Yes.

That's not exactly true, the jury's verdict read that what was copied was the "structure, sequence, and organization" of Java APIs. Of which, if you're up for implementing a non-standardized version of Java, you should take note.

Disclaimer: This Ars article has grown from two lines when I submitted this to a full fledged report.

Great plan. You don't like Google, so of COURSE they did something wrong.

Part of Java (from what I understand) is open-source. But, if Oracle is right, you could get sued for using it anyways. Well, if whoever owns the C language decides to sue, GCC could go bye-bye.

Right. The EU has already decided [slashdot.org] that APIs are not copyrightable and wrote an extremely reasonable and balanced explanation as to why:

So maybe there's still some hope left... otherwise we'll just have to hire lawyers to write the software of the future.

Here is the link to the Groklaw updates about this case [groklaw.net].

It would have been a lot slimper and less confusing if Slashdot had just linked to that in the first place.

Details are thin, but the long-covered Oracle v. Google trial has at least partially been decided in favor of Oracle. The jury says Google violated copyrights with Android when it used Java APIs to design the system.

Yeah, that's not really all that much in Oracle's favor. The jury instructions all-but dictated that result (the instructions instructed the jury that the relevant legal test was "substantial similarity" and that Google had admitted substantial similarity), the key question in dispute for the jury was Google's fair use defense which had to be evaluated once the jury found that there was infringement before considering the defense. And that's the point that the jury hung on.

Without a verdict on that point, there are two plausible outcomes for the copyright claims:

1) As Google has already requested based on the jury impasse, a mistrial is declared and Oracle has to start the copyright case over at square one (with or without the judge reaching the legal issue on the "API copyright" issue), or
2) The judge moves on to deciding the legal issue of copyright in favor of Google, so that the API copyright issue is dead (pending appeal--and if Oracle wins on appeal, they still go back to square one and a new trial on the facts since the jury hung.)

So its hard to see this as any kind of a win for Oracle.

Wow, copy and paste fail. Now with HTML entities
From http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~martin/webrevs/openjdk7/timsort/raw_files/new/src/share/classes/java/util/TimSort.java, here are the 9 lines of code that google is accused of infringing:

        private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
                if (fromIndex > toIndex)
                        throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
                                              ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
                if (fromIndex < 0)
                        throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
                if (toIndex > arrayLen)
                        throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
        }

The code boils down to: if (x > y || x < 0 || y > max) { error(); }
Tell me how you'd write the code differently. (Keep in mind that the engineer who wrote this, Josh Bloch, used to work at Sun, then moved to Google. It's very possible he rewrote the code in the exact same way, given its triviality.)

A view with a greater understanding of the implications, Groklaw believes otherwise: "The judge has stated, pending judgment as a matter of law, that there is "zero finding of copyright liability" other than the 9 lines of code to which Oracle's damages report attributes no value. A good day for Google overall."

Read it yourself and decide: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120507122749740

Judge Alsup asked both parties to answer a list of questions, following the EU High Court decision that APIs are not copyrightable expression: "1. If the Copyright Act is meant to protect expression but not vocabulary, should the vocabulary and grammar of a computer language be copyrightable, as distinct from programs written in the language? In this regard, please comment on the May 2, 2012, decision of the High Court of the European Union." The Judge will rule as a matter of law whether the SSO of the APIs are copyrightable.

The only website that seems to always get the legal pulse right is Groklaw.

Looks like the Microsoft astroturfing brigade has arrived!

IBM has a license and a CERTIFIED copy of Java. They got nothing to fear here.

Google wanted a "Java" license, but they didn't want to follow any of the packages including certifications Sun was offering. Agree or not with the tech, it was Sun's ball and Google got 3/4 of they way through the project before they just stopped negotiating. Google even touted their "Java" compatibility to get developers onboard Android before their version was fully baked.

Google , like so many other startups, was sloppy and bully and not careful enough. When Sun went on the Block they should have bought it, but they didn't.

If this was any Open Source project that tried this, you'd get the DMCA hammer early on and update your project... It happens in similar cases all the time.. This is just a case of it catching up with one of the big guys.

They're not moving for a complete mistrial, from what I understand. The jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision on whether or not Google's use of Oracle code constituted fair use or not (and they were told to assume it was copyrightable, which is also a decision that the judge still needs to rule on), so the judge postponed the fair use decision. Google is moving for a mistrial with regards to the question of fair use in particular

This is misstated. They are moving for a mistrial on Q1, which is the "API copyright issue" which includes both the infringement issue (Q1A) where the jury found that Google had infringed (before considering the fair use defense) and the fair use issue (Q1B) on which the jury hung. I'd have to see the text of the motion, but it might also affect the Q4 interrogatories on whether or not Google reasonably relied on a Sun/Oracle conduct which implied that it did not need a license to implement the APIs (on which the jury found that Sun/Oracle conduct which reasonably suggested that did exist, but that Google failed to prove that they reasonably relied on it), which relates back to Q1.

Because in the little world you have created for yourself to live in, $500 million is bigger than 2.3 billion, right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/02/pfizer-drugs-us-criminal-fine

Where did they break the law with the wifi thing? Hint: they didn't.

Britain, for one. [npr.org]

Let's not forget Google's willful violation of US law to advertise illegal drugs in the US to US consumers, which they settled with the DOJ recently.

Also, perjury is generally considered to be an actionable offense. You may have heard EU regulators are thinking of reopening the investigation into Google [nytimes.com] over the wifi snooping they did, which they said were more or less the actions of a single rogue engineer - except it turns out was known, reported, and coordinated inside the company. Courts generally frown on people lying to them.

I know this comes as a horrible blow to the ego boost you must get from identifying yourself so strongly with Google, but Google has done plenty of shady and downright illegal shit. Get your nose out of their asshole, there's a whole world out here that doesn't smell like shit.

For the benefit of those who missed the pun, we might mention that Donald Knuth [stanford.edu] does play organ, and has at least one in his home.

(I hope I waited long enough to post this that most readers who know anything about his personal life have already got a laugh out of the parent's post. ;-)

Oracle lost the copyright phase in its entirely, and Google won the copyright phase in its entirety. Google owes Oracle nothing in copyright damages.

Read Groklaw, and stop looking stupid.

No.

This judge spent his lawyer days working at Morrison-Forrester, the premier Silicon Valley high-tech law firm. He knows all about computer software.