Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 344 posts

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#151

Post by jyrkesh »

gribbly wrote: post #132
throwaway30121 wrote: post #68

Oracle is such a shit company. There are still some great hackers there but Larry Ellison is an asshole, and I don't envy anyone who has to work for him even indirectly. "Left Oracle's Java business in tatters" eh? Where was their mobile OS? Their Dalvik? The wounds to Java have all been self-inflicted. If they succeed in copyrighting the API then where does this leave OpenJDK? Operating at the mercy of Larry fucking…

>Or even to C# since apparently MS got the memo on Open Source Actually Microsoft was with Oracle on the whole 'API's should be copyrightable' and lobbied on their behalf during the case. Microsoft claimed that: "If Google's position that APIs can't be copyrighted stands, it will "destabilize" the entire software industry" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-forese...

I'd imagine that was a Ballmer-era policy. I would be interested to see if there's anything like that coming out of Nadella's Microsoft (keeping in mind that Nadella's Microsoft hired the guy behind Mono).

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#152

Post by AsyncAwait »

cosatelo wrote: post #133

I really hope they win just because I hate using java for android development. Maybe if they win we'll swift will become the native language.

Agreed, but I do find Kotlin[1] to be a good compromise in the meantime.

1 - https://kotlinlang.org

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#153

Post by disc »

jolux wrote: post #125
nine_k wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He failed to make half the world use his company's products, among other things. BTW I'd appreciate if you gave an example of a highly successful and ethically impeccable company.

>ethically impeccable company First of all this is moving the goalposts significantly and is also an impossible standard. I would say that Apple and Microsoft are more ethical than Google but the question is of course along what axis?

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish[1] Microsoft?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#154

Post by _delirium »

0xffff2 wrote: post #139
DannyBee wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They originally claimed patents too, which is why this keeps going to the federal circuit instead of the 9th, who would have ended this silliness

Huh? "The 9th [circuit]" is a Federal circuit court...

The terminology's confusing, but there's a court named the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [1], even though the term "federal circuit court" also colloquially means the Courts of Appeals in general. This Federal Circuit is a non-geographical Court of Appeals, separate from the 11 numbered, geographically based Courts of Appeals, and has exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases (among a few other things). They also have a reputation of being very pro-IP-plaintiff compared to the courts in general.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals...

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#155

Post by mschuster91 »

blub wrote: post #116
throwaway30121 wrote: post #68

Oracle is such a shit company. There are still some great hackers there but Larry Ellison is an asshole, and I don't envy anyone who has to work for him even indirectly. "Left Oracle's Java business in tatters" eh? Where was their mobile OS? Their Dalvik? The wounds to Java have all been self-inflicted. If they succeed in copyrighting the API then where does this leave OpenJDK? Operating at the mercy of Larry fucking…

Maybe he is an asshole, but at least Larry Ellison didn't build a company to spy on half the planet like Page & Brin.

> Maybe he is an asshole, but at least Larry Ellison didn't build a company to spy on half the planet like Page & Brin.

The toolbars and other crap which the JRE installer / autoupdater tries to sneak on to unwitting users' systems ARE spyware.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#157

Post by mjw1007 »

Spivak wrote: post #144
mjw1007 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work Oracle copyrighted (and registered) was their implementation of Java SE as a whole, method bodies and all. Google copied only the interface. If someone copies a paragraph of my novel and claims fair use, I won't get very far on the amount-and-substantiality front by saying "but they basically took all of the part that they copied".

I think it depends if you consider the part that was copied to be a standalone work. The fact that Google is able to create a separate implementation based only on the API design documents seems to suggest that it's a separate work that has meaning unto itself. Would you make the same argument if you copied the entire forward from a novel?

In that case I think I would try the argument. But if I were on the jury I wouldn't be thinking "there's no case here".

If I understand how appealing jury decisions works, it isn't going to be anywhere near good enough for Oracle to argue that a reasonable jury might have decided the other way.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#158

Post by gime_tree_fiddy »

Maybe, this is a little bit off-topic.

But anyone, who tried to use JetBrains IDEs on Ubuntu, might have faced the problem uglier font rendering with OpenJDK and the fix to it is to use the JDK from Oracle.

I thought the different with OpenJDK was largely about the licensing. Anybody with some insight on it ?

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#159

Post by wtbob »

dizzystar wrote: post #143
rbjorklin wrote: post #60

Curious to hear your reasons for calling Red Hat a dark horse. (Which I presume is some kind of slur/holds a derogatory meaning)

my goodness, this is probably not a native English speaker, or perhaps never heard the expression before... why be so harsh?

Not understanding is fine: assuming that something one doesn't understand must be a slur is not fine.

Re: Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle

#160

Post by pjmlp »

gime_tree_fiddy wrote: post #158

Maybe, this is a little bit off-topic. But anyone, who tried to use JetBrains IDEs on Ubuntu, might have faced the problem uglier font rendering with OpenJDK and the fix to it is to use the JDK from Oracle. I thought the different with OpenJDK was largely about the licensing. Anybody with some insight on it ?

The closed source JDK has quite a few components that aren't the same as the OpenJDK.

For example OpenJDK 9 will get a new Java 2D render, due to the differences between the two that were in use http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/265

Post reply on HN