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Amazing stuff. But won't Google have any objections on the licensing and patents regarding reimplementation of their stuff? If so what would be the implications
by andrewvijay 10y ago
Amazing stuff. But won't Google have any objections on the licensing and patents regarding reimplementation of their stuff? If so what would be the implications?
- vengefulduck 10y agoActually Google kind of screwed themselves there because just this year they set the legal precedent that all APIs are public domain so if they sued they would lose the case against oracle(and 8.8 billion dollars).
- vetinari 10y agoI would not call it 'screwed'. Yes, they established, that APIs are free to reimplement. However, just having an API to follow does not mean, that the task of reimplementation is easy - following someone's else API is actually harder than designing your own. Just ask the WINE team.
- jdc0589 10y agothe WINE team is comprised of 100% sorcerers.
- bitwize 10y agoOracle is appealing that decision. The case is going before the CAFC, which means a likely win for Oracle.
- _pmf_ 10y ago> The case is going before the CAFC, which means a likely win for Oracle. Frankly, everything else would be a travesty. My personal wet dream is that in response to this, Google will partner with Microsoft to get dotNET as a VM backend.
- colemickens 10y ago"dotNET"? sometimes I just don't know where people come up with their capitalization schemes.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- colemickens 10y agoOh jeez, I'm so sorry for pointing out that .NET has literally never been branded as "dotNET".
- _pmf_ 10y agoI did not downvote you, but the reason I used dotNET is that I don't want to keep in mind whether the markdown-flavor-du-jour interprets leading dots as special or not.
- yarrel 10y agoLOL.
- bitmapbrother 10y ago>The case is going before the CAFC, which means a likely win for Oracle LOL Really? A likely win? The CAFC isn't going to overturn a jury verdict.
- bitwize 10y agoYou overestimate the willingness of the American courts to render justice, play by the rules, or indeed make any sense. According to the CAFC's ruling overturning Judge Alsup's initial decision that APIs are not copyrightable, APIs have enough unique expressikn in them to indeed be covered by copyright. Hackers are fond of a loosey-goosey, asterisk-ridden interpretation of copyright law under which copying is OK provided the author doesn't lose money in its primary line of business. (For example, that pirating abandonware is OK, etc.) The CAFC is considerably more strict and applies the letter of the law to copyright cases. While fair use is a concept ill-defined by statute, it is generally acceptes to mean extremely limited copying for express purposes, such as: scholarship, commentary, or parody. Google's copying of Oracle's Java API IP was extensive and directly related to their Android line of business. Therefore, any sensible court would rule that fair use doesn't apply, else American IP law has no meaning.
- phasmantistes 10y agoThat's actually not the argument that was made, as I understand it. The argument was that the Java API -- by virtue of being part of Java, which was openly released -- was also open. The APIs that MicroG is reimplementing don't seem to have been openly released in a similar fashion.
- DannyBee 10y agoThis is completely and totally wrong, FWIW. The federal circuit ruling was that apis are copyrightable, so .... Google won on fair use.
- kuschku 10y agoThen the microG developer just has to move to the EU, where APIs aren’t copyrightable, even if closed, and you have the right to reverse engineer existing software for interoperability with your own software, or for third-party reimplementations.
- larma 10y agoalready there and heavily relying on EU software directive 2009/24/EC :)
- bitmapbrother 10y agoYou must have missed the CAFC ruling that declared API's copyrightable.
- iuhgdwij 10y agoThey still might have an ounce of the hacker spirit in the company - so maybe they'll be lenient! Jokes aside, implementing a program with the same API should be fine, right? Would love to hear from someone better versed in copyright law!
- nathcd 10y ago> implementing a program with the same API should be fine, right? If this is all it comes down to, Google certainly should be fine with it being that they're in the middle of (end of?) a lawsuit with Oracle over their implementation of the Java API in Android.
- kyrra 10y agoMiddle of still. Oracle filed for appeal of their most recent loss[0]. [0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/its-official-oracle-will-appeal-its-fair-use-loss-against-google/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/its-official-orac...
- curt15 10y agoAmazon has been providing drop-in replacement implementations of Google APIs (for proprietary Google services) for some time now. For instance: "The Amazon Maps API offers interface parity with version 2 of the Google Maps API. Most classes and method calls in your Google Maps app work the same on Amazon devices. " https://developer.amazon.com/public/apis/experience/maps/docs-v2/migrating-an-app-from-google-maps-v2 https://developer.amazon.com/public/apis/experience/maps/doc...
- Spoom 10y agoI would imagine the problems they might have with this project is that it, I assume, calls private remote Google APIs -- which would by definition be an unlicensed use.
- maxerickson 10y agoNearly the entire point of the project is to have an Android system that isn't reliant on Google services. Edit: I see I misunderstood. This page talks about opting in to Google services: https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki So they are using them.
- _pmf_ 10y ago> But won't Google have any objections on the licensing and patents regarding reimplementation of their stuff? They'll sue you for using Java.