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Given that, could one make the analogy that a command name would be similar to an "API" and should also have been illegal by Oracle's logic? EDIT: I first sai

Given that, could one make the analogy that a command name would be similar to an "API" and should also have been illegal by Oracle's logic? EDIT: I first said "no" but to be honest Oracle has tried to claim ownership of the API and the implementations. And apparently Oracle has won some of these points https://gigaom.com/2014/05/09/tech-world-stunned-as-court-rules-oracle-can-own-apis-google-loses-copyright-appeal/ https://gigaom.com/2014/05/09/tech-world-stunned-as-court-ru... However the is exactly what Google is trying to do by doing "clean room" implementations of an existing API. New code but the same calling API and return values with completely new code. This whole article is one case where they did not rewrite the function but instead copied the existing one.

jboy55 10y ago
Which goes to how important these lines are. Google claims to have done a 'clean room' implementation. That is, someone with access to the source, writes down the API. Someone else writes based on the API that was inferred. If there was literal copying going on, even in one small case, that breaks down the entire clean room. How can you claim you strictly kept a wall up, if code was just copied? It would have been bad enough if the engineers writing down the API were the engineers developing it.
- singham 10y ago
  How much liability should google have given that one of their trusted employees broke the trust? The speed of software development depends on trust. If companies start to scrutinize every commit, then development would come to a screeching halt.
  - DanHulton 10y ago
    I mean, that's basically what code reviews are, and they don't bring anything to a screeching halt. I'm curious though, if you have access to the source, and you have engineers who are "tainted", could those engineers not put together a tool that scans commits automatically for anything in the original source and outputs a warning to those tainted engineers that they can go to the clean room engineers about?
  - jboy55 10y ago
    It taints the whole project. Its a serious flaw, if you've watch silicon valley, the whole bit about him doing a slight thing on a company laptop, and now that company would own the whole project. Its that.
- smhenderson 10y ago
  The only defense I can see here is that the programmer who "copied" the code was the one who wrote it for Sun in the first place. He wasn't working from the API spec thrown over the wall, he was doing it from memory. But then that also breaks the whole clean room premise. If was a former Sun employee he should have never been allowed to work directly on the code in the first place.

jboy55 10y ago

Which goes to how important these lines are. Google claims to have done a 'clean room' implementation. That is, someone with access to the source, writes down the API. Someone else writes based on the API that was inferred. If there was literal copying going on, even in one small case, that breaks down the entire clean room. How can you claim you strictly kept a wall up, if code was just copied? It would have been bad enough if the engineers writing down the API were the engineers developing it.

singham 10y ago
How much liability should google have given that one of their trusted employees broke the trust? The speed of software development depends on trust. If companies start to scrutinize every commit, then development would come to a screeching halt.
- DanHulton 10y ago
  I mean, that's basically what code reviews are, and they don't bring anything to a screeching halt. I'm curious though, if you have access to the source, and you have engineers who are "tainted", could those engineers not put together a tool that scans commits automatically for anything in the original source and outputs a warning to those tainted engineers that they can go to the clean room engineers about?
- jboy55 10y ago
  It taints the whole project. Its a serious flaw, if you've watch silicon valley, the whole bit about him doing a slight thing on a company laptop, and now that company would own the whole project. Its that.
smhenderson 10y ago
The only defense I can see here is that the programmer who "copied" the code was the one who wrote it for Sun in the first place. He wasn't working from the API spec thrown over the wall, he was doing it from memory. But then that also breaks the whole clean room premise. If was a former Sun employee he should have never been allowed to work directly on the code in the first place.