Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The issue is can a public API be copyrighted. That is the scary issue. In Roman Law there is the principle "In dubio pro reo" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_dubio_pro_reo ), which means that if there are doubts whether the culprit is guilty or not, he/she may not be convicted.
I feel like this probably is intended to apply in criminal cases and not civil. (And a copyright case like this would certainly be civil, and not criminal) In the US, it at least seems that something similar does, in so far as we require a unanimous vote by the jury to convict someone in a criminal trial, but a simple majority for a civil.
Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m don't agree with that, the big reason why what Google did was so vexing was the timing. Java was just starting to get revitalized after a long period of stagnation. Java 7 was a big deal and for a long time Android devs were limited to a weird amalgamation of Java 6 and a few Java 7 features. Then Java 8 came with lots of great Stream goodies (and a lot more) while Android devs are still forced do to make due wit…
> Java was just starting to get revitalized after a long period of stagnation. Java 7 was a big deal and for a long time Android devs were limited to a weird amalgamation of Java 6 and a few Java 7 features. Counterclaim: If it were not such a big legal hazzle, it would have been a lot more easy for Google to update to new Java versions fast on Android.
How so?
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The language of choice to build interactive applications on the web before JS was really viable was Java. I find this amusing. No one ever built anything meaningful client-side with Java. There's a reason Microsoft laughed off Java as "write once, debug many".
Java applets were huge, and still are quite big in enterprise.
Where? We're not talking servlets or EJBs here right? Adoption across combination of OS & browser was and continues to be an issue.
Both Microsoft and Apple made it difficult in different ways, and the "year of linux on the desktop" has yet to really come (no ChromeOS don't count)
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#144This is ridiculous. Google won two jury trials and the CAFC has no business deciding copyright cases.
I honestly don't know if a jury is the right place to decide a copyright case. Essentially, we take an extremely complicated chunk of law, take twelve random people and explain the basics of it... and then ask them to decide on a super complicated edge case of it. Does this work well?
I would argue Google is likely to win a jury case over Oracle in most cases because Google, at least until very recently, has widely been viewed as a "good" company, and is one that is popular with the average user.
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#145Its really interesting how Microsoft changed their JVM into .net, with a nearly identical library API but so slightly different (often Upper case methods instead of lower case). Would be an interesting idea if Google could compile JVM bytecode apps to run on .net VM. Of course JSV8 engine would be better, but is more difficult.
Something like https://blog.xamarin.com/android-in-c-sharp/ ?
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the thing is Google didn't use the Oracle Java engine. They implemented their own runtime environment that's mostly API compatible with Java (and getting further from that as the years go on). This gets into really critical concerns around APIs. If commercial product A sucks and I'm in a shop where we made our own drop in replacement that implement's A's APIs .. then we open source that drop-in replacement and pu…
> reverse engineering That is certainly an issue if you reverse engineer anything. Google went out of their way to NOT reverse engineer it. The issue is can a public API be copyrighted. That is the scary issue.
I don't get why it's a scary issue or even controversial why an API would be subject copyright. An API, in my mind, is similar to design drawings or blueprints. Independently figuring out how to implement those drawings doesn't change the fact that you copied the design.
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#147Non-lawyer: is it over, as in Oracle won and judge must decide only the payment? Wiki says that Federal Circuit is the final for these things (I guess SCOTUS might review it...)
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Java was just starting to get revitalized after a long period of stagnation. Java 7 was a big deal and for a long time Android devs were limited to a weird amalgamation of Java 6 and a few Java 7 features. Counterclaim: If it were not such a big legal hazzle, it would have been a lot more easy for Google to update to new Java versions fast on Android.
How so?
Just to give examples that look plausible to me: Because of the legal burden Google decided to implement their own version of the Java standard library based on Apache Harmony.
With every new version of Java coming there might be new legal pitfalls to consider and surely almost always the sword of Damocles that Oracle might consider the fact that Google implemented new Java features as a reason to extort more money from Google since they implemented additional copyrighted APIs.
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#149Another reminder never to do business with Oracle.
Oracle (Sun) paid probably hundreds of engineers to invent and maintain Java. As James Gosling says https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be... they gave away a lot but charged big companies to pay the expenses. Google should have paid that freaking licensing fee
Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android arguably saved Java by making it much more relevant than it otherwise would have been.
I’m don't agree with that, the big reason why what Google did was so vexing was the timing. Java was just starting to get revitalized after a long period of stagnation. Java 7 was a big deal and for a long time Android devs were limited to a weird amalgamation of Java 6 and a few Java 7 features. Then Java 8 came with lots of great Stream goodies (and a lot more) while Android devs are still forced do to make due wit…
So true. Java 8 could have been as big a deal as perl 6, if not for those meddling kids.