SCOTUS Denies Google's Request To Appeal Oracle API Case 181
New submitter Neil_Brown writes: The Supreme Court of the United States has today denied Google's request to appeal against the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling (PDF) that the structure, sequence and organization of 37 of Oracle's APIs (application program interfaces) was capable of copyright protection. The case is not over, as Google can now seek to argue that, despite the APIs being restricted by copyright, its handling amounts to "fair use". Professor Pamela Samuelson has previously commented (PDF) on the implications if SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal. The Verge reports: "A district court ruled in Google's favor back in 2012, calling the API "a utilitarian and functional set of symbols" that couldn't be tied up by copyrights. Last May, a federal appeals court overturned that ruling by calling the Java API copyrightable. However, the court said that Google could still have lawfully used the APIs under fair use, sending the case back to a lower court to argue the issue. That's where Google will have to go next, now that the Supreme Court has declined to hear the issue over copyright itself.
Copyrighted APIs (Score:1)
If APIs are copyrightable then all instances of API use will be by permission. Decades of software innovation extinguished in one court ruling.
what about the FSF? (Score:1)
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Well, Stallman helped to _found_ the POSIX committee. It's not surprising that the POSIX/SUS specification explicitly allows free use of the specification to define and implement standards for public and private use.
As for other standards, yes, this obviously throws a wrench into the works. But people were warning users away from Java from day 1, arguing precisely this outcome. GCJ and similar projects were always gambles. This case should surprise nobody in the FSF who actually understands copyright law, r
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It's not even about being imitative, it's about interoperability. This basically would put a ban on software that can interoperate with software from companies that want to try and maintain a closed ecosystem.
I can't see European or Asian courts backing any such judgement, so this would basically hand over the reigns for leading the technology world to Europe or Asia, as America would be stuck with closed ecosystem non-interoperable software, and the rest of the world would be able to just get on with it an
We all owe K&R a lot of money (Score:2)
Everyone who's ever typed:
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
Better get their check books out and start sending royalties to Dennis Ritchie and/or AT&T.
Re:We all owe K&R a lot of money (Score:4, Informative)
The C++ standard library is already licensed to the public through ISO, as are the POSIX APIs through IEEE.
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The problem is not how they are licensed (public, open source, whatever). What Oracle claim is that their copyright precludes unlicensed copies - so IEEE could require "posix certification" for all libraries implementing the POSIX API, so they could prevent glibc or any other "libc" from being distributed. That might not be a huge risk for POSIX, because of the IEEE involvement, but there are a lot of APIs out there.
Regards,
-Jeremy
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Were they licensed by whoever owns the copyright?
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Copyright in each of these specifications was assigned to the corresponding standards organization.
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You managed to cram a whole lot of stupid into only a few words. Good job!
Re: Oracle is GPLd now, then. (Score:2)
Actually, he might have a valid point. If an api is subject to copyright, wouldn't that make a whole bunch of closed source things in violation of the gpl? For example, the closed source nvidia drivers include some of the kernel api, so are they now subject to gpl?
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Actually, he might have a valid point. If an api is subject to copyright, wouldn't that make a whole bunch of closed source things in violation of the gpl? For example, the closed source nvidia drivers include some of the kernel api, so are they now subject to gpl?
I suspect that (1) there is a license allowing the inclusion of header files, for example the GPL license terms might allow this, (2) NVidia is merely using, but not copying the header files (unlike Google), and (3) if someone insisted that NVidia can't include kernel header files to build its drivers, then instead of a GPL'd driver Linux users will end up with no driver. And if the same thing happens with ARM / AMD, then good night Linux.
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Actually, he might have a valid point. If an api is subject to copyright, wouldn't that make a whole bunch of closed source things in violation of the gpl? For example, the closed source nvidia drivers include some of the kernel api, so are they now subject to gpl?
He may have a valid point regarding Java itself and its usage for Google on Android; however, that doesn't typically extend.
Also, there is sufficient legal precedent regarding C/C++ header files not being copyrightable such that nVidia need not concern themselves. This would really only affect languages like Java that mix interface declarations with their implementations.
Languages that normally separate them (like C, and C++) will not likely need to worry.
Lesson: Avoid Java
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This would really only affect languages like Java that mix interface declarations with their implementations.
Languages that normally separate them (like C, and C++) will not likely need to worry.
Lesson: Avoid Java
It's only been since Java 1.8 that you've been able to inline a default implementation along with an interface declaration. Before 1.8, the only legal members of interfaces were abstract method declarations and static final constants.
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This would really only affect languages like Java that mix interface declarations with their implementations.
Languages that normally separate them (like C, and C++) will not likely need to worry.
Lesson: Avoid Java
It's only been since Java 1.8 that you've been able to inline a default implementation along with an interface declaration. Before 1.8, the only legal members of interfaces were abstract method declarations and static final constants.
In the strict term of an "Interface class", that may be. However, the function declaration and definition are always mixed in Java. There is no way to separate them.
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It certainly is looking that way, but there is the whole notion that what amount to call tables can be copyrighted. What the supreme Court has done here is basically unravel the common understanding of the difference between spec and implementation, and if Java is the most obviously vulnerable, in a very real way it means any number of APIs that have been re-implemented (like the standard *nix set of system calls) could suddenly be plunged into a purgatory-like nether world. I made vulgar jokes about using
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It certainly is looking that way, but there is the whole notion that what amount to call tables can be copyrighted. What the supreme Court has done here is basically unravel the common understanding of the difference between spec and implementation, and if Java is the most obviously vulnerable, in a very real way it means any number of APIs that have been re-implemented (like the standard *nix set of system calls) could suddenly be plunged into a purgatory-like nether world. I made vulgar jokes about using stdio.h in C programs, but that's the real question.
There is actually a big difference between the APIs from Java, and the System Calls; for Java you have to write an interface at the language level that matches up, for System Calls you do not - it's processor specifications that must match up, and those are covered by the processor vendor, not the system call creator. This is where the a language like Java fails.
In System Calls it doesn't matter what you call the function, it's parameters, etc - just that it matches the processor call stack sufficiently
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No, the GPL doesn't automatically put other code under the GPL. It forbids releasing a program containing GPLed elements under any other license. There's a difference. I don't have to accept the GPL, but in many cases that's the only license I can get it under, so it's the GPL or violation of copyright.
If I were to write a program incorporating your GPLed code, and released it under a proprietary license, I'd be violating the GPL, and therefore would be distributing somebody else's copyrighted materia
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Adhering to an API is not copying the API.
Only copying an API (as in copying the text that describes the rules) is copying an API.
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No, what I am saying is APIs are generally so isomorphic to their target subject matter that applying the law of copyrights without recognizing a fair use for independently RE-IMPLEMENTING the same API in a completely different code base is wrong.
Indpenedent code bases are going to have the same API interfaces just by dint of the subject they are expressing, as per my original examples.
Yes, this is not exactly the Google case, but the reasoning is the same thing. You would not want to copyright the words T
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We're not talking about a "table of contents" here.
We're taking about copying a spec.
E.g "add(x,y) returns the sum of x and y"
Copying the spec results in
"add(x,y) returns the sum of x and y"
Implementing the spec results in
"add(x,y) { return x+y }"
One is a copy. One is not.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
> Google illegally copied Oracle's shit. Deal with it.
This would make sense to anybody who has never done any actual programming.
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fopen(..) is now fjopen(...)
fclose(..) becomes jfclose(..), etc.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
That would be sufficient to make the APIs stop working. Perhaps you should think again about what information is required and copyrightable.
I think that this decision may mean that Google will need to do something like alphabetize the API. (Customized organization can be copyrighted, but alphabetical order can't.)
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be sufficient to make the APIs stop working. Perhaps you should think again about what information is required and copyrightable.
I think that this decision may mean that Google will need to do something like alphabetize the API. (Customized organization can be copyrighted, but alphabetical order can't.)
Nah, I'm pretty sure Google will win the case against Oracle. There are at least two more defenses they can fall back on.
First, exactly what the summary mentioned: Fair Use. Fair Use is complicated and there are multiple factors to consider but courts generally come down strongest on the economic questions, and there the question is whether Google's action devalued Oracle's property. Speculatively, suppose that Google had had to create its own set of APIs. They could absolutely have been modeled on the Java APIs, but would need to use different names, etc. Google could well have taken the opportunity to clean up a lot of crufty corners of the Java APIs. This would have been a significant undertaking for Google, but wouldn't have been prohibitive by any means. Not doing it saved Google money, but the more interesting question is what was the impact on Java?
I think Google has a really compelling argument that using the Java APIs in what has become the world's dominant personal computing platform's primary development toolset has increased the value of the Java APIs. Although Java was originally built with embedded and mobile devices in mind, without Android it would likely be relegated to being a big systems application language only.
There are probably other Fair Use angles to attack, but that's the one that jumps out at me.
The second defense, and one that seems absolutely deadly to Oracle's claims, is promissory estoppel. Google very much had Sun's approval and cooperation when they decided to use the Java APIs for Android, so it's really nasty of Oracle to try to take that back now, and courts don't buy it.
It would have been better if Google could have established the general principle that APIs are not copyrightable. They shouldn't be, and establishing that would be good for the whole software industry. Barring that, the Fair Use defense could establish a precedent that is almost as good. The estoppel argument solves Google's problem but doesn't do anything to make the industry better.
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I think Google has a really compelling argument that using the Java APIs in what has become the world's dominant personal computing platform's primary development toolset has increased the value of the Java APIs.
Unfortunately, that's not really how that swings. If you make for example a movie adaptation of a book it might drive book sales, but your use is primarily a replacement for a commercial opportunity to sell the movie rights. Sun/Oracle was selling Java ME licenses, Android was pretty clearly created to avoid those license terms. If we first assume the API is copyrighted, that does not seem like a typical fair use. The purpose is not interoperability with Java, it's to substitute it so the character of use i
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Informative)
Having had personal technical experience with both Java ME and Android, I gotta say that from a technology point of view, Java ME was a complete and total dead-end. It was far, far different from vanilla desktop/server java than Android is and therefore had practically zero notice or integration with the Java ecosystem. It was designed to work within the restrictions of devices that had single or double-digit CPU MHz and RAM MBs. It was modelled around Java 1.1, with almost no new language features or APIs. RIM used it as the basis for Blackberry and as a developer, I can tell you it was a decision they regretted.
Android is essentially vanilla Java with only the most esoteric of APIs removed from it, and then device-specific APIs placed on top of it. You can use 95% of existing java desktop/server libraries without any modification. If Google was given the option of using Java ME absolutely for free, or developing their own language and APIs, I guarantee they would have made their own because there would have been a riot among their software developers who would have been forced to essentially develop all of the libraries and google apps using the software equivalent of alphabet blocks and duplo. The additional "device profiles" that were subsequently released were too little, too late and hardly any of them were adopted into devices. I can't imagine any situation where Google would have paid Sun or Oracle for a Java ME license.
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fopen() -> fjopen() but fclose()->jfclose()?
Rasmus, is that you?
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Call me a pedant, but
> copied shit exactly
Android Inc didn't copy/paste shit; that would be exactly. They built their own VM that runs the same bytecode compile-able from the same source that's freely available all over this mess of the internet. See OpenJDK.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what exactly does this do to the Open Source movement?
It was my understanding that Java had been open sourced and that made what Android did allowable, and long as the open source agreement lived on is Androids code
Now we see Oracle applying copyright law to Java...
So... did Oracle remove Java from open source?
Are the parts of Java that Oracle claims copyright over not open source?
Has Open Source just been ignored (and invalidated) by the federal court system?
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It was my understanding that Java had been open sourced and that made what Android did allowable, and long as the open source agreement lived on is Androids code
The open source java, OpenJDK, is licensed basically under the GPLv2 (with the runtime classpath exception). If Google took that code and used it, they would have to put their code under the GPL. They didn't. They took the code (actually, just the API definitions) and put it under a different license. It's like taking code licensed under BSD and putting it under the GPL - unless you are the owner of the code it's a license violation and you can no longer use the code.
This lawsuite would have had no leg to s
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t's like taking code licensed under BSD and putting it under the GPL
Is it? Or is it like reimplementing code licensed under BSD, and putting it under the GPL? Put another way: Is the API "code?"
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Remember that open source licenses (as well as creative commons) are actually made possible by copyright laws. If there were no copyright laws, the GPL, for instance, would be completely unenforceable because anyone would be able to do whatever they wanted to do with their copy.
What this decision affects is the new idea that APIs are copyrightable, which could have many yet unknown effects throughout the software industry, open and closed source.
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They did copy and paste! (Score:3)
They did copy and paste 37 lines of code, the rangecheck function. The court ruled it diminimus and therefore non-infringing. So, Oracle's lawyers took another tact.
They claimed that this copying gave Google a big advantage and allowed them to get to market sooner. Alsup responded to this argument with ""I couldn't have told you the first thing about Java before this problem. I have done, and still do, a significant amount of programming in other languages. I've written blocks of code like rangeCheck a hund
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they copied the structure, not the code.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct. And _unfortunately_ structure is very much copyrightable. I personally thought that the trial court's opinion which found for Google very strong and persuasive. But anybody who actually knows copyright law knows that the trial court was going out on a limb, and it should surprise _nobody_ that he was overturned on appeal, and that SCOTUS declined to come to his rescue.
Look, you guys need to stop listening to people who work at the Harvard Berkman Center, or similar FOSS advocates with law degrees. We should all _hope_ that their arguments will become the law of the land some day. But their interpretations of copyright law are sadly far from the mainstream. They make it sound like their arguments are slam dunks, but remember that they're lawyers! Worse, they're legal academics! Their whole purpose in life is to persuade people to adopt their perspectives, and what better way to do that than tell people flat out that their perspective is obvious, intuitive, and uncontroversial.
Hopefully Google will still win on Fair Use. It would have been much better if the appeals courts held that APIs were simply not copyrightable. But the fact of the matter is that such a ruling would have been a significant change in copyright law. The appeals courts weren't persuaded to take that step. Them doing so was made less likely by the fact that Fair Use provides a convenient way for courts to mitigate the impact of strong copyright law in narrow cases. So, for example, if they had held that the structure of code and APIs was not copyrightable, it would have had far reaching implications for other fields, like music, film, etc. IMO that would have been a good thing, but the appeals courts didn't want to rock the boat. A Fair Use exception will allow them (if they choose) to effectively exclude APIs without threatening to upturn industry expectations generally.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
A Fair Use exception will allow them (if they choose) to effectively exclude APIs without threatening to upturn industry expectations generally.
Unfortunately, fair use claims are judged on a case-by-case basis. Even if Google prevails on this issue, API implementation will be too risky for individual programmers or small companies to undertake.
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Even mere usage could be risky - If I code an application that utilizes most/all of a copyrighted API's objects and methods, then my program may include a reflection or copy of the API I'm using.
Making an API freely available to use by application programmers is an invitation to copy it in a sense. That's part of how its used. Its not much of a leap to say that implies that APIs are a special class of code covered entirely by fair-use if authors do not restrict who can code for them.
In any case... Does not
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The trial court ruling is how things ought to be, but how things actually are is a much different story, as reflected by the CAFC and SCOTUS.
You need a vanishingly small amount of originality to meet the copyrightability threshold. Like choosing categories for yellow pages rather than listing everything alphabetically [copyright.gov]. Like selecting and arranging public domain stories [publicdomainsherpa.com]. Like adding a few lines to someone else's pictures [observer.com].
It's worth arguing that even by the lowest standards, the APIs do
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I love the response from the suicide girls company. That is a great way to fight back at that guy's tactic.
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Really? Class API declarations are not code? The API declarations were copied, but not the implementation, and that's still copying code exactly. Google just has a habit of not paying for copyrighted content. Let's look at some examples:
* The content Google search displays when you use a search phrase -- this might be okay because of fair use.
* Google Images
* Google Books
* Google News
So they followed the same routine and copied the API of Java (because copying code im
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Google got a lot of their libs from Apache, and Apache had lots of contributions from other commercial entities (IBM, Intel, BEA, etc.). They built on top of an existing Apache licensed codebase for their Apache licensed virtual machine runtime which is the explicit benefit of using free software. Oracle is trolling the Java community because either Larry needs a new yacht, or they're just compulsive douchebags.
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And to anybody who has.
Only the ones for whom a range check is the peak of skill.
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It's not very different: APIs are interface to library systems layered below the app whereas CPU instructions are interface from app to CPU below the app.
AMD has a license to use the interface (CPU instruction API) whereas Google does not for Java. The fair use argument is totally bullshit, because under that excuse some company could build an x86 CPU without paying Intel for the x86 instruction set.
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Now we get to revisit whether the instruction set of a microprocessor is copyrightable.
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They already are. Here is some legal stuff stating Intel licensing copyright of x86 instructions to AMD:
3.4 Intel Copyright License to AMD. Subject to the terms of this Agreement, including without limitation Section 5.2(e), Intel grants to AMD, for use in or with an AMD Licensed Product, licenses under Intelâ(TM)s copyrights in any Processor instruction mnemonic for an instruction developed by Intel, and the related opcodes, instruction operand mnemonics, byte format depictions and short form description (not to exceed 100 words) for those instructions, to copy, have copied, import, prepare derivative works of, perform, display and sell or otherwise distribute such mnemonics, opcodes and descriptions in user manuals and other technical documentation. No other copyright license to AMD is provided by this Agreement other than as set forth in this paragraph, either directly or by implication or estoppel.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/ed... [sec.gov]
It is therefore logical that Google should also obtain a license to use Oracle's Java API.
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But the license between AMD and Intel second guesses whether an instruction set can be protected by copyright; it just avoids a situation where there would be a lawsuit whether copyright applies or not. MIPS went after Lextra for patent infringement and not copyright infringement.
I thought there was a court decision or something which said instruction sets are not copyrightable but was unable to find it.
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Maybe the law back when Lexra was around was that instruction sets were not copyrightable. It is this hole in the law that allowed Google to reimplement the Java Standard Library without paying any licensing fees. But since SCOTUS has already ruled APIs are copyrightable, it should stand that instruction sets should also be copyrightable since APIs and instruction sets are very similar, conceptually.
I did find something about Lexra on google:
Nobody can patent, copyright, or otherwise own a language or an instruction set. Lexra had the right, legally and ethically, to design an IP core with the MIPS instruction set.
http://probell.com/Lexra/lexra... [probell.com]
I disagree with the Lexra employ
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In the US at least, "sweat of the brow" does not by itself allow copyright protection; it is irrelevant how much work is done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The NEC versus Intel case is illustrative though. There microcode was ruled to be copyrightable but reverse engineering and clean room implementation is protected.
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/ar... [harvard.edu]
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According to wikipedia, sweat of the brow implies:
Substantial creativity or "originality" is not required.
Designing APIs or instruction sets requires a ton of creativity and originality, since billions of lines of code are going to be using it and since changing them in the future is costly and difficult. The originality comes from improved API design that reduces coding time/debug time as is the case in Java API vs C API. Sweat of the br
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I only brought up the status of "sweat of the brow" in the US because you said:
The effort Lexra (or anybody else) went to in creating a work is irrelevant. Creativity and originality matter but not effort. This comes up all the time with digitized works. The effort in digitizing video or photos or text is not enough to allow copyrighting what is produced. Services like Lexus instead copyright
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PC clone BIOS would be a better example of why Oracle is wrong.
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You mean in the same way that a manufacturer of a spoon "illegally copied" information about a human mouth?
In the same way that a road construction crew "illegally copied" information about wheels being round?
In the same way that a manufacturer of a catheter "illegally copied" information about urethra?
This is API, API is information about CONNECTING pieces together, it is a contract information, definition of connectivity, not implementation details.
This is not a problem that is just related to Java someho
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
A function name and parameter spec is now "someone's shit"? Oracle's position is about as sensible as SCO's was.
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Arguing that Larry Ellison is going to come after you over a int min(int a, int b) function is a bit like all of the crazy rednecks that always say Obama is coming for all of their guns every time there's any kind of weapons bill in Congress.
It seems unlikely that you can lay claim to a single signature any more than you can copyright an individual sentence in a book and prevent someone else from using
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Would you contribute to a future project like Samba or Wine now?
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MS has basically gifted the Win32 and .NET APIs to Wine. MS is actually now actively involved in Wine's development. (Believe it or not) Wine is now a targeted and supported runtime environment for ASP.NET5, meaning that if something in ASP.NET5 fails to work on Wine, MS will either work around it in ASP.NET5 or help contribute a patch to Wine (if it's a bug in Wine). Samba's legal situation has been more contentious in the past, with MS basically insisting that it was impossible to reverse-engineer it w
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Sorry, momentarily confused Wine and Mono. Wine has never been legally challenged by Microsoft and the development of it has been done clean-room, leaving MS with no legal recourse unless they can demonstrate otherwise. Personally, I don't think they care at all about the existence of wine at this point.
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But cleanroom implementations are meaningless if copyright can be asserted over the API. Clean room implementations only work because it has been generally understood that an API itself is essentially a directory listing, like a phone book, that in and of itself does not constitute some sort of creative work. Before the Oracle case, it was assumed that it was the code itself that constituted the intellectual property. But that is now apparently no longer true, and thus the Win32 API has gained the same leve
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If specifications alone can be copyrighted, then the software industry is in for a world of hurt.
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You are both ignorant and a retarded moron.
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You don't know what you're talking about. So zip it.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
So ... basically every modern implementation of C illegally copied AT&T's or K&R's shit?
Mono has illegally copied Microsoft's shit?
The API is a contract, which you publish in order to allow people to use it. But you specifically do publish it.
Java was released by Sun without licensing, just saying you needed to be compatible with the core and not screw things up -- and now retroactively Oracle can claim copyright on it? There sure as hell were other implementations of Java out there which nobody was complaining about.
That pretty much sounds like bullshit. Interoperability is part of fair use. Have we so thoroughly eroded this concept that the copyright lawyers have won?
I'm pretty sure at the time Google was copying those interfaces, not a damned person EVER suggested this required licensing.
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That pretty much sounds like bullshit. Interoperability is part of fair use. Have we so thoroughly eroded this concept that the copyright lawyers have won?
But tell me, where is the interoperability with Java? Google has its own VM, so they don't really need Java interoperability.
Re:Fucking Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet something written against the Java API can fairly trivially be made to work against the Google API -- well, in theory.
The interfaces for APIs have been borrowed and re-implemented for literally decades. If you retroactively go back and say all of them are licensed and you need to pay money ... you fuck up the entirety of computing history.
Like I said, the standard C library, most of POSIX, the C++ template libraries, Mono ... all sorts of stuff was basically a re-implementation of an API.
This ruling completely ignores several decades worth of precedent, and grants Oracle something nobody else has ever had.
Hell, even Microsoft's vaporware to provide Android support is covered by this. This has very far reaching implications, and makes no sense in the context of computers since the 70s.
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and now retroactively Oracle can claim copyright on it?
No, there's no retroactive claim necessary under the Berne Convention - everything anybody ever writes is automatically copyrighted. All expression is by default subsumed by the State under that treaty (so cut the guys going apeshit over TPP some slack).
You wanted the government controlling every aspect of human interaction, you got it. Now the US software industry can proceed to burn in flames, the way the democracy wants (hence the term democracide
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If there's a silver lining, it's that this will breed further contempt for the law among the educated. As they flee its jurisdiction.
It will also breed further contempt for Java. Has Oracle thought this one thr- OK, sorry, stupid question
Flee the Berne Convention? (Score:2)
If there's a silver lining, it's that this will breed further contempt for the law among the educated. As they flee its jurisdiction.
Very little of the industrialized world is outside the jurisdiction of the Berne Convention. Where were you imagining that they would flee?
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My position on copyrights and patents was always the same: abolish all patents and copyrights and prevent government from providing monopolies with these laws. [slashdot.org]
Basically this is nearly the ultimate absurd result that we are seeing here and it probably can even get worse. You want to build a road somewhere? Well, you are violating a copyright on other people building horizontal surfaces to allow circular wheels (and legs I suppose) to run on them. You want to build a house? Are you going to have a roof?
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Fucking lawyers - Do we think we can just go around using words without paying their rightful owner?
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Fucking lawyers just never stop.
Google illegally copied Oracle's shit. Deal with it.
The 13 words in your post are currently under copyright protection and owned by me.
(As symbols required for interaction are now copyrightable, aka APIs, aka all words in a language)
You can paypal my $10000 per word usage licensing fee and I will refrain from opening a lawsuit against you.
As you say, pay up and deal with it.
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Fucking lawyers just never stop. Google illegally copied Oracle's shit. Deal with it.
No. This is about making API compatible calls. Plain and simple.
Can/Should Oracle be able to copyright something like these ?
No. And I thought this had already been solved with C Header files.
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Fucking lawyers just never stop. Google illegally copied Oracle's shit. Deal with it.
No. This is about making API compatible calls. Plain and simple.
Can/Should Oracle be able to copyright something like these ?
No. And I thought this had already been solved with C Header files.
Well, the Java folk always wanted to distance themselves from the C/C++ folk.
:D
And now we have another reason to avoid Java to boot.
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That's a hard position to take here with all the opinionated freeloading IP burglars since when they are not whining about ISPs (ex. Comcast, ATT) limiting their content stealing abilities
How is it "content stealing" to view licensed video through Netflix? Or are you claiming that Netflix's license to the video it offers is invalid?
or criticizing anyone (ex. Microsoft) who wishes to turn a hard-earned buck for the quality software they produce at great expense
Most of us don't criticize wanting to earn a buck. We criticize anticompetitive methods of doing so, such as exclusive (or effectively exclusive) deals with all leading manufacturers of a particular class of hardware.
the residents spew their hateful anger at those (ex. Oracle) who wish to protect their IP
What is "IP"? Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret are very different beasts [gnu.org]. If you mean copyright, say copyright. If you mean patent, say
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But the owner of those APIs (Novell) says it is OK.
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Time to ditch Java (Score:2, Flamebait)
The time to ditch Java was 10 years ago.
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This ruling doesn't just cover Java and really Java has nothing to do with this. This is about the entire field of computing but probably even worse. Do you want to build a house? So are you going to make doors rectangular shaped passages with opening/closing covers? You are violating something there.
This actually proves my point on copyrights (and patents for that matter). Government should not be given any authority to provide any sort of protection for any of it.
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Lots of things can be considered an API. For instance, who owns the copyright on OpenGL? Does anyone even know? What about HTTP? After all, a protocol is basically an API that runs over wires instead of call stacks. And HTTP/2.0 is a derivative work of SPDY which is .... developed by Google. And is now being added back into Java. What about SQL? It's managed by ISO these days so probably Oracle would avoid slicing their own throats like this.
Following this US ruling all sorts of people and companies are now
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Lots of things can be considered an API. For instance, who owns the copyright on OpenGL? Does anyone even know? What about HTTP? After all, a protocol is basically an API that runs over wires instead of call stacks. And HTTP/2.0 is a derivative work of SPDY which is .... developed by Google.
You forget the next Bill Gates (if he wants to be) after this ruling: Tim Berners-Lee. Any use of the HTTP protocol from 1991 to date is clearly derivative of the HTTP 1.0 protocol and since he owns the copyright which is life+70 he now can sue every website in existence for royalties.
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I work for Google. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. We have a version of the Android framework built using C++ and Go. Since the ART VM is language agnostic the transition should be fairly smooth. Once we get all of the initial pieces of the puzzle in place we'll be transitioning to it. It won't happen in M, but will happen in N.
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It's as if you know nothing about the case whatsoever. There was no code copied. This case has to do with the SSO of API's. If you don't know what SSO is then take 10 minutes of your time and research it. It would have prevented you rambling on about something you completely misunderstood.
Additionally, the reason for Google creating their own VM was to use a register based VM instead of a stack based one. Since register based VM's use drastically less memory it was more appropriate for an embedded device. I
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What kind of retard claims interfaces aren't code?
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An idiot.
Adhering to a spec is not copying the spec.
Only actually COPYING the text that defines the spec is copying the spec.
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That is to say, only an idiot claims otherwise.
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How do you figure? You say there have been
dozens of lawsuits. Please name a few. Because I can't think of any. I can think of arguments over look and feel and those were thrown out. I also know the DMCA specifically allows interoperability.
NVidia's may be in gray territory morally, but legally they are completely safe (at least they were before this rubbish). Their closed-source binary blob in no way links or even refers to kernel APIs. Instead the shim layer (which is GPL and distributed as source on
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"Flamebait" my ass. You punk ass little kids are so full of shit and know so little about licensing issues that it's absolutely laughable. You rant on about how Novell "owns" the POSIX APIs without knowing SHIT about how the POSIX APIs were developed in the midst of the *nix vendor wars and published as a STANDARD that all the vendors AGREED to implement.
You spew FUD and bullshit about how "interfaces aren't code", have no respect for the work that goes into a clean and well defined interface specifica
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Again, how is adhering to a specification in any way copying anything? It is a specification: a list of rules to follow.
Now copying the list is copying the spec. But following the rules is not copying the spec.
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Sounds like we're about to see SCO's old case validated because of this mess. This is absolute bullshit.
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One of the things that came out during the SCO mess was that SCO didn't own the Unix copyrights. Novell still had them, and Novell wasn't interested in using them to make trouble for Linux. (At least not then, anyway.)
So this ruling doesn't do SCO's pathetic "case" any good.
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The POSIX APIs were agreed to by *all* of the *nix vendors and published as a standard, which includes a lot of the low-level interfaces used by Linux. They are not "owned" by Novell. Novell merely sold an *implementation* of the APIs.
A completely different kettle of fish than Oracle vs. Google.
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Fucking hell, I guess I'm utterly fucked, because pretty much every C program I've ever written includes #include <stdio>. Here I thought I was invoking a free and open set of library functions passed on down since the 1970s, and now it turns out I've been stealing someone's hard work in creating a standard set of functional calls. I'm dirty fucking thief.
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Because moving from one proprietary language/library ecosystem to another proprietary language/library ecosystem is somehow an improvement.
Fuck them both. We have truly open ecosystems like C++, and I would encourage any sensible developer going forward to move away from the likes of Java and the .NET ecosystems, now that the Supreme Court has essentially turned them into perpetual litigation machines.