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

arstechnica.com

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

#531

Post by nitrogen »

mumblemumble wrote: post #524
andrewjl wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

So, going back to the max() function example: I believe, based on the way the courts are looking at it, that the parts that are essential to its function are the fact that it takes two numbers and returns the greater of the two, and perhaps also the fact that it is named "max". Its being placed into class named java.lang.Math, though, is not. That is a product of the way it is arranged, which is a matter of design, n…

Its being placed into class named java.lang.Math, though, is not. That is a product of the way it is arranged, which is a matter of design, not of necessity. It's hard to imagine any particular reason why a function would need to have "java" in its name in order correctly calculate the maximum of two numbers.

It's absolutely essential for interoperability to preserve package layout, class/method names, and argument order. For any Java code you want to run on your Apache Harmony based mobile OS, you have to have the Java package names.

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

#532

Post by interpol_p »

andrewjl wrote: post #458
interpol_p wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue whether I think APIs should be copyrightable, but I believe creating a good API is a work of creative design, and is artistic I design an API for graphical coding and spend significant creative energy choosing the right words, calling conventions, result types to not only make something intuitive, but emotionally pleasurable to code with Sometimes I'll spend days writing out possible forms of t…

> I'm not going to argue whether I think APIs should be copyrightable, but I believe creating a good API is a work of creative design, and is artistic I disagree. I think the specification can be, but the API code itself is a mechanical translation of the specification into computer code. Note that abstractions, names, etc are conceived in the specification and are then translated into computer code. Even if you skip…

To be clear I am on the Google side of this argument

But certainly the API code contains naming, which is a creative aspect of API design, and in this case naming is used by developers to code against either Oracle's Java implementation, or Google's. In order to allow this Google had to copy the naming created by Oracle for their version of the API in order to attract the large pool of developers who liked and were familiar with that design.

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

#533

Post by nitrogen »

lmkg wrote: post #523
andrewjl wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

The arguments and return value of Min and Max are strictly essential to their function. Their inclusion as top-level items in a Math package is not. One could imagine alternate taxonomies where, e.g., the Math package is divided into Arithmetic, Trig, Comparison, and Advanced sub-packages. Or where they are placed into an Operators package insted of Math. For example, Rust puts the Max function into the cmp (Comparis…

But if you want to run third party Java code you have to preserve package locations and method names to the letter.

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

#534

Post by dannyw »

nojito wrote: post #410
xoxoy wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Giving a lawyer an unwinnable case does not take away from the fact that he is one of the most successful SC lawyers in the world.

This case is not unwinnable. And lawyers can specialise in specific areas. This lawyer seems unprepared at best, and simply not appropriate for this at worst.

I'm not saying he's a bad lawyer, I'm saying he's not the right lawyer for this case.

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

#535

Post by nitrogen »

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.

Though the choices are creative, it's necessary to replicate them exactly to produce a functioning interface for existing Java code. It's like a design for an electrical connector; maybe patentable, but it's essential to the function so shouldn't be copyrightable.

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

#536

Post by fuzzybear3965 »

101011 wrote: post #507
daniel-thompson wrote: post #69

> Supreme court judges just do not have the conceptual framework to properly adjudicate this. I don't think it's going to be possible to teach them the difference between interface and implementation within the parameters of these arguments. I mostly agree with you, but let's give credit where credit is due. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, from TFA: > "[...] since 1992, [courts have said] the application-programming interfa…

Very interesting - can you link your source? I wasn't able to find that quote myself, and wanted to read more.

Not OP. But, I found it here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/googles-supreme-...

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

#537

Post by [deleted] »

mumblemumble wrote: post #524
andrewjl wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

So, going back to the max() function example: I believe, based on the way the courts are looking at it, that the parts that are essential to its function are the fact that it takes two numbers and returns the greater of the two, and perhaps also the fact that it is named "max". Its being placed into class named java.lang.Math, though, is not. That is a product of the way it is arranged, which is a matter of design, n…

[deleted]

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

#538

Post by CivBase »

zaphar wrote: post #260
gojomo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, Amazon isn't objecting. So, Oracle can say: we're "doing it" with permission.

If this case goes the wrong way Oracle may find itself the subject of a lawsuit.

They probably figure they'll make more from this one than they'll lose to Amazon.

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

#540

Post by mortehu »

If you have the source code for projects written in Java that collectively use every API endpoint in the standard library, you can reconstruct the API perfectly, thanks to static typing and the absence of type inference and default parameters. Would it be a copyright violation to distribute these projects along with a tool for reconstructing the API declarations from them?
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