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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

#561

Post by pjmlp »

Zigurd wrote: post #491
pjmlp wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like all the vendors selling commercial JDKs for the embedded market. They also offer customized versions fine tuned for their deployment scenarios, doing Java bytecode to either native (AOT) or their own proprietary bytecode format when generating the firmware image. Or for example, IBM Java running on IBM i mainframe, where Java bytecodes used to be translated into the TIMI bytecodes, just like any other IBM i…

The Dalvik and ART runtimes differ in that the do not run Java bytecodes. Every commercial embedded jvm, open source jvm, and me jvm I have seen all run Java bytecodes and you can use any toolchain that makes .jar files with these vms. Unless the translation you mention can happen at runtime, it isn't a jvm.

It happens at deployment time, as mentioned.

Firmware does not change during runtime.

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

#562

Post by hcknwscommenter »

michaelmrose wrote: post #530
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would love to hear about a circuit court case that says otherwise. Seriously, I have no idea, but I do not believe such exists.

Basically it's not the law yet and may never be the law.

Uhh. No. At least under any interpretation I know about what the law "is."

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

#563

Post by hcknwscommenter »

monocasa wrote: post #539
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bugs are a red-herring to the discussion. Bugs doesn't get you out of copying. The question is: did you copy or not? Google argued "we certainly did copy but APIs can't be copyrighted." Which was not the law at the time they did the copying and is not the law now .

Except it is the law now and then that APIs aren't copyrightable according to the court that's generally supposed to handle such things, in this instance The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. They've ruled plenty of times on the matter, and have developed decades of case law stating that implementing APIs is totally kosher. Sony v. Bleem is great example. There the appeals court ruled that not only could Ble…

>APIs aren't copyrightable according to the court that's generally supposed to handle such things, in this instance The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

That is just not true. According to the well-pleaded complaint rule, the Federal Circuit had jurisdiction.

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

#564

Post by hcknwscommenter »

monocasa wrote: post #539
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bugs are a red-herring to the discussion. Bugs doesn't get you out of copying. The question is: did you copy or not? Google argued "we certainly did copy but APIs can't be copyrighted." Which was not the law at the time they did the copying and is not the law now .

Except it is the law now and then that APIs aren't copyrightable according to the court that's generally supposed to handle such things, in this instance The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. They've ruled plenty of times on the matter, and have developed decades of case law stating that implementing APIs is totally kosher. Sony v. Bleem is great example. There the appeals court ruled that not only could Ble…

>not only could Bleem ship a PS1 emulator with reverse engineered APIs of the kernel

Not all types of reverse engineering is considered copying. See IBM PC BIOS cases.

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

#565

Post by kybernetikos »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #546
kybernetikos wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to understand here - is the idea that if they had put a bunch of developers who had never seen the API that they were implementing (normal clean rooms allow documentation, but api documentation is pretty much the signatures and that pretty much is the material we're talking about being copyrighted), provided the clean room engineers only with example code that used the apis and that they had to make work t…

>normal clean rooms allow documentation Uhhh. No. Just no. I don't think you understand the meaning of "clean room" in this context. In this context, clean room means that the person in the room is untainted by any copyrighted information full stop.

Yes, and the normal way you do this is by having some people (who can be tainted) write a bunch of documentation. Then the documentation gets passed to the people working in the 'clean room' who then implement based on that documentation.

The problem I'm describing is that in this case the kind of thing you'd typically want to write in that documentation is exactly the signatures of methods, which would amount to copying the copyrighted material and would taint the whole clean room. I'm trying to think of a way you could even do clean room engineering if the signatures of methods are copyright information. The reimplement from usage examples is the only thing I can come up with.

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

#566

Post by loup-vaillant »

ABCLAW wrote: post #535
loup-vaillant wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read it, and I disagree. I am not arguing that Google has an interoperability exemption. I am arguing that the API is not (or should not be) copyrightable in the first place , because any attempt at interoperability would instantly void it. I would also argue that interoperability with the training of masses of developers is a thing. Saying it is not only strengthens the relevant network effects, which is bad…

>I am arguing that the API is not (or should not be) copyrightable in the first place, because any attempt at interoperability would instantly void it. The court specifically deals with this assertion and does not come to the conclusion that you do. >And overall, it is very weird that Google's intent matters here. No it isn't. This case was about Fair use, and intention matters for some of the test elements. A bunch…

> The court specifically deals with this assertion and does not come to the conclusion that you do.

I know. I did read their lengthy conclusion.

> A bunch of people think this case is about API copywritability.

Too bad it isn't. That ruling from 4 years ago is insane. And I recall people did complain at the time, did they not?

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

#567

Post by FeepingCreature »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #476
FeepingCreature wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could call it max(b,a) but that would be fucking stupid. People shouldn't have to write shit code cause judges are tech illiterate.

And just how is max(a,b) good code and max(b,a) bad code?

Because the alphabet goes a, b, c, not b, a, c. The lexical ordering is uniquely privileged both when reading and writing.

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

#569

Post by didibus »

What if this ends up true. Can Google just prefix all namespaces with google. ?

So now the API names are all changed.

Basically, if API are copyrightable, whats the minimal change to not consider it a copy?

com.oracle.String/lowerCase

Could this become

com.google.String/lowerCase

So now the name is changed? Or does this all now becomes a case of any similarity can be sued and on a case by case basis courts will jusge if its too similar or not enough?

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

#570

Post by sjwright »

chii wrote: post #513
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just how is max(a,b) good code and max(b,a) bad code?

Code written for one will fail for the other, and negates the whole point of interoperability. Therefore the method signature should not be copyrightable

Beware interpreting copyright law with the assumption that interoperability is relevant. The law doesn't care.
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