Live data from Hacker News

Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

arstechnica.com

141–150 of 344 posts

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#141
post #4

The entire software industry should be boycotting Oracle over this case. If they win it will ruin software development in the US.

Except that Oracle has become so successful because they've captured the largest customer(s) of all: the US federal government.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#142
post #120
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he is an asshole, but at least Larry Ellison didn't build a company to spy on half the planet like Page & Brin.

He failed to make half the world use his company's products, among other things. BTW I'd appreciate if you gave an example of a highly successful and ethically impeccable company.

  He failed to make half the world use his 
  company's products, among other things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#143

Curious to hear your reasons for calling Red Hat a dark horse. (Which I presume is some kind of slur/holds a derogatory meaning)

my goodness, this is probably not a native English speaker, or perhaps never heard the expression before... why be so harsh?

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#144
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Purpose of the use -- Gogole's use wasn't transformative, in fact it was explicitly the opposite. * Nature of the use -- Google could try to argue that their use was for the public benefit, but since the Android platform exists for business interests it probably shouldn't qualify. * Amount and Substantiality -- Google basically took it all. There's no case here. They took not just the signatures but their semantic…

The work Oracle copyrighted (and registered) was their implementation of Java SE as a whole, method bodies and all. Google copied only the interface. If someone copies a paragraph of my novel and claims fair use, I won't get very far on the amount-and-substantiality front by saying "but they basically took all of the part that they copied".

I think it depends if you consider the part that was copied to be a standalone work. The fact that Google is able to create a separate implementation based only on the API design documents seems to suggest that it's a separate work that has meaning unto itself.

Would you make the same argument if you copied the entire forward from a novel?

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#145

Oracle is such a shit company. There are still some great hackers there but Larry Ellison is an asshole, and I don't envy anyone who has to work for him even indirectly. "Left Oracle's Java business in tatters" eh? Where was their mobile OS? Their Dalvik? The wounds to Java have all been self-inflicted. If they succeed in copyrighting the API then where does this leave OpenJDK? Operating at the mercy of Larry fucking…

>Or even to C# since apparently MS got the memo on Open Source Actually Microsoft was with Oracle on the whole 'API's should be copyrightable' and lobbied on their behalf during the case. Microsoft claimed that: "If Google's position that APIs can't be copyrighted stands, it will "destabilize" the entire software industry" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-forese...

One wonders where they stand now that they've reimplemented the Linux kernel APIs in Windows 10.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#146
post #116

Oracle is such a shit company. There are still some great hackers there but Larry Ellison is an asshole, and I don't envy anyone who has to work for him even indirectly. "Left Oracle's Java business in tatters" eh? Where was their mobile OS? Their Dalvik? The wounds to Java have all been self-inflicted. If they succeed in copyrighting the API then where does this leave OpenJDK? Operating at the mercy of Larry fucking…

Maybe he is an asshole, but at least Larry Ellison didn't build a company to spy on half the planet like Page & Brin.

Ha, pretty ironic statement, considering the CIA was Oracle's first real customer: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cia-made-larry-ellison-a-...

EDIT: downvoted for pointing out facts...?

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#147
post #120
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he is an asshole, but at least Larry Ellison didn't build a company to spy on half the planet like Page & Brin.

He failed to make half the world use his company's products, among other things. BTW I'd appreciate if you gave an example of a highly successful and ethically impeccable company.

Do you know any other way to personalizing search results, making the search results by analytics and even creating a search engine company without putting ads on the page?

Anonymity is one thing but there is no other way of solving this problem without collecting user's data.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#148
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ethically impeccable company First of all this is moving the goalposts significantly and is also an impossible standard. I would say that Apple and Microsoft are more ethical than Google but the question is of course along what axis?

TBF, GP was shifting goalposts in turn. Whenever you hear anything like, "Alice did X, but at least she's better than Bob who did unrelated thing Y" you know the goalposts are being moved (at best) or your attention is being misdirected nefariously. It doesn't add anything valuable to the discussion.

Perhaps, but I think that's closer to poisoning the well. Google don't have to be moral to deserve legal representation but since they are far, far from moral it does mean I won't count it as a moral victory when they win a court case.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#149
post #59

I wish intent and end result counted more strongly. Andoid's compatibility isn't transitive: once code goes through the Android build pipeline to produce an Android Application it cannot be meaningfully used in the context of Oracle Java; it's a one-way transformation to remain "talent-compatible" with a large pool of Java developers and reuse the base of Java libraries. Projects like OpenJDK and WINE are efforts to…

> 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. Java SE, Java EE and JavaME are incompatible. Java was already fragmented by their creators

> Java SE, Java EE and JavaME are incompatible.

Hell, JavaME wasn't compatible with JavaME, depending on which vendor versions you were comparing. Sony Ericsson had classes totally different from Samsung or Nokia. Add CLDC versions and varying CPU and memory capabilities to that toxic hellstew to effectively kill the WORA dream.

Sun/Oracle can't blame Google for their abysmal mobile strategy.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> ...pipeline for on-premise licenses is drying up quickly but their SaaS business is doing well... I hear they are desperately pushing new cloud offerings, but they are having lots of problems with customer retention, as their cloud technology is really not ready so they are actually just selling hosted versions of the existing products that lack any cost advantage.

> they are actually just selling hosted versions of the existing products

Ha, if that were true, it wouldn't even be that bad. In the niche I work for, what they sell is not even as powerful as their existing on-premises product.

Not that it matters: they simply won't sell or even develop new on-premises, so you either go to their crappy cloud services or you just migrate away. There are now entire companies based on "move your existing Oracle solutions to our product with the minimum fuss and enjoy real power, not a cut-down version of what you already had three years ago".

Post reply on HN