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

CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 189 posts

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#61

Post by trhway »

statictype wrote: post #37
forrestthewoods wrote: post #21

The more I read about this case the more I think Oracle is right. And the more I think most people, HN readers included, are grossly misinformed. In the last big thread I asked if anyone could provide concrete examples of terrible things that would happen if Oracle won. I didn't get a good response but the comment was buried. My question stands if anyone has a good answer. I'm very open to discussion here.

IANAL but it seems like it would set the precedent that you cannot do clean room implementations that are legal. That would, for example, prevent every browser after Netscape from building javascript into their own browser. It might have prevented Mono from existing. It would have prevented Atom and Sublime from being able to use Textmate syntax files. Are those bad things? I believe they are.

>IANAL but it seems like it would set the precedent that you cannot do clean room implementations that are legal.

the practice that interfaces are copyrightable seems to has been in place for quite some time. AMD couldn't make Pentium socket compatible CPU. We have LGPL for the same reason. The miracle of IBM compatible BIOS may be attributed only to accidental benevolence of IBM :)

Google is on the receiving end right now, yet the copyright protection of the interfaces plus DMCA is what gave rise to the "platforms", and Google just happens to be a one of the 3 largest ones. Unfortunately one can't have it both ways.

Anyway, Stalman's preaching may happen to be just a very concrete practical advise after all :)

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#63

Post by raphman »

return0 wrote: post #49
raphman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this interpretation of his words is what he meant to say. I'd argue that code that "compiles to nothing" can be protected by copyright, too, even if it is not distributed to customers. E.g., extensive documentation inside comments in the source files is definitely copyrighted. Complex build rules might be copyrightable, too, although they definitely end up in the distributed application. Therefore, it…

Google is trying to make the case that interfaces aren't 'code' here. That's the entire case here, right?

Yes. I just wanted to clarify that code that "compiles to nothing", e.g., build instructions, may still be copyrightable. Therefore, I do not think that Page wanted to extend his definition of "non-code" to anything besides interfaces/declarations.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#64

Post by [deleted] »

return0 wrote: post #49
raphman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this interpretation of his words is what he meant to say. I'd argue that code that "compiles to nothing" can be protected by copyright, too, even if it is not distributed to customers. E.g., extensive documentation inside comments in the source files is definitely copyrighted. Complex build rules might be copyrightable, too, although they definitely end up in the distributed application. Therefore, it…

Google is trying to make the case that interfaces aren't 'code' here. That's the entire case here, right?

[deleted]

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#65

Post by [deleted] »

wfunction wrote: post #59

I'm going to go out on a limb here. While I'm definitely not on Oracle's side for this case, I'm not so sure I agree with the statement that declaring code is not code in general. To me, that's akin to the NSA collecting phone call metadata and then claiming that it's not really a problem because they don't actually have the contents. Except, as we know, with sufficient metadata, you don't even need contents to figur…

[deleted]

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#66

Post by dpark »

wfunction wrote: post #59

I'm going to go out on a limb here. While I'm definitely not on Oracle's side for this case, I'm not so sure I agree with the statement that declaring code is not code in general. To me, that's akin to the NSA collecting phone call metadata and then claiming that it's not really a problem because they don't actually have the contents. Except, as we know, with sufficient metadata, you don't even need contents to figur…

>more and more information becomes encoded in the declarations

I don't see how this is true at all. We've moved continually toward higher-level APIs. There's a lot more "magic" in String.split than strtok.

If your API is so specific that the implementation is entirely implied by the declaration, then all that means is that the implementation itself is trivial, in which case I don't think your API implementation should copyrightable either.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#67

Post by gilgoomesh »

wfunction wrote: post #59

I'm going to go out on a limb here. While I'm definitely not on Oracle's side for this case, I'm not so sure I agree with the statement that declaring code is not code in general. To me, that's akin to the NSA collecting phone call metadata and then claiming that it's not really a problem because they don't actually have the contents. Except, as we know, with sufficient metadata, you don't even need contents to figur…

The NSA are collecting private metadata, that's the problem there. The Java APIs are public information (everyone who creates Java programs needs a copy of them and needs to know what they do).

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#68

Post by dpark »

return0 wrote: post #44
mindcrime wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, same thought here. I understand what he meant, and pretty much everybody on HN understands it.. but to a (potentially) non-technical juror, that just does not sound good at all. I hope that one gaffe doesn't cost Google the case.

If the juror can't understand the distinction between declaration and implementation, then he is not fit for this particular case. Isn't it smart of him to make that point explicit?

He made the distinction extremely poorly. And jurors are not expected to be experts in anything. It's the lawyers' job to make the case to people who are not experts.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#69

Post by punctilio »

keypusher wrote: post #60
metafunctor wrote: post #36

Is it Oracle's position that all implementations of the Java APIs (or partial implementations) are illegal, unless it's specifically allowed by Oracle? That sounds ludicrous. What about unit testing libraries, for example?

Would this also apply to projects like OpenJDK, that are alternative JVM implementations? If so, why did Oracle never go after them?

OpenJDK isn't a good example, as Oracle owns copyright on it.

Re: CEO Larry Page defends Google on the stand: “Declaring code is not code”

#70

Post by valleyer »

keypusher wrote: post #60
metafunctor wrote: post #36

Is it Oracle's position that all implementations of the Java APIs (or partial implementations) are illegal, unless it's specifically allowed by Oracle? That sounds ludicrous. What about unit testing libraries, for example?

Would this also apply to projects like OpenJDK, that are alternative JVM implementations? If so, why did Oracle never go after them?

OpenJDK is code released by Sun.

Better analogies would be Harmony (what Android used) or GNU Classpath.

They did not go after those, one presumes, because those projects don't have billions of dollars to be sued for.

Post reply on HN