I don't understand why people uses such stupid font style -_-
Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
31–40 of 965 posts
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#32I am glad Oracle didn't win. It seems to me that they bought Sun just to sue Google. I'm still bitter over for how they destroyed Sun... it's a shame that they didn't have a better steward.
Oracle is making a lot of innovation in openjdk and graalvm. They have much better engineers than if e.g Google had bought sun.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#33Had the ruling gone in Oracle's favor I can imagine some greedy company trying to procedurally-generate every API and copyright them all similar to this project which tried to copyright all musical melodies:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
In the case of the music project, it was for the protection of the community, but I can imagine such a system being used selfishly for software APIs.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#34The HN discussion from 2016 (Jury finds for Google): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781053 From 2018 (Oracle revives matter via appeal): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688521 Edit: Fixed, had written "Jury finds for Oracle", which was NOT what happened in 2016. Argh.
I'm unfamiliar with the legal system (judicial system?). I had thought that the jury's findings were final. Am I understanding correctly that the case still went to the Supreme Court of the US, and now that court finds in favor of Google. What happens after this, more appeals or is this like a proper static const readonly final?
Generally, the Supreme Court finds narrowly on a specific point of friction in the case of a lesser court, answers the question, and kicks it back to that court, as a final answer for that very specific thing.
The point in this case was, can Oracle overturn the "phone books cannot be Copyrighted" concept baked into tech law by the IBM v Compaq BIOS case. Seems the Supreme Court finally told Oracle the collection of method signatures from the Java base API are, indeed, a phone book.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#35The HN discussion from 2016 (Jury finds for Google): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781053 From 2018 (Oracle revives matter via appeal): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688521 Edit: Fixed, had written "Jury finds for Oracle", which was NOT what happened in 2016. Argh.
I'm unfamiliar with the legal system (judicial system?). I had thought that the jury's findings were final. Am I understanding correctly that the case still went to the Supreme Court of the US, and now that court finds in favor of Google. What happens after this, more appeals or is this like a proper static const readonly final?
A jury's findings are final only in determining the facts of the case. The actual legal implications of those facts can still be appealed, reviewed, and modified.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#36I'm so relieved. This could have forced such dramatic changes in how we develop software. And any other decision would have been a crippling blow to FLOS software. Now if we only could get the SC to invalidate software patents in general.
This is a large scale defeat of the GPL and dual licensing, so I'm not sure how this could be anything but a sad day for sustainable open source development. If you're big enough and have enough lawyers, there's no reason to license software you want to build on.
How so?
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#37I'm so relieved. This could have forced such dramatic changes in how we develop software. And any other decision would have been a crippling blow to FLOS software. Now if we only could get the SC to invalidate software patents in general.
This is a large scale defeat of the GPL and dual licensing, so I'm not sure how this could be anything but a sad day for sustainable open source development. If you're big enough and have enough lawyers, there's no reason to license software you want to build on.
How does this ruling interact with GPL?
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#38> "Google copied approximately 11,500 lines of declaring code from the API, which amounts to virtually all the declaring code needed to call up hundreds of different tasks. Those 11,500 lines, however, are only 0.4 percent of the entire API at issue, which consists of 2.86 million total lines. In considering “the amount and substantiality of the portion used” in this case, the 11,500 lines of code should be viewed as…
Question from a layman: Does "interoperability" as a concept have any legal relevance here? Like focusing on programmer skills seems kind of beside the point, which is really for two pieces of software to be able to interoperate.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#39"(e) The fact that computer programs are primarily functional makes it difficult to apply traditional copyright concepts in that technological world." So the opinion effectively preserves the status quo in the software industry while sidestepping the question of API copyrightability.
True, but it's such a strong precedent in favor of copying API's being "fair use" that it at least partly moots the more general question of "are API's copyrightable in the first place." I think this was a good decision all in all. AIUI, the SCOTUS try to limit the scope of their decisions as much as possible, to avoid over-generalization.
Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]
#40Does anyone have a good estimate of what this case cost Oracle and Google, especially in terms of legal fees, and where that money went ultimately?