogers wrote: post #146
mikekchar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very common misunderstanding of fair use. Fair use is copyright infringement. It's just a legal defence when you are being sued. This is one of the big problems with fair use in the US. If you intend to use a fair use defence, you will almost certainly go to court. You will not get a summary judgement of "Oh that's obviously fair use, so we don't have to have a trial". This means you will have to pay a lot…

Wouldn't an Oracle win be good for Free Software? Google isn't the good guy here, they wanted to create derivative work without GPL'ing it. Which they considered a "virus" and "infectious". I see companies like Google trying to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone wants to lean on someone elses work but not use GPL or license their own as such. It's only bad for the industry as it exists today. Tomorrow hopefully…

Not in my opinion. The GPL is a license that depends on accepting the license -- or not. It is always acceptable not to accept the license and write your own. That's part of software freedom. In fact this judgement puts GNU Classpath in a very tenuous position because their code is also not based on the the GPLed version of Java (having been written before Java was GPLed).

Even GNU is now in jeopardy because who the heck owns the copyright for POSIX??? Is there any license language in the specification saying that you can implement it? I have been too scared to look up until now. This is incredibly important because all of the GNU tools and the Linux kernel have been implemented independently and are not derivations of things like BSD.

No. This is a nightmare for free software because it means that every single RFC in existence now needs a license thanks to copyright lasting for the life of the author plus 95 years. It means that we can never interoperate with services that choose not to grant a license to their API. Even if you reverse engineer it, expect a lawsuit having to defend yourself using a fair use defence.

And if you live in most of the world that doesn't have fair use. Well, you are just screwed.

The only thing this means is that free software will be marginalized. We'll be set back 20 years.

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