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Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

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Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#391
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods to the windows Java extension that would be on all windows computers? Or maybe when office used a hidden format to store files so no one could share files without buying a license? They were not great times at all...

> Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods Visual J++ was a very usable Java. Had Sun failed to sue it out of existence, the world would have had a Java with a good UI stack developers actually used, an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy, AND almost all packages built for Sun's Java would drop right in without problems. Visual J++ would have created the same effect on the use of…

> an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy

Can't argue about the UI stack in general, but IntelliJ is a dream compared to anything Microsoft have ever produced.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#392
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a reply to DannyBee's post claiming copyright "was not created to help artists or whoever". It starts with "This is 100% inaccurate" which is why I began this the same way. I note others have since reposted the same links in reply to DannyBee for the same reason. How it is off topic since it directly addresses that claim? Did it get detached from the parent, removing context?

It's off-topic because it turned into a tedious back-and-forth in which you became increasingly uncivil. You've done that repeatedly in arguments on HN. Please don't do that. When comments get aggressive, good conversation flees the room. Such spats also go inevitably off-topic, since how-right-I-am-and-how-wrong-you-are is not a topic.

You're right. I'll do better in the future. Sorry.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#393
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proving that there's no better solution is impractical. However, the size of the copyright-backed creative industries today, by any reasonable metric I can think of, is vastly greater than the size of the creative industries built around the alternative models that have been tried noticeably often so far. That seems to include all of volunteer-based, crowd-funded, mass donation-funded, traditional patronage where som…

> Patents are a different matter. ... patents might be useful in fields where the cost of R&D really is prohibitively high without some reliable way to exploit any successful projects You seem to be suggesting that cost should be a deciding factor in whether to protect creative work. I disagree that there is a difference here between copyrights and patents. 1) In the tech industry, calculating the "cost" would be any…

You seem to be suggesting that cost should be a deciding factor in whether to protect creative work.

I suppose I am, but only indirectly.

I view both copyright and patents as economic instruments. To me, the argument for temporarily restricting freedom to replicate others' work is based on the "greater good" that comes from incentivizing the creation of that work in the first place. However, that argument only makes sense where such an incentive is actually necessary, and to the extent that it is necessary.

If something really can be created by someone within a weekend, it is unlikely that the work or insights necessary to create it are particularly unique or valuable. There is little need to incentivize creating or sharing such work with years of exclusive control, because probably many others could (and some will) do the same thing anyway within that time, and granting the exclusivity is just an artificial barrier to any greater progress that any of those creators might then make.

On the other hand, maybe identifying a new antibiotic that will save thousands of people from "superbugs" takes several years of expensive laboratory research and then several more years of expensive trials and regulatory approvals, but once identified the marginal cost of manufacture is relatively low and many organisations have the resources to produce the physical product. It seems quite plausible that the research and trials and approvals won't happen in this case unless there is some extra benefit to whoever actually puts in the time and resources to do that work first. Given the likely benefit to society of having access to new antibiotics, I personally don't have a problem with incentivization in this case. (For the same ethical reasons, I also don't have a problem with revoking any exclusivity if whoever holds the rights isn't taking reasonable steps to use them by producing and selling the drug at a fair price; the goal is to promote discovery and availability of a useful drug to those who have a medical need for it, and anyone who isn't actually contributing to that doesn't need special privileges.)

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I think the cost/benefit should be a deciding factor in which classes of creative work receive these kinds of protections. It's not so much about the absolute cost, but rather whether it's worthwhile for creators to create already, and if not, whether the value to society of having the creation available justifies offering some extra incentive.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#394
post #258
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google argued that feature phones only had Java ME, which only included a small subset of Java's APIs, in contrast to Android, which includes significantly more Java (SE) APIs, as well as Android-specific APIs. My layperson understanding of that argument was that their use of Java was transformative because feature phones running Java ME were completely different from Android smartphones.

Indeed, Google spent a lot of time making this case to the jury. I could be mistaken, but I fear this is going to be the basis of a reversal on appeal, because what "transformative" means is ultimately a matter of law (indeed, the word itself comes from a Supreme Court decision rather than the text of a law), and to me Android looks completely different from previous things considered "transformative": http://www.nol…

When you look at Android and then look at previous phones with Java and apps on them it's hard to argue it isn't transformative. The difference between SavaJe and Android is night and day.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#395
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how he mentions a rigged trial, which is exactly what the Supreme Court ruling was. However, they declined to hear again which could effectively mean "You got your copyrighted APIs, now fuck off". Mueller is so discredited he doesn't have any weight at all.

In which way was the Supreme Court rulling rigged?

It was pretty obvious Oracle wanted it to go there because they hadn't the faintest idea how things actually worked. Oracle could then apply legal pressure and handwaving.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#396
post #391
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods Visual J++ was a very usable Java. Had Sun failed to sue it out of existence, the world would have had a Java with a good UI stack developers actually used, an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy, AND almost all packages built for Sun's Java would drop right in without problems. Visual J++ would have created the same effect on the use of…

> an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy Can't argue about the UI stack in general, but IntelliJ is a dream compared to anything Microsoft have ever produced.

I'm talking about Forte, circa 2000. That's when Sun sued Microsoft over Visual J++.

Forte later became NetBeans and today it is fine but it was rubbish back then especially compared to Microsoft's tool chain.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kinds of questions are why this court case is so incredibly disastrous. Oracle has really done humanity an enormous disservice here, and any clients of theirs should immediately sever contracts in return for their blatant attempt to destroy software development. I'm not fucking exaggerating. If you thought software patents were bad, Oracle just unleashed a whole new level of hell.

I'm not sure if you misread my questions or I misread your answer. I'm asking about new opportunities this precedent allows, not existing ones it forbids. For example, the private WoW server case was ruled in favor of Blizzard. With this new precedent, would a court come to the same conclusion?

The OP certainly did answer your questions and since you asked the questions you did you probably already know the answers ;-).

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#399
post #223

What I don't understand about this: Why didn't Google/Android use Java under the Open Source license under which it has been provided. Wouldn't that have saved all the trouble?

OpenJDK either didn't exist or was in its infancy. Also, Oracle created a lot of confusion in that they tried to argue that even Apache Harmony was in violation.

Also, there were a lot of third party drivers and software they couldn't use the GPL with. That has now largely disappeared.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prevailing idea seemed to be that if you wanted conversion of Word documents, let's say to screenshots, to match properly in all cases, the only way was a dedicated (or virtual) machine running Windows+Word and some VBS to automate the conversion. I don't know if this is still the best way. LibreOffice has came a long way for sure, but still doesn't reproduce Word's layout perfectly (which is still the expectatio…

Some differences in rendering or printing would be acceptable - what is not acceptable, however, is unintended corruption of existing documents. E.g. if I open a word document in libreoffice (to do e.g. review and commenting), save it without any changes to the layout, then I'd expect the original author to have the same document layout as before... and that is not so. The same applies to LibreOffice Calc - opening a…

Im guessing the unit test would fail. So what good would it do to add a failing unit test?

I do not envy those who have spent years of their life trying to reverse engineer .doc and .xls formats... those are pretty nasty.

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