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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#221

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #110
redm wrote: post #28

I think the part that gets lost in all of this is that Sun offered to license Java to Google previously for $100M. [1] Google turned that down and bypassed Sun because they didn't want to pay (or license). At the time, Sun was happy to see Java being used by Google, even without the license. Still, Google knew exactly what they were doing. [2] My point is, they did this to themselves and they knew what they were poss…

Google believed they could implement their own VM and get something cheaper (and/or better) than they would get by licensing one from Sun. That seems like a perfectly legitimate business decision for them to make. A clean-room reimplementation of an existing API had long been thought to be legally clear, going all the way back to Compaq reimplementing the IBM BIOS and starting the "IBM-compatible" competitive ecosyst…

[deleted]

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#222

Post by monocasa »

lmm wrote: post #110
redm wrote: post #28

I think the part that gets lost in all of this is that Sun offered to license Java to Google previously for $100M. [1] Google turned that down and bypassed Sun because they didn't want to pay (or license). At the time, Sun was happy to see Java being used by Google, even without the license. Still, Google knew exactly what they were doing. [2] My point is, they did this to themselves and they knew what they were poss…

Google believed they could implement their own VM and get something cheaper (and/or better) than they would get by licensing one from Sun. That seems like a perfectly legitimate business decision for them to make. A clean-room reimplementation of an existing API had long been thought to be legally clear, going all the way back to Compaq reimplementing the IBM BIOS and starting the "IBM-compatible" competitive ecosyst…

> better

That's it. The VMs on the market at the time we're absolutely terrible for phones. John Carmack was commenting on how JavaME gave you worse performance than an original IBM PC, and HotSpot's strategies absolutely destroy battery life.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#223

Post by simias »

dmix wrote: post #208
simias wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google knew what they were doing and IMO they were right. I still don't think Google or anybody should have to ask for Oracle's permission for reimplementing a JVM (as long as it's done cleanly). You seem to put the blame on Google for not wanting to pay $100M at the time but what if instead it was a small startup who simply couldn't afford that cost? I'm not worried about Google in the least, I am however concerned…

> what if instead it was a small startup who simply couldn't afford that cost? Licensing costs can scale according to the customers business size and revenue. What is more concerning is that this may create precedent that API specs are copyrightable -- to the degree they are worth billions in damages.

Licensing costs are arbitrary. If you want to license some IP from me I can ask for a billion dollar for it. Or I can simply refuse to sell it. The point is that IMO Google or anybody else shouldn't have to ask for permission for cleanly reimplementing an API.

I think some people in this thread are minimizing the issue because they don't like Google but I think it's naive and short-sighted. It's not about Google or Oracle, it's about copyrighting APIs.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#224

Post by sangnoir »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #211
sangnoir wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They implemented their own runtime environment that's mostly API compatible with Java (and getting further from that as the years go on). That's not quite right - Google adopted Apache Harmony[1] (an open source project, and if you want to attribute an organisation responsible for Harmony's success - such as it was - it would be IBM). Apache Harmony would have been 100% API compatible with Java had Sun (and later O…

I don't think that's quite right, either (though I could be wrong). IIRC, Android first was done based on Sun/Oracle Java. Then (and maybe even after the lawsuit started?), Google shifted to Harmony.

Are you perhaps referring to Android's very recent switch to GPL-licensed OpenJDK[1] from Harmony after the lawsuit? There was no GPL licensed (and certified) version of Java when the Android project kicked off - OpenJDK came into existance later. Also - Apache Harmony predated OpenJDK by a few years.

1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switch...

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#225

Post by EGreg »

monocasa wrote: post #210
dmix wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly was 'copied' by Google? Was it actual code directly copied or just the general design / APIs that were mirrored by their Android Java playform?

The court has made the point now that literally just the class and method names are subject to copyright.

I thought Google used the implementations!

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#226

Post by mjw1007 »

The question of API copyrightability seems to have been a big failure of the legislation-and-precedent system.

The theory is that instead of the legislature trying to think through all the corner cases ahead of time, they pass a somewhat vaguer act and leave the courts to sort out some test cases; then in a reasonable amount of time clarity is supposed to emerge.

But it's been 40 years since the world decided that it would "protect" computer programs as if they were literary works, and 30 years since most people thought that the question of API copyrightability was settled, and it turns out that we never got clarity at all.

Having judges trying to determine the question by deciding whether APIs are analogous to chapter titles or plot points in Harry Potter books is just ridiculous.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#227

Post by simias »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #157
simias wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google knew what they were doing and IMO they were right. I still don't think Google or anybody should have to ask for Oracle's permission for reimplementing a JVM (as long as it's done cleanly). You seem to put the blame on Google for not wanting to pay $100M at the time but what if instead it was a small startup who simply couldn't afford that cost? I'm not worried about Google in the least, I am however concerned…

But, and this is the big but, they did it in such a way as not to be compatible with the Oracle one.

I'm not sure how that's relevant, if anything since the crux of the issue seems to be the "stealing" of the API the fact that there are incompatibilities should be in Google's favour? It's a bit odd to claim that somebody stole your API while at the same time complaining that they did not steal it well enough.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#228

Post by monocasa »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #167
nimbius wrote: post #49

from TFA: "Oracle claims Google was in such a rush in the mid-2000s to create an operating system for mobile devices that the company used key parts of copyrighted Java technology without paying royalties. " If this is true, it certainly isnt happening again. Google dominates smartphones and could very easily decide to phase out java for go/rust, torpedoing whatever rent-seeking strategy Oracle had originally devised…

"If this is true, it certainly isnt happening again. Google dominates smartphones and could very easily decide to phase out java for go/rust, torpedoing whatever rent-seeking strategy Oracle had originally devised." Because wanting to be paid for one's work is "rent-seeking" now? And no, Google really couldn't. There's a huge library of Android applications that are using Java technologies to make them. Google can't…

Just because you worked on something doesn't mean you get a perpetual government enforced monopoly on it.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#229

Post by AnimalMuppet »

JepZ wrote: post #64

OT: Thinking about API copyright I wonder how that is supposed to work in other programming languages e.g. Golang. Lets assume Google owns the copyright of the 'io.Writer' interface for the moment. Is everybody who has implemented a struct with a Writer method which satisfies the 'io.Writer' interface and as oracle stated it 'who wants to use them for a competing platform or to embed them in an electronic device' now…

There's a difference between using an API and reimplementing one. Nobody's saying that you can get in copyright trouble for using an API. And to my knowledge, Go(lang) doesn't have the "embed in an electronic device" restriction that Java had.

If you tried to create a different implementation of Go that used the same API, whether you could get in trouble depends on Google's license. And then, if the license is against you, whether you do get in trouble would be at Google's discretion.

Note well: IANAL. Also, I'm still hoping that this "copyrighting the API" will be overturned at the Supreme Court, in which case this whole conversation is moot.

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