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

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

#511

Post by penteract »

tylersmith wrote: post #504
penteract wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My least favorite part of the arguments was when the US government representative used the existence of open source licenses that explicitly allow copying declarations to claim that it's not commonly believed that such rights don't exist. "There is a prevalent practice of licensed copying of declarations and often that is done through what is called open-source licensing" ...(6 minutes later) "sometimes, often the li…

He's right. The entire premise of open source licensing is that the work is copyrightable, so it uses the copyright system to enforce the authors distribution requirements.

It still seems like an overstatement to argue that use of open source licenses indicates a belief that method declarations are copyrightable.

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

#512

Post by shmerl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #448
shmerl wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this happen to be is accidental? For me it looks like a pattern. Especially if they are divided by the same lines. Let's wait and see until the final decision though.

> How much of this happen to be is accidental? A lot. It's not like anyone is appointing judges with an API-copyrightability litmus test.

Let's wait until the final result, but if the division will be by the same lines as conservative or not, I'd strongly question the randomness of it.

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

#513

Post by andrewjl »

rayiner wrote: post #510
andrewjl wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read multiple perspectives, some pro-Google and some pro-Oracle, I cannot reconcile this sort of argument with the Baker v. Selden precedent. [1] Perhaps my understanding of APIs is different because I'm an engineer and not a lawyer, but how is this not an open and shut case? The cookbook analogy is not applicable for the same reason one could not apply it in Baker , accounting methods are not of themselves co…

The difference is that Baker didn’t involve literal copying of the accounting tables. Baker is treated as a merger case, but it’s more a case about the difference between copyright and a method patent. Baker claimed that copying the general structure of the tables was infringement. The court essentially held that the structure that was copied was the structure dictated by the method itself. And Selden couldn’t copyri…

> Then, the question is whether these choices of where to put the parameter reflect any creativity.

Interesting. This argument seems to imply that languages are copyrightable based upon creativity in ordering, punctuation, use of certain expressions such as `&`, etc. How is that different from your example? In fact a computer language itself is nothing but an API to a human-readable specification for machine behavior. I can see the specification being a creative work and hence being patentable. I don't see the same for the API code.

I'll have to think more about it. I can't offer a more substantive counter-argument now.

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

#514

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gerash wrote: post #479
blunte wrote: post #327

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 an…

I find it frustrating that, say, Kavanaugh can go ahead and imply that all these 83 notable people in your field are having a knee jerk reaction but the sky isn't falling. Why does he think he has any better understanding than 83 notable computer scientists? https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/128391/2020...

I don't think that's what Kavanaugh was doing. If you're thinking of taking those 83 into account in your ruling, but you aren't exactly sure that they're solid, you ask a question: Hey, Google, explain to me why these are important. It doesn't mean that he's dismissing them. It is at least as likely that he's considering relying on them, and wants to have a solid justification for doing so. (Remember, Oracle also claimed that the world would end if the court decided for Google.)

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

#515

Post by andrewjl »

mumblemumble wrote: post #500
andrewjl wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially if you're talking about not just one function, but some enormous number of methods in some large number of classes across 37 different packages. See my other reply down thread, but my own reading of Baker seems to indicate this specifically is not a factor. 37 packages vs 1 method should make no difference. Copying one ledger template or copying hundreds is not a violation of copyright in the same way, b…

The 2014 decision, for one, hinges on it being a whole package structure and not just one method: Google copied the declaring source code from the 37 Java API packages verbatim, inserting that code into parts of its Android software. In doing so, Google copied the elaborately organized taxonomy of all the names of methods, classes, interfaces, and packages — the "overall system of organized names — covering 37 packag…

I'll have to read on this further. Thanks for the references.

> The Baker precedent says that the parts of a design that are strictly essential to its function are not copyrightable.

Since all parts of the API code are strictly essential to its function than they are not copyrightable, right? The parts that are not essential to its function lie in the behavior of the system in question instead of the API code, this behavior is codified in the specification of the system. The specification of the system isn't the same as the API code. I think this is a very compact form of what I was trying to convey in my other replies on the thread.

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

#516

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ummonk wrote: post #274
jgilias wrote: post #181

To me the best explanation of an Application Programming Interface (spelling it out on purpose) is really the comparison with industrial machinery. It's really the switches, knobs and levers of a machine that you use to make it do something. I get it that an API being textual throws non-technical people off. But for a programmer functionally there's not much difference between a physical object, like a steering wheel…

Exactly. It would be like a company copyrighting the shape of its proprietary replacement parts, and then suing another company for providing 3rd party replacement parts.

To me, it's more like copyrighting the control placement in a car. Nobody else can use accelerator on the right, brake on the left? What's that going to do to drivers? That's Google's argument.

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

#517

Post by carapace »

tylersmith wrote: post #504
penteract wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My least favorite part of the arguments was when the US government representative used the existence of open source licenses that explicitly allow copying declarations to claim that it's not commonly believed that such rights don't exist. "There is a prevalent practice of licensed copying of declarations and often that is done through what is called open-source licensing" ...(6 minutes later) "sometimes, often the li…

He's right. The entire premise of open source licensing is that the work is copyrightable, so it uses the copyright system to enforce the authors distribution requirements.

I don't have to believe in Santa Claus to appreciate Christmas presents.

I don't believe that software should be subject to copyright so I put the GPL on my code to protect it from those that do. Fight fire with fire, eh?

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

#518

Post by andrewjl »

austincheney wrote: post #508
andrewjl wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read multiple perspectives, some pro-Google and some pro-Oracle, I cannot reconcile this sort of argument with the Baker v. Selden precedent. [1] Perhaps my understanding of APIs is different because I'm an engineer and not a lawyer, but how is this not an open and shut case? The cookbook analogy is not applicable for the same reason one could not apply it in Baker , accounting methods are not of themselves co…

I am a software engineer and it is certainly NOT open and shut for me. APIs are code definitions just as are interfaces, custom types, classes, and so forth. I don’t think APIs should be treated differently than other code only because you need it to be so for your convenience. If APIs should be treated differently they need to be defined separately and licensed differently. Other languages and platforms makes this v…

> externalizing most APIs from the language and then adding support for the API to the language as though it is a foreign technology

That's true, but only in the case for the language's standard library. But what about the API of the language's top-level constructs? A class must have an initializer, for instance. Or protocol / interface has the notion of required as well as optional methods. Why is the latter (language APIs) not copyrightable but the former (standard library APIs) is? What is the substantive difference between them?

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

#520

Post by whatsmyusername »

xoxoy wrote: post #211
doesnotexist wrote: post #128

Should Oracle win this case, I predict that Free Software licenses will emerge as the clear market choice. Licenses that enshrine interoperability along with the freedom to modify or reimplement in part or wholesale will suddenly provide significantly more value over non-Free software which will be a proprietary minefield and the value will not be for technical but purely from legal liability. Anyone setting out to d…

The Google lawyer should be fired. I can’t believe you’d put the best of the best in front of the SC and the guy didn’t even sound like he could describe what an API actually is in non-technical terms. I don’t see how he represented the best legal representation Google could buy.

Google... really isn't that good at what they do besides sell Ads. They're just big so whatever they choose becomes the standard because 'doing what google does' not only won't generally get you fired but also impresses people who don't actually have to build difficult things. It's a testament to the power of an entrenched market position.
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