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Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is tricky because if you declare any API no matter how trivial copyrightable then the first guy to copyright a function to compute sqrt, tan, atan, etc wins. And if you can't copyright trivial interfaces then the question becomes where the line is drawn. There's far more at stake than Oracle trying to squeeze money out of Google.
I completely agree, but I don't really know what to do about it. Surely a document describing a useful software interface (GUI, CLI, API) is a creative work and takes effort to produce. Unless we just agree that it's a necessary exception for the purposes of interoperbility I'm not sure how I would argue that it shouldn't fall under copyright protection.
Since APIs are a byproduct of software development, it is hard to see how it should be copyrightable under the second stance, but easy for the first.
Perhaps granting copyright, but setting precedence that basically any use is fair use, is a good compromise.
Oracle is at that stage where they didn't invent or do anything right in the last 5 years but try to get money from lawsuits.
Oracle is at that stage where they didn't invent or do anything right in the last 5 years but try to get money from lawsuits.
From what I've been told by a contact in their database sales team is that there pipeline for on-premise licenses is drying up quickly but their SaaS business is doing well.
New customers are being forced into Cloud by the Oracle sales team. The sales reps literally receive no compensation for on-prem (EBS) deals, and they must go through a lengthy approval process just to offer a prospect the on-prem solution. Thus everyone is being guided to Cloud, whether or not it is the right solution for the customer.
Okay, either I'm crazy or everyone else is. Assuming the court isn't trying to set a new precedent with regards to software it seems like Oracle should have easily won this case. There is an argument to be made that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable but surely it's not fair use -- Google's use of Java doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria.
What I don't get is Oracle not realizing that this could kill their SQL business if IBM decides to do some suing.
How does OpenJDK stay out of violation if Oracle wins? Doesn't OpenJDK basically copy the API as well?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One wonders how much the taint of Java factored into the decision to invent Go.
Not much actually, the developers of Go mainly wanted shorter compile times than C++ offered.
Okay, either I'm crazy or everyone else is. Assuming the court isn't trying to set a new precedent with regards to software it seems like Oracle should have easily won this case. There is an argument to be made that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable but surely it's not fair use -- Google's use of Java doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria.
This is tricky because if you declare any API no matter how trivial copyrightable then the first guy to copyright a function to compute sqrt, tan, atan, etc wins. And if you can't copyright trivial interfaces then the question becomes where the line is drawn. There's far more at stake than Oracle trying to squeeze money out of Google.
Projects like OpenJDK and WINE are efforts to provide an alternate execution environment for code that is mutually beneficial to the ecosystem, although perhaps not the wallets of the original owner. A commercial venture ought to qualify here if the intent is to compete on equal footing -- code targeting OpenJDK can run unmodified on Oracle Java, code targeting WINE can run unmodified on Win32, thereby not limiting the original creator's rights.
However, Android Apps contain unrelated public APIs as part of the exported code, and a full packaged Android App cannot meaningfully run on Oracle JDK, despite portions of the standard library looking and behaving alike. This fragments the ecosystem and essentially allows Android to benefit from the works of the Java rightholders without making those contributions equally as useful to Oracle Java itself.