Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one • Hacker News Board

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#51

Post by busyant » Sat, May 05, 2012, 11:05 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #37

busyant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several expert witnesses who agree. They say the jury never understands their testimony, and they just side with whoever is more charismatic. Several experts have told me this in various forms.

Expert witnesses are also on sale for the highest bidder. Pot, kettle, etc.

Agreed. But the experts that have told me this have been both "plaintiff's experts" and "defense experts" (this is in pharmaceutical product liability) and they maintain this opinion about their juries irrespective of winning or losing.

*edit: clarity.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#52

Post by rbanffy » Sat, May 05, 2012, 1:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #45

rbanffy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like asking a dozen parakeets which of the two nuclear physicist in the room is right about string theory. I fail to see how their opinion can be relevant.

Programming isn't nuclear physics and juries aren't parakeets. And you're not asking juries broad questions like "who is right about string theory?" you're asking them very pointed questions like "did X present sufficient evidence to show that Y is true?" Even in a technical trial, you're not asking the jury technical questions like whether some code implements quick-sort or bubble sort. The law by and large doesn't…

In this specific case, it's hard to imagine an average layperson being able to grasp such concepts after a reasonable amount of instruction by experts and the judge.

Let's use the Java interface construct as an example. It's expressed as code, but is it really just code? Isn't it really a spec other classes must implement in order to become valid Java code, expressed in code for the benefit of the compiler?

I consider my own unit tests as part of the documentation of the systems I deliver. There is little question as to whether the doctests are documentation, but testing them makes them execute. What are they then?

What if my code, during startup, reads UML files and compiles them to behavior that becomes part of the system during execution?

And my analogy works both ways - the opinion of a dozen theoretical physicists on birdseeds is equally relevant.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#53

Post by nerdfiles » Sat, May 05, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

ShardPhoenix wrote: post #32

It seems completely insane to have a jury of random people decide these kind of technical questions.

I believe one of the major social functions of the legal system is to disseminate the law.

Random people don't read 100s of blogs a day. Random people don't track 100s of RSS feeds. Random people watch major historical events. I personally think it's good to subject randoms to social activities analogous to "code review."

It's not a matter of "one" versus "many". The problem is ALWAYS: Code for 0, 1, or ∞. What we're witnessing here is an Optimistic Aristocratic Approach, which chooses "many". In our society, "many" is too primitive and vague of a concept. I imagine this is why less complex cultures correlate with linguistic markings which top off at "many," or that it's simply highly probable.

In any event, Optimistic Aristocratic Approach (which assumes the lowest-common denominator in its decision procedure over its sample, not the "ignorant" or "non-technical"), to me, entails that the legal system is attempting to familiarize randoms with these problems, not only to set a precedent in the law, but to set a social template as to how these issues should be treated systematically in court rooms. It also gives us a gauge of how effective we are at communicating these problems to "laypeople." Of course, no society would want randoms if it could not assume randoms were competent; but no society would want randoms if it could not assume randoms were indeed random. "Randomness" is a feature of our legal system insofar as it is a fact of nature (mutation): we cannot respond to randomness blindly. Choosing our best, ignores randomness because it assumes we are knowers. Choosing one, like a previous poster has noted, involves a predictable historical trend in law. Choosing our WORST is insane. Choosing RANDOM is pragmatic, even if stupid. (I don't care to see this legal system or government last, but I believe all I've said can be taken without anarchistic sensibilities.)

We should all bear in mind, perhaps, that this legal system is largely going to analogize these issues to industrial-products and scenarios. I believe the thrust of "no, no! not the randoms!" is contained in the Internet Declaration of Independence. Do you remember?:

_Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel_, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. [my emphasis]

I believe the point is not: "Don't trust commoners!" That's insipid and moronic. I believe that the general spirit is: "Don't trust commoners from the Industrial World to contribute meaningfully to our new set of values, whatever they may be!"

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#54

Post by rayiner » Sat, May 05, 2012, 8:54 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #52

rayiner wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming isn't nuclear physics and juries aren't parakeets. And you're not asking juries broad questions like "who is right about string theory?" you're asking them very pointed questions like "did X present sufficient evidence to show that Y is true?" Even in a technical trial, you're not asking the jury technical questions like whether some code implements quick-sort or bubble sort. The law by and large doesn't…

In this specific case, it's hard to imagine an average layperson being able to grasp such concepts after a reasonable amount of instruction by experts and the judge. Let's use the Java interface construct as an example. It's expressed as code, but is it really just code? Isn't it really a spec other classes must implement in order to become valid Java code, expressed in code for the benefit of the compiler? I conside…

> In this specific case, it's hard to imagine an average layperson being able to grasp such concepts after a reasonable amount of instruction by experts and the judge. Let's use the Java interface construct as an example. It's expressed as code, but is it really just code? Isn't it really a spec other classes must implement in order to become valid Java code, expressed in code for the benefit of the compiler?

1) The jury doesn't decide whether Java interfaces are protectable code versus unprotectable specifications. That's a legal determination for a judge. The judge deals in these sorts of general or philosophical principles. The jury deals in specific facts.

2) Technical distinctions aren't necessarily legally operative distinctions. The law tends to be based on things that are within typical peoples' experience.

3) You have days of peoples' undivided attention to explain things to a jury.

So in this example, the judge would be the one to decide whether Java interfaces, in principle, were protectable or not. The jury would decide things like the fact of whether Google copied Oracle's interfaces. Someone at Google might testify that they never saw Oracle's interfaces, and came up with them independently. The jury will decide whether they believe his story. They'll be shown code. They don't have to understand how it works to know whether the same variable names, etc, are being used.

Re: Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one

#55

Post by stdgy » Sun, May 06, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #38

stdgy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think either side disputes that Google implemented a portion of the Java API, which they copied from Apache Harmony. But they certainly seem to disagree on what qualifies as a meaningful definition of SSO, with Oracle arguing that both the entirety of Java and individual packages qualify as SSO.

It's not the jury's job to decide whether that qualifies as SSO, that's the judge's job. It's the jury's job to decide what people actually did, whether they did what they say they did, etc.

One of the jury's jobs is to decide whether Google infringed upon Oracle's protected property. It would seem like they'd require a clear definition of SSO to be able to do that.