Why not let it happen? Why not just completely destroy everyone's understanding of how permission to use certain types of code work, and then force everyone to just abandon the US copyright system for software completely? Let this happen and just let it destroy the system from the inside out.
Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
81–90 of 131 posts
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#82Excuse me, non-American here, but a passage from an article linked within states[0]: > The nine justices request that U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr., the government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court, weigh in on about 20 cases a year in which the federal government has a strong interest. The justices generally give greater weight to what he or she says than other third parties that take a side in a c…
Note, they give more weight to the SG than other third parties, not -- at least per the given description -- more weight than actual litigants.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
All code is a formalized description of "methods of operation". Unless you believe software achieves practical results without the benefit of hardware. And that's assuming you write pure assembly, else you also have firmware, operating systems, drivers, libraries, runtimes, or whatever supporting infrastructure is needed for your code to do anything meaningful.
Code is a specific implementation of a method of operation. The code can be copyright protected. But not the formats the code reads and emits. Not the language the code is written in. Not the machine language the computer processes. Not the method signatures in the code. Etc.
Actually, formats and languages are not, but the generated machine code is copyright protected as a "derivative work". This is how binaries enjoy copyright protection, because they are "derived" from copyright-protected human-produced code. I think that's a bit crazy that a potentially useful product by itself has no intrinsic protection.
As for method signatures, at a human readable level, they are as protected as any other code. Note that copyright protects expression rather than what the code does. So File.open(fname) and open(fname, 'r') and new File(fname) are all different expressions of the concept of "open a file with a given name)". The concept is not covered, but the specific expression is. Of course, a single method is not sufficient, but this case involves a collection of hundreds of such signatures.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
calling what I said "profoundly stupid" adds little to the discussion, and only stands to subvert my expression of frustration, which is where the sarcasm comes from. You may disagree, but you don't need to knock down what I said to do so. Likewise, take a step back. Maybe take two. What our our priorities as a society, as a species? These two companies with loads of money and resources, battling it out over if API's…
It's not squabble if you're an independent developer or a startup trying to create a new product. There will be a lot more of those poor people you were talking about if APIs are allowed to be copyrighted. It will stifle innovation in the US, and drive talented programmers to either seek a different profession, or move to a country that isn't draconian.
That or it will be widely flaunted like jay walking or the tena of thousands other laws and regulations that are on the books and hardly ever enforced.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet Google claims that the implementing code should be protected by copyright. How is "return a > b ? a : b;" not a method of operation if "public static int Max(int a, int b)" is... If the implementation, CODE(!), is of course a formalized description of methods of operation, the declaring code (or API) is providing a means of access to it. Something that takes quite a bit of thought and creativity to do well.
Neither one of those is substantial enough for copyright. They should be considered in the context of a whole body of work. Using books as an analogy, an API most closely resembles chapters and headings. Is it copyright infringement to write a new book that follows the same outline as a previous book? (I don't know...)
Search results resemble chapters and headings. Are search results protected by copyrights?
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Code is a specific implementation of a method of operation. The code can be copyright protected. But not the formats the code reads and emits. Not the language the code is written in. Not the machine language the computer processes. Not the method signatures in the code. Etc.
Actually, formats and languages are not, but the generated machine code is copyright protected as a "derivative work". This is how binaries enjoy copyright protection, because they are "derived" from copyright-protected human-produced code. I think that's a bit crazy that a potentially useful product by itself has no intrinsic protection. As for method signatures, at a human readable level, they are as protected as a…
I agree about generated machine code. I was referring to an instruction set architecture, that is, the format of the machine code, not the specific sequence of code generated from translating a higher-level language.
I can't agree about method signatures, though. They are like a language, a format, a protocol, none of which are protectable.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, Florian Mueller, a paid Oracle shill.
I don't care how involved he is in the case, I read his writing and I found it to be illuminating -- far more so than anything else I'd read on the subject. You can happily take the opposing view simply because he is involved and is probably biased, but that will make your viewpoint almost entirely baseless.
Mueller has a history of doing an excellent job working things that aren't actually reasonable to informed parties that seem illuminating to people that aren't informed. It's actually a fairly key skill for a professional propagandist. I haven't actually read the piece on question here, but appearing illuminating and actually being deceptive propaganda are not mutually exclusive traits.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#88Naming things is one of the hard things in Computer Science.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#89APIs should be trademarked.
Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that all code is a formalized description of "methods of operation", unless the legal phrase "methods of operation" has some exotic, inobvious meaning, like "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches" has taken on. That's why the US shouldn't allow software patents. Software is either mathematical or a formalized description of a method of operation.
On the contrary, patents are exactly what are intended to cover methods of operation. A lot of court decisions regarding copyrightability explicitly mention this. Note, patents usually don't cover the formalized description itself (mainly because it would result in an overly narrow patent) but rather what you can use software to do. Here's a claim from the infamous one-click patent: 1. A method of placing an order fo…
It's good that you're distinguishing "patent" from "copyright" from the vague morass of "Intellectual Property".
The goodness of patents depends on them being inobvious, and the receipient of the patent actually disclosing something useful. Otherwise, once again, the government is just granting a state-enforced monopoly on something, rather arbitrarily.
The problems with "IP" don't rest merely with distinguishing "idea" from "instantiation" (or whatever the legal term is), but rather derive from a much deeper level of problem and paradox.