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

arstechnica.com

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

#331

Post by Oletros »

jolux wrote: post #135
Oletros wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's nearly impossible to find someone separating the quintessential geek love for Google and geek hatred for Oracle from the facts of the case other than Mueller. But you can't separate the facts from the quintessential paid love for Oracle and the paid hatred for Google of Mueller. And exactly what tech has been ripping Google?

>But you can't separate the facts from the quintessential paid love for Oracle and the paid hatred for Google of Mueller. Sure, which is why I was asking you for someone arguing this who was more impeccably non-biased. I realize that some opinions in arguments do not deserve being argued for, such as mass genocide, but I don't think this case is as clear cut and it's a little disturbing to me that the internet was so…

> Sure, which is why I was asking you for someone arguing this who was more impeccably non-biased.

Ars Technica, for example

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

#332

Post by jolux »

wycx wrote: post #253
jolux wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the parent seems to think they wouldn't have been plagiarizing if they had "paraphrased" the declaring code so to speak, which makes the relationship here explicit. If they had paraphrased the declaring code, it would have been much harder to say they were infringing on copyright, but instead, they copied it verbatim. Of course, in academia paraphrasing is still plagiarism, but it is likely no longer copyri…

> Of course, in academia paraphrasing is still plagiarism, but it is likely no longer copyright infringement especially in this case. That seems an odd thing to say. A significant portion of academic writing is paraphrasing, with attribution. What is a review article, other than attributed paraphrasing?

With attribution, definitely ok, but some think paraphrasing is enough to make it wholly new. Hell, you can quote verbatim if you attribute.

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

#333

Post by jolux »

ktRolster wrote: post #306
jolux wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you could point me to an unbiased source trying to argue the other side of this question, then sure. I really want to know both sides of this issue and it's nearly impossible to find someone separating the quintessential geek love for Google and geek hatred for Oracle from the facts of the case other than Mueller. Honestly I'm all for liberalizing copyrights and fair use but it makes me mad to see Google goin…

FWIW here's my attempt, largely written after the appellate court made their ruling: http://www.zerobugsandprogramfaster.net/essays/x-1.html In their ruling, the appellate court said that Oracle would likely win the fair use argument. Of course, that can change.

>Is the software world broken now? No, it's not.

Thank you so much. This is such a reasonable overview compared to all the FUD about the software world being broken overnight.

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

#334

Post by [deleted] »

ktRolster wrote: post #306
jolux wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you could point me to an unbiased source trying to argue the other side of this question, then sure. I really want to know both sides of this issue and it's nearly impossible to find someone separating the quintessential geek love for Google and geek hatred for Oracle from the facts of the case other than Mueller. Honestly I'm all for liberalizing copyrights and fair use but it makes me mad to see Google goin…

FWIW here's my attempt, largely written after the appellate court made their ruling: http://www.zerobugsandprogramfaster.net/essays/x-1.html In their ruling, the appellate court said that Oracle would likely win the fair use argument. Of course, that can change.

[deleted]

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

#335

Post by Zigurd »

falcolas wrote: post #329
dreamcompiler wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can Oracle do that Postgres can't, then? Can Oracle function with less RAM than Postgres?

> What can Oracle do that Postgres can't, then? Provide enterprise level support. That is, they provide 24x7 support with technicians who can troubleshoot problems with the database or provide basic indexing support, etc. They also will write specific patches for specific customers as needed. It also has more features than PostgreSQL (more indexing options, custom SQL extensions, a better optimizer), is more stable,…

This is exactly what was said about IBM as IBM was being left behind by low cost replacements and competitors. Both IBM and Oracle have many of the same characteristics in terms of being aggressive with customers and influential in the C-suite. But that was not enough.

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

#336

Post by Zigurd »

niftich wrote: post #59

I wish intent and end result counted more strongly. Andoid's compatibility isn't transitive: once code goes through the Android build pipeline to produce an Android Application it cannot be meaningfully used in the context of Oracle Java; it's a one-way transformation to remain "talent-compatible" with a large pool of Java developers and reuse the base of Java libraries. Projects like OpenJDK and WINE are efforts to…

Re "This fragments the ecosystem and essentially allows Android to benefit from the works of the Java rightholders without making those contributions equally as useful"

Not based on licensing. There is no licensing barrier to making an runtime with the same semantics as ART or Dalvik that runs Java bytecode and is fully compatible with Oracle Java.

Also not by intent. Dalvik bytecode was designed for running without a JIT compiler in a battery powered device - a very specialized and critical design goal.

Oracle is the party that's playing games with standards and licensing, intentionally keeping openness and licensing requirements opaque and intentionally vague. I know this firsthand.

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

#337

Post by Zigurd »

sangnoir wrote: post #149
Oletros wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This fragments the ecosystem and essentially allows Android to benefit from the works of the Java rightholders without making those contributions equally as useful to Oracle Java itself. Java SE, Java EE and JavaME are incompatible. Java was already fragmented by their creators

> Java SE, Java EE and JavaME are incompatible. Hell, JavaME wasn't compatible with JavaME , depending on which vendor versions you were comparing. Sony Ericsson had classes totally different from Samsung or Nokia. Add CLDC versions and varying CPU and memory capabilities to that toxic hellstew to effectively kill the WORA dream. Sun/Oracle can't blame Google for their abysmal mobile strategy.

I can attest to this, and wrote a validation package to detect the differences among Java ME implementations back when I was doing mobile search apps for Java ME devices. A particularly annoying irony is that if you tried to use the supposedly standard ME UI classes, that's where most of the poorly spec'ed behavior lived, which is what all those vendors pointed to to justify doing their own UI classes. Never mind the intentionally loose specs for things like threading behavior.

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

#338

Post by Dylan16807 »

jolux wrote: post #240
Dylan16807 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fair use defense is not meant for multi-billion dollar multinational corporations that tried to shirk licensing by violating copyrights. Just because a giant company wants to be paid, and another giant company could afford to pay them, doesn't mean the bill was justified. Huge companies get access to fair use too. It's the flip side of the fact that noncommercial uses are capable of infringing.

>Just because a giant company wants to be paid, and another giant company could afford to pay them, doesn't mean the bill was justified. That's not at all what I was saying. All I was saying is that their usage is very clearly not fair use. That is all.

My comment was a direct response to the idea of "shirking licensing". Yes, they wanted to avoid licensing. But that does not imply the license was ever legally necessary.

> very clearly not fair use

Very clearly? I don't think so.

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

#339

Post by BinaryIdiot »

mastazi wrote: post #201
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked government contracting they had broad goals handed down which they must work toward without it being an explicit requirement. One of these goals? Get on top of an open source only stack for security, cost and future interoperability between other groups. I worked on several projects where they were originally using Oracle or MarkLogic and we transitioned them to Postgres or various other, open source te…

If you are allowed to and comfortable with it, could you share which country was that? Over the years I have looked at government projects in Western Europe, SE Asia and Australia, Europeans seem to be the ones that care the most about open source, while at the other end of the spectrum SE Asian governments are interested in it just as much as it lets them save money (much less because of "free as in freedom"). Austr…

United States. It may be a mixed bag as the agencies I worked with, well the groups within them I should say, were very, VERY against proprietary ANYTHING. I've never seen such a huge push back against software like Palantir. Funny thing? Almost every user I met LOVED just about all of the proprietary software and hated the contractor created, built on open source stacks, software.

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

#340

Post by wcarron »

Spivak wrote: post #269
wcarron wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patently false. I barely hear any talk about MariaDB whereas I still consistently hear about MySQL. Please define "Everybody" in this context, because it sounds like you've conflated it with "I".

It's the same situation with SSL and TLS. If you ask for a MySQL database you have a good chance of getting MariaDB. Oracle's largest asset in this situation is the brand mindshare.

What do you mean by "ask for a MySQL database"? If I were a client, I'd be rightfully pissed off if the developer I contracted gave me a completely different database than I requested in my stack. That's a complete breach of contract, if there was indeed MySQL on the spec sheet.

Who are you working with that would flagrantly ignore the obvious differences between SQL and MariaDB?

Personally, I've never seen MariaDB used in an instance where a simple MySQL db sufficed.

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