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

White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 165 posts

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#51

Post by nickysielicki »

billsix wrote: post #40
JoshTriplett wrote: post #12

On the one hand, this would have serious implications for compatible FOSS reimplementations of proprietary APIs, such as Wine, libc, emulators, etc. On the other hand, this would make it far easier to enforce copyleft licenses like the GPL. I'm one of the people who provided text and examples filed in the EFF's amicus brief against, and on balance I'm not a fan of stricter copyright like this, but it's interesting to…

I'd be curious to hear RMS's stance on the issue, but I'm guessing he would agree with Oracle. http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/clisp/clisp/doc/Why-...

Very interesting link, thanks for sharing.

From reading that, you can be near certain that RMS would agree.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#52

Post by metonymy »

eropple wrote: post #38
TallGuyShort wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the term "White House" often used to refer to anything within the executive branch? I have always assumed it meant the office of the President and perhaps his cabinet...

It's called metonymy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

Exactly!

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#53

Post by shit_parade2 »

Why do people care what the supreme court rules?

The US is no longer a country ruled by law. If anything the more ridiculous and barbaric the government becomes the better as it will only swell the ranks of those who realize the government is illegitimate.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#54

Post by Zikes »

rodgerd wrote: post #27
nastygibbon wrote: post #6

Can someone give us an ELI5? Pros/Cons etc.

Con: all the BSDs and Linux are now owned by whoever most recently picked up the POSIX APIs. ReactOS and WINE are now illegal. SQL is the private property of IBM. Pro: I guess if you hate Google because you love Steve Jobs or something it looks like a win.

It's all fun and games until IBM sues Oracle for SQL royalties.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#56

Post by elpool2 »

antimatter wrote: post #44

Silly question. Is there any potential for Google to move off of Java (perhaps to Go) for Android development as a result of this?

Seems unlikely, since the article mentions that Google has already stopped using the code in question.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

Spooky23 wrote: post #46
TallGuyShort wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the term "White House" often used to refer to anything within the executive branch? I have always assumed it meant the office of the President and perhaps his cabinet...

DOJ people don't just wake up and submit opinions to the Supreme Court at the approval of some random middle manager.

> DOJ people don't just wake up and submit opinions to the Supreme Court at the approval of some random middle manager.

Well, no, the Solicitor General, under whose authority such things are done (and who is the person to whom the Supreme Court issues -- as it did in this case -- "invitations" [treated as commands] for input), is one of the highest-ranking officers at DoJ.

And still not part of the White House.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#58

Post by ianstallings »

pekk wrote: post #18
rincebrain wrote: post #9

It's not obvious from the LWN article, but the reason it says "White House" is that lawyers from the DoJ have filed an Amicus Curiae ("Friend of the Court") brief informing them of their stance on the topic. [1] [2] [1] - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/white-house-sides... [2] - http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/google...

That's really misleading, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised when the next election is rapidly approaching.

It's not misleading. It's quite literally their stated opinion: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/google...

This was to let the courts know how they felt on the matter, even though they aren't directly involved.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#59

Post by shit_parade2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #50
shit_parade2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche 'Sloppy' seems the wrong word to use to me.

That something is synecdoche doesn't mean its not sloppy, and vice versa.

Perhaps its use has become cliche, but using a well-worn textbook example of a synecdoche isn't exactly sloppy and to describe it as such is ignorant.

Re: White House Sides with Oracle, Tells Supreme Court APIs Are Copyrightable

#60

Post by Splendor »

antimatter wrote: post #44

Silly question. Is there any potential for Google to move off of Java (perhaps to Go) for Android development as a result of this?

Probably not, but Google has already developed a different runtime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Runtime
Post reply on HN