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Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

supremecourt.gov

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Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#871

Post by utucuro »

Firehawke wrote: post #844
ekianjo wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I can clearly remember Netscape crashing very very often. It was definitely the worse browser.

Exactly this. There's a lot of historic revision that says IE was never good, but there was a significant chunk of time around IE2 and IE3 where it slaughtered Netscape on Windows. Better performance, less crashing all around. IE4 is where ActiveX and browser bloat started to become more obvious, then IE5 was an improvement again.. but we were only a short time from the launch of what would become Firefox. By that po…

At some point, I was using IE 5, then IE 5.5, then Opera and then Firefox 0.8! Used some Neoplanet as well, but I cannot remember when anymore, must have been before Opera... IE 5.5 was great at the time, though mouse gestures and tabs on Opera were better.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#872

Post by WalterBright »

alasdair_ wrote: post #863
WalterBright wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netscape crashing on a web page is Netscape's fault. Similarly, if the D compiler crashes when compiling a D source file, it's the D core team's fault.

If the people that make the OS whose APIs you are reliant on, are also the ones trying to make your code crash, I'd bet most of us would end up with crashing code.

I've never heard of any evidence that Microsoft planted:

    if (NetscapeIsRunning()) corrupt_data();
in their OS API calls. If they had, I'm sure it would have come out at the anti-trust trial, and would have made it an open and shut case. Did that happen?

As I recall, the anti-trust case revolved around Microsoft including IE for free with Windows, not sabotage. (Of course, every OS comes with a free browser these days. Even my Kindle.)

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#873

Post by xmprt »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #838
stjohnswarts wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to steal algorithms but for interoperability to remain possible it is necessary for API to remain "fair use". I can't agree with you that this is a bad thing for them to copy Java SE interfaces.

I understand we can’t have copyrights on APIs, but something about it just doesn't feel "fair" to me, though. Fair use makes sense to me when you're talking about the table of contents of a book. If I take the table of contents of a famous novel and write my own chapters, it makes sense to me that the owners of that book shouldn't be able to sue me. No one is going to read my book instead of Faulkner's. There's no eq…

If you copied the table of contents of a famous book and happened to make the book significantly better then there's a chance people would read your book instead of the famous one. Should the original owner be allowed to sue you in that case?

I think the same applies for APIs. It's only taking away users from the original implementation if the new one is better.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#874

Post by atkbrah »

WalterBright wrote: post #760
btilly wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the result is a big relief, I think it's not as decisive as I'm noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming. It is even less decisive than you're saying. The fact that the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that APIs are copyrightable means that binding precedent on every court except the Supreme is that they are. And for fair use, one of…

Netscape went out of business because their browser crashed far more frequently than Explorer. I've heard all the sob stories, but I was sick of the constant crashing of Netscape, and so tried Explorer. Explorer crashed too, but not nearly as often.

Explorer also launched a lot faster than especially the late versions of netscape.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#875

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

jxf wrote: post #70

While the result is a big relief, I think it's not as decisive as I'm noticing some headlines (and commenters) are claiming. One of the big open questions is "are APIs copyrightable?" The court skirted that question, and instead focused on whether it was fair use: > To decide no more than is necessary to resolve this case, the Court assumes for argument’s sake that the copied lines can be copyrighted, and focuses on…

Not from U.S. Would the discussions, consultations between the judges and the independent subject matter experts be published? Surely there must have been such extensive discussions right? Or is the judgement based upon the subject matter experts presented as witness from both sides themselves?

I'm intrigued by how judgements are passed in such intricate technical matters.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#876

Post by WalterBright »

dragonwriter wrote: post #857
WalterBright wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lotus' failure was more because they failed to port to Windows, betting instead on OS/2. Lotus was at a crossroads. DOS was obsolete, was the future OS/2 or Windows? They chose OS/2. Lotus was a big, cash rich company at the time. Their fatal error was not realizing they should have ported 1-2-3 to both OS/2 and Windows. Then they would have been secure regardless of which prevailed.

> Lotus was a big, cash rich company at the time. Their fatal error was not realizing they should have ported 1-2-3 to both OS/2 and Windows. Then they would have been secure regardless of which prevailed That’s...optimistic. The transition to GUIs undermined a major hold they had, which was user-familiarity-lock-in. That transition was going to be an opening no matter what, especially for a competitor that also cont…

Lotus bet the farm on OS/2. Not being on Windows made it an easy decision for customers to buy Excel.

Lotus was bigger than Microsoft for most (all?) of the 1980s.

Wordstar was another company that failed to understand the shift to GUIs.

Of course, Wordstar had another major marketing problem. Despite its dominance, nobody knew the name of the company (MicroPro) that made it. Far too late they realized the mistake and changed the company name to Wordstar. Microsoft never made that mistake.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#877

Post by pjmlp »

monocasa wrote: post #784
pjmlp wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you now asserting that Sun/Oracle has pattents regarding Azul's GC implementation, PTC real time threading and AOT compiler, Aicas hard real time GC, IBM mainframe implementations of their own JVM and WebSphere Real Time VM?

No, I'm asserting that those (while being extremely valuable additions to the field) have nothing to do with a newer version of Java which is what you were asking about. > the next excuse for not updating Android Java to latest versions.

So let's back to that.

The only two companies that ever had issues with Java owners were Microsoft thanks to J++ and Google with its Android Java.

Lots of companies have produced their own Java version, without any issue.

Sad that things have gone this way and Google isn't being hardly punished for what they did to Java ecosystem with their special flavoured Java and by giving Sun's fatal blow.

Thankfully they never thought of buying Sun to own Java, as it would have been yet another project on their graveyard, looking to how they handle it on Android.

But yeah lets not get distracted and join the Oracle hate mob.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#879

Post by BoorishBears »

Daho0n wrote: post #783
BoorishBears wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already mentioned multiple above.

No, you mentioned things Google didn't implement. That's not the same as making it incompatible. In this case that would be Google adding things to Java, not skipping some.

What on earth are you on about?

Not supporting random parts of a contract programs rely on to function makes your platform incompatible. Especially when you claim support for an update but then randomly cut out parts of the functionality.

In what universe does incompatibility somehow require... adding "things"... like what?

I don't have much patience for people so out of their depth they don't understand the table stakes for a meaningful conversation on a topic.

Re: Google’s copying of the Java SE API was fair use [pdf]

#880

Post by ncallaway »

burnte wrote: post #703
jandrese wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomas lives in a weird alternative universe where logic works differently. His dissents are always a trip.

He really doesn, he and Scalia were the reliable crazy uncles of the court. Looks like Alito is trying to take up Scalia's mantle. I sear to god if Thomas had to rule on a runaway slave he'd rule for the slaveholder.

I don't agree with this.

I _hated_ Scalia while he was on the bench. I fundamentally disagreed with him on a significant amount of his opinions.

Their actual opinions though are of such a different quality to me. Scalia's opinions I could absolutely follow the logic, and at times I found myself sometimes dispairing as I became convinced he might be right on an issue. Essentially, Scalia's logic usually felt on point to me, we just had deep axiomatic differences in how the law should operate and how the constitution should be applied to laws.

Thomas, though, I sometimes have a hard time understanding the argument he's presenting, and sometimes have a "how do you even believe that" reaction to his opinions.

Again, I think I disagreed strongly with Scalia opinions about as often as I do Thomas opinions, I just think they were for very different reasons.

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