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Okay, either I'm crazy or everyone else is. Assuming the court isn't trying to set a new precedent with regards to software it seems like Oracle should have easily won this case. There is an argument to be made that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable but surely it's not fair use -- Google's use of Java doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is tricky because if you declare any API no matter how trivial copyrightable then the first guy to copyright a function to compute sqrt, tan, atan, etc wins. And if you can't copyright trivial interfaces then the question becomes where the line is drawn. There's far more at stake than Oracle trying to squeeze money out of Google.
I completely agree, but I don't really know what to do about it. Surely a document describing a useful software interface (GUI, CLI, API) is a creative work and takes effort to produce. Unless we just agree that it's a necessary exception for the purposes of interoperbility I'm not sure how I would argue that it shouldn't fall under copyright protection.
Mind you, Oracle was suing Google for using the header files themselves; since Google could have easily just typed up their own versions that did the same thing, it's almost more of a "plagiarism" case than a "copyright infringement" case: they shipped something that was exactly from Oracle, rather than just paraphrasing it. Oracle was probably in the right to sue over that.
But re: APIs—there's much more well-resolved case-law for this, coming from the gaming vertical: games have copyright, but game designs (including things like their network protocols) do not. It has both pros (Microsoft can't use the Minecraft IP to sue Terraria or Factorio; people can advance AI by writing bots that play Starcraft) and cons (the iOS and Android stores being saturated with mechanical clones of each successful game) but it's very certainly "the way things are."
Who has better connections with Trump? Sadly to say, that is not an irrelevant fact anymore. Trump is clearly the kind of president that would reach in to legal rulings he's paid not to like.
"Oracle's clout will come in part from the presence of its CEO, Safra Catz, who did not join the pro-Hillary Clinton chorus of other Silicon Valley honchos, and who is now working on Trump's transition team. " (http://fortune.com/2017/01/17/oracle-trump/)
Oracle should stop that, in my opinion. That attitude could kill Java in the long term.
Let's slap a great big IANAL on this before I start: The fair use decision was wrong. It relied on a fundamental misunderstanding of the term transformative where the use of the code was considered rather than merely the implementation. So Oracle has a huge case here. Moreover, practically it doesn't matter. Even if fair use is established in this case, the door has been left wide open to hordes of API copyright trol…
Method signatures would appear to represent the same situation because the chip needs to respond correctly not just respond to those inputs.
Is Oracle the biggest troll in Silicon Valley right now? Can't think of anyone else that would claim the title. Maybe Theranos.
I'm not aware of Theranos being a troll. Fraudster for sure, but troll has a different meaning.
Oracle is at that stage where they didn't invent or do anything right in the last 5 years but try to get money from lawsuits.
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/09/15/2016/oracles-c...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you that hateful of Java that you are blind to the implications of an Oracle win? It won't be just Java 'dying.'
Let's assume Oracle wins on appeal... What's next? Is everyone suddenly writing .Net code? Or are we left to find languages with lapsed copyrights? Fortran IV and Snobol are the new hotness! Everyone in to the pool!
Okay, either I'm crazy or everyone else is. Assuming the court isn't trying to set a new precedent with regards to software it seems like Oracle should have easily won this case. There is an argument to be made that APIs shouldn't be copyrightable but surely it's not fair use -- Google's use of Java doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria.
I understand the logic of saying that the API itself is a creative work and should be copyrighted. Creating a solid, logical API structure isn't simple. But I believe the API signature itself (function name, argument types, return type) should not be copyrightable, in the interests of the industry as a whole. Google didn't steal the implementation, they just reused the same function signatures to make their drop-in r…
I think Google could argue very successfully that literally just the API signatures should fall under fair use but that's not really what this is about.