Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#321

Post by nradov » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #304

nradov wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that Google was really trying to achieve interoperability. If it was then they would have passed the Java Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) tests. Other companies did that and are legally in the clear for their Java implementations. Why didn't Google?

Because they were too arrogant to do so? Note that Microsoft was eventually forced to make peace with Sun over Java after a long lawsuit.

I'm not privy to Google's management thinking but I suspect they made that decision to save time and hit a market window. Android originally used the open source Apache Harmony Java implementation which didn't comply with the Sun (Oracle) Java license for the TCK. If Google had dropped Harmony they would have had to either write their own Java implementation from scratch or license one from another vendor like IBM. They had plenty of resources to pursue those other options but either one would have take more time and allowed Apple to build a lead in the smartphone market. So Google stuck with Harmony and now they're facing the legal consequences.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#322

Post by 8ytecoder » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #240

I'm not sure why so many people here seem to be surprised by this, I got the exact same impression from the hearing. The problem for Google on the copyrightability front is that "compilations" of non-copyrightable items can be copyrightable even if the underlying items themselves are not, if the "selection, coordination, or arrangement" of those items involves sufficient creativity to be considered an "original work…

In your analogy, I view APIs as the equivalent of the ToC of the cookbook rather than the cookbook itself. Unless it still holds that Table of Contents are copyrightable as well (I honestly don't know), the argument won't hold.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#323

Post by tathougies » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #217

neves wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in any other country of the world, but the USA.

The DNC would be center right in Saudi Arabia? By what metric? What is with the ridiculous hyperbole that's so common when talking about America on the internet, especially by non-Americans? Talk about "American exceptionalism" - just in a different way.

Indeed it's quite ridiculous. What they mean to say is that the DNC would be center-right in Europe, which is an incredibly Euro-centric way to look at the world. In reality, if you consider the actual bulk of the planet, which would include mainly China and India, the DNC and RNC dichotomy is rather unclassifiable.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#324

Post by tathougies » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

typon wrote: post #289

drstewart wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC would be center right in Saudi Arabia? By what metric? What is with the ridiculous hyperbole that's so common when talking about America on the internet, especially by non-Americans? Talk about "American exceptionalism" - just in a different way.

I think OP implied "any democratic western nation".

Ah right, the soft ethno-nationalism of implying that the only 'real countries' are the western democratic ones.... great...

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#325

Post by rayiner » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #277

rayiner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it would be positively apocalyptic to reign in the all-powerful unelected fourth branch of government the framers conveniently forgot to list in the constitution. Or to prevent Congress from creating executive branch entities that exercise the powers of all three branches of government. The SEC can make rules, sue you for violating them, and then adjudicate your violation, all under one roof. Pretty sure that’s ex…

>adjudicate your violation, all under one roof. You still have Article III remedies in that case. If the extreme version of non-delegation took hold, it would be the end of all rational regulation. Do you REALLY want Congress writing technical documents about effective isotropic radiated power? Or the shape of curb ramps?

I don’t see how having article III remedies addresses the separation of powers issue. It just means you can kinda maybe fix up the damage afterward.

I think it’s fair to ask how far a non-delegation principle should go. There is clearly a continuum between legislation and enforcement discretion. But does that mean we should have no non-delegation principle at all? Is there a definable middle ground between Congress leaving it to executive discretion address technical minutea and Congress delegating oversight over entire sections of the economy to unelected bodies that can serve as judge, jury, and executioner?

There are ways to maintain an administrative state without stuffing everything into the executive branch: https://www.theregreview.org/2019/12/18/rappaport-stronger-s...

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#326

Post by ColanR » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

chabad360 wrote: post #226

ColanR wrote: post #175

I wonder if Oracle winning would reinvigorate software developement - by which I mean, maybe the resulting fragmentation would leave a lot of room for new ideas to be developed. e.g.: if this court case was decided before Google made Android, then Google would have had to use something other than Java to do it and they wouldn't have been able to attract such a large developer base to make apps. Maybe they would have…

Fragmentation is almost never a good thing and it's certainly not a good thing in this case. Allowing developers to use the same knowledge, the same interfaces, the se languages across systems means that consumers benefit. Having a de facto standard is good for everyone, and arguing that there is less innovation in programming because you don't own the rights to function names is ridiculous.

Seems like it could be compared to breaking up a monopoly. When there's one player in town (Java & Android in the two examples I used), any competing ideas never get a chance to succeed: we're still using variations of Java, probably at this point for historical reasons, and Purism etc. is having a real rough go of it. Look at the failed attempts at competing OSes that various phone manufacturers put out. There were some duds, but I mentioned two that could have given Andriod a run for its money if there were more fragmentation in the market - and I think that would have been better for consumers.

> arguing that there is less innovation in programming because you don't own the rights to function names is ridiculous

I applaud the rhetorical flourish, but I think it misses the point. It's not the cause of the fragmentation, but the fragmentation caused by the lost rights that improves the innovation.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#327

Post by blunte » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

It is absurd that "judges" should be in the position to judge issues which they have no understanding of. I would bet that at least some of the members of the Supreme Court do not even know how to check and send email. In the same way they depend on others to perform basic and advanced computer tasks, they should depend on a "jury" of tech experts to filter the cases and provide suggestions or hopefully reasonable analogies to concepts the judges can comprehend.

But now, on the topic of copyrighting APIs... it's stupid, and it's protectionist, and it's the kind of thing a company does when they can't compete or want to try to block competition. Most types of copyright are bogus for the same reasons. Not only is there the strong possibility of more than one person coming up with the same idea at approximately the same time, in different places, but very few ideas are truly unique or revolutionary. Instead, it becomes a race to see who can copyright (or patent) something first - either defensively or with future hopes of preventing competition or extracting payment from a competitor.

If modern copyright and patent law had always existed, humanity would be decades or perhaps centuries behind where it is now.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#328

Post by rocqua » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #316

hugi wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not imagining it as a website. An API is literally just a table of contents. meat.beef .. BeefAndPotatos .. BeefAndCabbage fish.cod .. CodWithPeas .. CodWithChips This is literally an exact representation of what an API looks like. You go to a recipe and you execute it expecting a result. And you get one, the implementation of it is up to the author of the book.

> An API is literally just a table of contents. An API is more like a set of mechanical gears that just happen to be shaped a little like words. If I change the names of things in a table of contents to synonyms, I can still use it to find what I am looking for. If I change the names of things my implementation of an API, it no longer functions as an interface for the things that worked with it previously. An API, de…

I do really like the TOC argument. If I were to take the TOC from another book. Copy only the TOC, write all the chapters and sub-chapters without having even read the other book (only the TOC).

Suppose then, than I publish the book explicitly as a replacement for the other book. Not as in "this is the same" but as in "if you find a reference to a chapter in the other book, you can also just look here". Would that be copyright infringement?

What happens if I do this to a technical document (think a 3gppp spec) where the TOC runs for 10 pages for a 300 page document, with headings nested 5 deep?

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#329

Post by mamon » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #154

sthomas1618 wrote: post #93

Let's say Google loses... badly. What will be the practical consequences for us software engineers?

The consequences will be that people will only use open standards and languages. Proprietary languages and APIs will be shunned because you'll be permanently locked in with compatible alternatives illegal.

So, after initial fallout it is a long-term win for software industry, right? ;)

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#330

Post by starfallg » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

nodamage wrote: post #240

I'm not sure why so many people here seem to be surprised by this, I got the exact same impression from the hearing. The problem for Google on the copyrightability front is that "compilations" of non-copyrightable items can be copyrightable even if the underlying items themselves are not, if the "selection, coordination, or arrangement" of those items involves sufficient creativity to be considered an "original work…

>For example, recipes are not individually copyrightable, but if you compile a set of recipes and publish them in a cookbook, the cookbook itself becomes copyrightable.

Recipes that contains more than just the basic list of ingredients and instructions can be copyrightable. Include a picture, illustration or a bit of creative text and copyright will apply on that. That's the true reason why cookbooks fall under copyright (while the actual list of ingredients and instructions do not, which people do lift out of cookbooks for example).

Even when applying copyright to an "arrangement" of items that are not copyrightable, as in a database, there needs to be creativity expressed, otherwise it will not qualify for copyright.