Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing • Hacker News Board

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#121

Post by hurin » Wed, May 27, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #120

bcg1 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Unless "method of operation" is some godforsaken legalistic bastardization of the language, APIs are methods of operation, not a description. In Java you must use those exact symbols to use the software... the description would be the documentation and Javadoc comments about the code, which I agree could certainly be eligible for copyright protection

Walking is a method of operation. A video of someone walking, or a story about someone walking is a tangible description, not the method of operation itself. The concept of a function with the name cupcake that takes an integer and returns an integer is different than the description "int cupcake(int x)." The interoperability aspect is a red herring--there is no right to interoperate.

> Walking is a method of operation.

That's not the way most people are using the term, if you are going to use it differently from everyone else, you should clarify the meaning of your usage of the term.

> The concept of a function...is different than the description...

I would say that's either not true or entirely non-obvious, because to establish that the concept is what is being described in the later case is you had to provide some form of description in the previous case, in this case:

  > a function with the name cupcake that takes an integer and returns an   integer

happens to be the common-english equivalent for

  > int cupcake(int x)

The primary difference being that one is valid as an English-sentence and one is valid as a declaration in c, it's not altogether clear why you consider the common-english-expression as having some kind of special precedence, or how such an example helps us establish the difference between a concept and a description of a concept (even supposing such a duality does exist).

> The interoperability aspect is a red herring--there is no right to interoperate.

Not a lawyer, but I was under the impression that the Supreme court indeed has and at times does consider the effect on the common good from a particular interpretation of a law in their decision making.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#122

Post by jorgecastillo » Wed, May 27, 2015, 8:44 PM UTC

I know this has been said a lot of times already but I don't think we can say this enough. If Oracle wins, this will set a terrible precedent for software development. If any software company deserves to be qualified as evil, it is Oracle without a doubt.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#123

Post by bcg1 » Wed, May 27, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #120

bcg1 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Unless "method of operation" is some godforsaken legalistic bastardization of the language, APIs are methods of operation, not a description. In Java you must use those exact symbols to use the software... the description would be the documentation and Javadoc comments about the code, which I agree could certainly be eligible for copyright protection

Walking is a method of operation. A video of someone walking, or a story about someone walking is a tangible description, not the method of operation itself. The concept of a function with the name cupcake that takes an integer and returns an integer is different than the description "int cupcake(int x)." The interoperability aspect is a red herring--there is no right to interoperate.

I think we are actually in agreement here... it seems as if you consider "API" to mean the documentation of the function, while I am considering it to be the actual compiled Java bytecode (which is not a description of the function, it actually is the "tangible" function)

If the copyrightable work is the description of the API... then I would argue that simply writing "int cupcake(int x)" is not expressive in a way that can be copyrighted, since it is really the only precise way of describing the bytecode. However any extra information (such as Javadoc comments or other documentation) could definitely be expression.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#124

Post by rayiner » Wed, May 27, 2015, 10:12 PM UTC

hurin wrote: post #121

rayiner wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking is a method of operation. A video of someone walking, or a story about someone walking is a tangible description, not the method of operation itself. The concept of a function with the name cupcake that takes an integer and returns an integer is different than the description "int cupcake(int x)." The interoperability aspect is a red herring--there is no right to interoperate.

> Walking is a method of operation. That's not the way most people are using the term, if you are going to use it differently from everyone else, you should clarify the meaning of your usage of the term. > The concept of a function...is different than the description... I would say that's either not true or entirely non-obvious, because to establish that the concept is what is being described in the later case is you…

> That's not the way most people are using the term, if you are going to use it differently from everyone else, you should clarify the meaning of your usage of the term.

How do people use the term "method of operation?" I'm trying to draw your attention to the distinction between the abstract process of walking (moving your legs in a particular way), and concrete descriptions of that method.

> I would say that's either not true or entirely non-obvious, because to establish that the concept is what is being described in the later case is you had to provide some form of description in the previous case, in this case:

Sure, any abstract concept cannot be discussed by humans without reducing it to a written or spoken description. But that does not mean that the concept and the description are the same thing.

> happens to be the common-english equivalent for

Or "fn cupcake(x: i32) -> i32" or "function cupcake(x: integer) : integer;" etc. There are many different concrete descriptions of the abstract concept of a function taking an integer and returning an integer.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#125

Post by e12e » Wed, May 27, 2015, 10:37 PM UTC

bediger4000 wrote: post #72

e12e wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite as interesting a comparison as you might think [ed: or maybe it is, now that I've thought it through... ;-) ]. Eg, from the Introduction to the second edition of "The C Programming Language": "Appendix A contains a language reference manual. The official statement of the syntax and semantics of C is the ANSI Standard itself.". Note that there's an ANSI standard for C -- and while I don't know what ki…

You wrote: would probably not be legal. And there's the problem. "IP" laws and customs will be vague enough that the rest of us will have to totally steer clear of any "IP" problems. It costs far too much to get the "probably" erased or the "not legal" reversed. Litigation is for gamblers or aristocrats. Strict "IP" will only lead to less innovation, higher prices, and the creation of a semi-aristocracy, the "rightsh…

Oh, to be clear, I think this verdict is pretty bad (as if things weren't muddy enough already). I began writing the comment/looking through K&R and realized that in this particular case -- one might not have a clear-cut legal right to use the example code. Even if that is clearly the intent of the authors.

Although, I'd be surprised if there haven't been rulings on similar cases before. Either way - the code from a text book, and code from technical documentation are probably not the same under the law.

That doesn't mean I don't think it's silly to hold APIs to be copyright-able -- I just think the two questions are different: 1) Is sample code provided for the purpose of re-use, fair-use (or something equivalent)? and 2) Are APIs copyrightable?

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#126

Post by Zigurd » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

ChairmanZach wrote: post #67

dmm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine reimplements win32 and directx, etc, ot the .Net api.

Wine is a reverse engineering of the APIs, not a blatant copy. edit: Straight from Wikipedia: "Wine is predominantly written using black-box testing reverse-engineering, to avoid copyright issues.[4] [4] https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?p=37364#37364 "

Still incorrect. The black box testing refers to testing of the implementation, not the API.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#127

Post by caf » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:39 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #125

bediger4000 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote: would probably not be legal. And there's the problem. "IP" laws and customs will be vague enough that the rest of us will have to totally steer clear of any "IP" problems. It costs far too much to get the "probably" erased or the "not legal" reversed. Litigation is for gamblers or aristocrats. Strict "IP" will only lead to less innovation, higher prices, and the creation of a semi-aristocracy, the "rightsh…

Oh, to be clear, I think this verdict is pretty bad (as if things weren't muddy enough already). I began writing the comment/looking through K&R and realized that in this particular case -- one might not have a clear-cut legal right to use the example code. Even if that is clearly the intent of the authors. Although, I'd be surprised if there haven't been rulings on similar cases before. Either way - the code from a…

When I wrote the original comment, I was actually thinking about the description of the API of the standard library that is in Appendix B of the Second Edition, containing such copyrightable creative expressions as

  long strtol(const char *s, char **endp, int base)

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#128

Post by maz20 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

No suprise here --- 1) Google won the first case with Alsup. This demonstrates that some lower courts can have a better understanding of the law and are willing to spend time applying logic to these things. 2) Oracle won in a higher court. At this point, we see a trend that the higher you go, the more political and less competent the courts get. The DOJ's actions reinforce this trend too. So, even if it goes to the Supreme Court, we're pretty much guaranteed Oracle will win that too.

See, the whole problem of this case rests in that you have to "spend time" and "apply logic" to agree with Google's position. Which, pretty much throws out any hope of getting a "higher court" (or higher-anybody) to adopt Google's stance on the issue.

Actually the poster "tajen" pretty much hit the nail on the head for this issue -- essentially, adopting Google's stance unfortunately requires a degree of competence and logical commitment beyond the comprehension of most higher officials. So, even if this goes to the Supreme Court Oracle has this case pretty much won...

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#129

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

maz20 wrote: post #128

No suprise here --- 1) Google won the first case with Alsup. This demonstrates that some lower courts can have a better understanding of the law and are willing to spend time applying logic to these things. 2) Oracle won in a higher court. At this point, we see a trend that the higher you go, the more political and less competent the courts get. The DOJ's actions reinforce this trend too. So, even if it goes to the S…

> 2) Oracle won in a higher court. At this point, we see a trend that the higher you go, the more political and less competent the courts get.

I don't know that that's the case; even if we assume that the CAFC is wrong from the perspective of application of the law (rather than merely correctly applying the law to reach an outcome that we don't like), certainly, lots of observers think that the CAFC is an especially problematic court among Courts of Appeal, and even on the issues that it specializes in (which copyright is not one of; Oracle v. Google got there instead of the 9th Circuit because of patent issues in the case, even though the thing we're all focused on is a copyright issue.)

So, I don't think that "the CAFC messed this up", even if taken as gospel, necessarily demonstrates a relation between "level" of court and competence.

> The DOJ's actions reinforce this trend too.

Since the DoJ isn't a higher court than the CAFC, I don't see how you can reasonably say that.

Re: Let Oracle own API's, Justice Dept tells top court in surprise filing

#130

Post by maz20 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #129

maz20 wrote: post #128

No suprise here --- 1) Google won the first case with Alsup. This demonstrates that some lower courts can have a better understanding of the law and are willing to spend time applying logic to these things. 2) Oracle won in a higher court. At this point, we see a trend that the higher you go, the more political and less competent the courts get. The DOJ's actions reinforce this trend too. So, even if it goes to the S…

> 2) Oracle won in a higher court. At this point, we see a trend that the higher you go, the more political and less competent the courts get. I don't know that that's the case; even if we assume that the CAFC is wrong from the perspective of application of the law (rather than merely correctly applying the law to reach an outcome that we don't like), certainly, lots of observers think that the CAFC is an especially…

DOJ is not a court but it is a "high official" (or "official body"). What I was stating was that the "higher you go" -- in terms of official government bodies, whether they're courts, or something else -- the less competent I would expect them to be.

You can simply say, 1) "Oracle owns Java" 2) "APIs are part of Java" 3) "Google uses Java APIs" 4) Therefore, "Google uses something Oracle owns" so Oracle should win this case

Now of course, you can apply some deeper logic to uphold Google's stance. But that's the problem --- how "far" or how "deeper" do you expect the higher courts to look into this issue? Deep enough to understand Google's position?