621–630 of 643 posts
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True, but the version of Java for phones was J2ME, which was different from J2SE. Android implemented the API of the latter.
Sun was in the process of using J2SE, based on the assets they bought from SavaJE, which incidentally had an architecture quite similar to the first Android versions.
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After Android was released. And after the IP assets had been laying around on the market more than two years. Sun buying SavaJe was pretty clearly a response to Android, so it's pretty disingenuous to say that Android killed SavaJe.
Apparently we live in different timelines: 1999 - SavaJe is founded 2006 - Jasper S20 with SavaJe OS gets presented at Java ONE 2006 - End of the year, SavaJe fails to gain another round of investment, in spite of the successful reception at Java ONE 2007 - April, Sun public announcement to buy SavaJe assets 2007 - November, Open Handset Alliance is created 2008 - November, HTC Dream gets released as the very first A…
And Android is way more a rip off of Palm than SavaJe. All of the interesting things it does (the intent system, the capability based IPC, the battery friendly process lifecycle model, etc.) clearly descend from Palm (which isn't a surprise given that's where Dianne Hackborn cut her teeth).
So does IBM now have an enforceable copyright on SQL that Oracle infringed upon?
People keep bringing SQL up, yet don't realize that SQL is an international standard which one needs to pay ISO for, and also to pay for certifications. Oracle has payed for SQL. Google has not payed for Java.
In 1987, Oracle was already the largest database vendor and IBM's database business never recovered from that setback.
That said, I don't know if Oracle had some sort of licensing agreement with IBM during those early years. The question is what any such agreement would have looked like in light of the recent legal opinions on copyright.
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"In this case, the Federal Circuit Court did what amounted a wholesale second-guessing of what the jury concluded about the facts here." It's worse than that. They are supposed to be applying ninth circuit law, and they roundly haven't throughout the entire appeals. They've made a complete mess of it. First in copyrightability, and now fair use. There are even ninth circuit judges who have spoken out about this.
For someone who is very much on the outside of understanding this situation, if you think you know enough to comment on it overall, would you say that they are mishandling it due to generally misunderstanding the gravity of the verdicts they are handing out or is it more to do with not precisely understanding the technology, what goes into creating such technology, how technology is propagated and improved, and how t…
People very often make the mistake of assuming two people with the same data will form the same opinion, and that where people disagree, it must be due to not understanding the data/etc.
In my experience, this is very wrong :)
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That lawyers exist is a good thing. It means we have a human, nuanced perspective on the finer points and interpretation of the law, which in Western civilization reigns supreme over all other things. Lawyers will never become obsolete until we no longer live in a society that obeys the rule of law.
You're going to get downvoted because you're posting this in a forum of largely programmers, many of whom believe that every problem is essentially a programming problem, and that the law could be computer code if only the spec were well-enough defined. In reality, "defining the spec" is the entire purpose of having a legal system in the first place. A nation is a machine that is evolving its own state. There's no ou…
It indicates there is a large amount of incidental complexity.
Clearly, exterminating lawyers or deleting random files is not a workable solution. But we should invest in reducing the system to essential complexity. If we are successful, the symptoms will subside.
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> Here's how this case should go [...] > And by every indication, we're right on track. You're leaving out the step where the district court found that APIs aren't copyrightable, but the district court was overruled by an appeals court that normally has no right to rule on such matters and does not set binding precedent on such matters. If Oracle's now-dead patent claims hadn't been included in their original complai…
First: No, I didn't leave anything out. Review the link I included in my last comment. Hold on to the Federal Circuit as a personal stick in your craw if you want, but I didn't leave it out . Second: That's a stretch. To argue that the case would have stopped at the Ninth Circuit is to argue that because the Supreme Court denied Google's petition to reverse the Federal Circuit, then they would have denied Oracle's pe…
That's not the argument I'm making.
The Supreme Court had several procedural reasons for not granting Google's petition for certiorari: the Federal Circuit's decisions were not setting binding precedent outside of this particular case, and there were still issues to be decided by the lower courts that included avenues for Google to prevail, making it unnecessary for the Supreme Court to render a landmark decision on the matter of API copyright.
If the appeals had gone to the Ninth Circuit, Google's appeal would have stood a much better chance than it did before the Federal Circuit. A Ninth Circuit decision in the matter would have set a very important precedent, but a decision in favor of Google would not have created any obvious circuit split and wouldn't have upset the status quo of the software industry. On the other hand, a decision in favor of Oracle would potentially have consequences serious enough to be a priority issue for the Supreme Court whether or not it created a circuit split.
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How is an API different than any other product specification? Why can't e.g. Panasonic sue other manufacturers for making an 18650 form factor battery cell? Why can't Ford license the form factor that every car uses for a gas nozzle? There's fundamentally not a way to create your own compatible implementation without using the same API.
Panasonic and Ford own copyrights on their CAD drawings for those items. So I can't just CTRL C and CTRL V and send them off to a manufacturer to get my own stuff made. I can, however, measure those things and create my own drawings without violating copyright because I am not reproducing the work.
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The whole subthread focusing on the Android VM is completely irrelevant. The entire argument at this point has to do with the inclusion of the Java APIs. Not even Oracle or the appeals court are harping on Google's custom VM.
The VM is used as an excuse by Google supporters why they should get excused to help drive Sun into the floor. Java still exists today thanks Oracle, not Google.
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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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First: No, I didn't leave anything out. Review the link I included in my last comment. Hold on to the Federal Circuit as a personal stick in your craw if you want, but I didn't leave it out . Second: That's a stretch. To argue that the case would have stopped at the Ninth Circuit is to argue that because the Supreme Court denied Google's petition to reverse the Federal Circuit, then they would have denied Oracle's pe…
> To argue that the case would have stopped at the Ninth Circuit is to argue that because the Supreme Court denied Google's petition to reverse the Federal Circuit, then they would have denied Oracle's petition to reverse the Ninth Circuit. That's not the argument I'm making. The Supreme Court had several procedural reasons for not granting Google's petition for certiorari: the Federal Circuit's decisions were not se…
Go on, finish the thought, and make your conclusion explicit. Because by any reasonable reading, you're suggesting that the Supreme Court would not have granted Oracle's petition if Google prevailed in the Ninth Circuit. And yet you start by saying that this isn't your argument. Be explicit.