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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#591

Post by todd8 »

I used to keep a couple of 9-track tapes (see [1]) of the code I had written. Too bad I don’t have them anymore, I probably had some 50 year old API I came up with that someone somewhere violated.

If that seems absurd, consider how few people were programming back then and how fundamental and basic the APIs were. It’s worse than the patent mess. At least patents expire in 20 years! Copyright for those 1970s APIs will belong to my heirs for 50 years after I die! (see the Mickey Mouse law [2]).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_track_tape

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=mickey+mouse+copyright+law&i...

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#592

Post by protomyth »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #558
protomyth wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your original post was about IBM not being able to copyright the PC Bios. Which is simply not true in any way shape or form. No, no, no, that is not what I said. I was talking about the API of the BIOS. The BIOS source code is, of course, copyrightable. That is why IBM was able to make it very hard for people to copy it until folks did a proper clean room. Why would I go into detail about the counter measure if it wa…

You said: >My original post was about a situation where the creator of an API didn't believe it to be copyrightable and then made an attempt at protecting it a different way. What "different way" are we talking about here? IBM asserted their copyright quite forcefully against Eagle and shut them down.

You really need to read ScottBurson's commen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16693994 because you don't seem to understand the difference between an API and source code.

Eagle directly copied the source code of the BIOS, they were not sued for copying the API.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#593

Post by protomyth »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #557
protomyth wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your original post was about IBM not being able to copyright the PC Bios. Which is simply not true in any way shape or form. No, no, no, that is not what I said. I was talking about the API of the BIOS. The BIOS source code is, of course, copyrightable. That is why IBM was able to make it very hard for people to copy it until folks did a proper clean room. Why would I go into detail about the counter measure if it wa…

Interesting edit to your original post. So their countermeasure was to try to taint everyone in the whole universe so a clean room reimplimentation would not be possible? Wow. Interesting interpretation.

That is not an interpretation, that was an actual strategy. They put enough information and source code into the documents that described its function to taint anyone who read the documentation. There are multiple sources (and I do believe some TV) on IBM's strategy. Compaq's Garry Stimac realized the problem when he read the manuals. A clean room strategy was setup.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#594

Post by lmm »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #552
wtallis wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The district court found APIs to not be copyrightable. The Federal Circuit disagreed, and ordered the district court to hold a trial under the assumption that APIs are copyrightable—that's when Google's fair use defense became necessary. That Federal Circuit decision has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, does not establish binding precedent outside the context of this case, and is widely seen by outsiders as be…

> That Federal Circuit decision has not been reviewed by the Supreme Court, does not establish binding precedent outside the context of this case, The Supreme Court need not weigh in in order to make the law what it is.

The law is what it is by definition, but when what the law is is in dispute, the Supreme Court is what resolves it.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#595

Post by pjmlp »

ABCLAW wrote: post #536
ben509 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I get that you don't like them, but that's tough beans." It's hard to overstate how difficult it is to separate what you want the law to be from what it is. This is why people do so badly at representing themselves, and even lawyers have this problem.

Yep. There is a ton of layperson misinformation in this thread motivated by how people 'feel' about certain issues without actually reading the decisions or understanding the tests in question. There are laypeople literally getting angry at me that the court didn't say what they think is right. Oh well. I hope some people found it useful.

It was quite helpful, thanks for all your comments.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#596

Post by pjmlp »

monocasa wrote: post #212
throw_away wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Oracle ships an S3 compatibility API: https://docs.us-phoenix-1.oraclecloud.com/Content/Object/Tas...

Hell, Oracle got started by cloning the SQL API.

Which they payed for, unlike Google has done with Java.

SQL standard and the respective certifications have to be payed for.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#597

Post by lmm »

chii wrote: post #506
icebraining wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but if you type and distribute a book that happens to match the latest Harry Potter, nobody - including the courts - will believe you independently came up with that exact sequence of words. Similarly, if you copy the definitions of all functions/methods/classes/etc from one API, nobody will believe you independently came up with it.

Even if the methods and functions are so basic as to not have variations?

No. But the court explicitly looked at that and said that there was enough creativity in the choice of what names to give methods and how to group methods that the Java API qualifies as a creative work (and I don't think anyone would really dispute that).

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#598

Post by lmm »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #559
Ajedi32 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic WINE shouldn't be allowed to exist either, since it copies Windows' API. Copying APIs is strictly necessary for interoperability. Allowing APIs to be copyrightable encourages monopolies by legally prohibiting newcomers' software from being compatible with their competition. It'd be like if Microsoft were allowed to sue Google Docs and Libreoffice for making their software able to open Word documents. (E…

I'm not sure how WINE works. But I just don't see that being the case. All WINE has to do is capture the API calls and transform them into a different WINE API call that ends up performing the same function and then proceed with zero copyright issues.

> All WINE has to do is capture the API calls and transform them into a different WINE API call that ends up performing the same function

How can it "capture" the calls without knowing what it's capturing? It has to know that there's a windows API function called "CreateWindowEx" that takes particular parameters, otherwise how could it possibly "translate" it? And the fact that CreateWindowEx takes particular parameters is precisely the API.

Of course the implementation of that API will be different in WINE, just as Google's implementations of the Java API are different from Sun's (aside from the 9-line rangeCheck which is a separate issue). In fact it would be fair to describe what Android does as "capture the API calls and transform them into a different Dalvik API call that ends up performing the same function".

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#599

Post by pjmlp »

icebraining wrote: post #454
mtberatwork wrote: post #192

> Part of Google’s defense focused on the idea that Java was developed for desktop computers, while Android was created for phones and other mobile devices. Is this really the best defense? The tag line is "write once, run anywhere" after all. I remember back in my CS days (mid/late 90s) when Java was first being pushed at my uni, the overly-enthusiastic vibe even back then was that Java would eventually be found eve…

True, but the version of Java for phones was J2ME, which was different from J2SE. Android implemented the API of the latter.

Sun was in the process of using J2SE, based on the assets they bought from SavaJE, which incidentally had an architecture quite similar to the first Android versions.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#600

Post by pjmlp »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #439

So does IBM now have an enforceable copyright on SQL that Oracle infringed upon?

People keep bringing SQL up, yet don't realize that SQL is an international standard which one needs to pay ISO for, and also to pay for certifications.

Oracle has payed for SQL. Google has not payed for Java.

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