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It is property law and the ability to protect one's rights to property that has granted the creators of property a return on their investment of resources into

It is property law and the ability to protect one's rights to property that has granted the creators of property a return on their investment of resources into property. If creators of property cannot protect their property, there will be less return on that property and thus, less incentive to create it. Oracle bought Sun, and with that purchase, the ownership of intellectual property in the form of the Java API. Google then proceeded to copy that property into their own property without abiding by the usage restrictions Oracle, the property owner, specified. That was theft of Oracle's property. If the Supreme Court does not uphold protections of property, I believe, we will see less investment in such property. I am not sure if that is good or bad for the future of the world, but I do believe had Sun not had property rights to Java, they wouldn't have created it.

pvelagal 7y ago
How about similarities of C++ and Java ? Who copies whom ? int, float, char key words ? if - then - else, while loop, for loop, curly braces { } comments // and /* main() method ? socket API : socket, connect, listen, accept ? and So many keywords similar to C++ ? (break, continue, char, double, new, public, private, return, static etc.) Java benefitted from Collective knowledge of Computer Science and design patterns that were invented outside of Sun microsystems. The JVM is written in C++ ? Can we cay JVM APIs are wrappers around C++ API ? Do they pay Bjarne Stroustrop ?
erikpukinskis 7y ago
What property has Google destroyed that Oracle is trying to protect? Owning a property doesn’t give you the right to sue other people who develop a property that offers the same services.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  No one said they destroyed it. Google appropriated Oracle's intellectual property for Google's own use, specifically because Google didn't want to pay for the use of that intellectual property. If I write a book and you read it, love it, and then retype the book, print it and sell it, you have violated my property rights. You and many others here don't want it to be that way, but it is exactly that way.
  - umvi 7y ago
    If you write a book and I only copy the title and chapter names, but fill in my own story, did I violate your property rights?
    - gpm 7y ago
      This is a bad analogy. You don't need to copy title and chapter names to allow other people to "interoperate" (read, scan, and index I guess?) with the book. Moreover substantial creativity goes into title and chapter names. Both of which imply they should be substantially more copyrightable than APIs.
      - wtallis 7y ago
        > This is a bad analogy. You don't need to copy title and chapter names to allow other people to "interoperate" (read, scan, and index I guess?) with the book. Bad analogies are inevitable, and aren't the commenter's fault. It's the Federal Circuit's fault, for trying to blur the lines between functional matters (the domain of patents) and copyright matters. Any analogy that's simple enough to quickly understand will suffer from basically this same flaw, or else not apply to this case.
        anon1m0us 7y ago
        Software is both patentable and copyrightable, so there's no blurry line here. You are trying to say it's blurry, but it's quite clear.
        wtallis 7y ago
        Oracle's trying to get copyright duration on the exclusive rights to something that falls under patent subject matter, so yeah, they're blurring the lines. Ultimately, the problem for Oracle is that the APIs are too functional to be eligible for copyright protection, too abstract to be eligible for patent protection, and too generic to be eligible for trademark protection. But that doesn't stop them from trying to get the best features from all the above.
wtallis 7y ago
You seem to be trying really hard to give the impression that copyright law is a special case of common law property rights. The US Constitution plainly disagrees with you on that.
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 states: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-i https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/arti... Sun invented Java. Oracle bought Sun. Oracle owned Java. Google copied Java without compensating Oracle, who owned the rights to Java. It's pretty clear. The Supreme Court should confirm that Google owes Oracle compensation for the use of Oracle's intellectual property.
  - wtallis 7y ago
    Re-read that bit of the Constitution that you quoted, and tell me why the Supreme Court should hand down an opinion that will require the entire software industry to grind to a halt for a few decades while we sort out who owns API copyright on everything that's already in use everywhere before we can continue building on top of any of it. How does that "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" in any way? More importantly, how is any part of the government obligated to extend IP rights to be as powerful as you want to treat them? Congress was granted the power to create copyright law, but they chose to do so with more limitations than just duration.
    - anon1m0us 7y ago
      I think rather, it's on you to explain why the software industry doesn't have to respect property laws like every other industry. The industry wouldn't have to grind to a halt if it had been respecting those rights from the beginning. If companies want to provide their code, API's, or any other intellectual property to the world at large, a la public domain, they are free to do that. No one is stopping them. But if someone in the software industry wants to protect their IP, they should have those rights, just like any other inventor/writer in any other industry.
nwallin 7y ago
> Oracle bought Sun, and with that purchase, the ownership of intellectual property in the form of the Java API. Google then proceeded to copy that property into their own property without abiding by the usage restrictions Oracle, the property owner, specified. You have the order backward. Google made Android with the full consent from Sun. Their CEOs had a handshake deal, and neither of them believed there was any need for a legal contact. Fourish years later Oracle bought Sun and promptly sued Google. The handshake deal wasn't legally binding, apparently. I know this doesn't necessarily change the legal picture, but it certainly changes the ethical one. Your timeline makes Google out to be a predator, maliciously stealing Oracle's precious IP. The actual timeline makes Oracle out to be the predator, buying Sun for little other purpose than to sue people. I suspect Google wouldn't have gone with Java if it were owned by Oracle at the time. Which would have made for an interesting alternate timeline. Maybe they'd have gone with D? Who knows. C++03 was kind of ass, but if they'd have gone with c++ we'd have new c++ as a first class citizen which would also be rad.
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  That is not what the wikipedia article says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America > Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White to develop a mobile phone platform.[7][8] Google purchased Android in 2005 and continued developing the Android operating system.[8] During development of Android, Google wanted to incorporate the Java Standard Edition libraries. Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt had approached Sun's president Jonathan I. Schwartz about licensing the Java libraries for use in Android. Sun offered a licensing deal of between US$30 and 50 million. Schmidt said Google would have paid for that license, but they were concerned that Sun had also requested some shared control of Android along with the fee.[9][10][11] Google states that they wanted more control in order to open source the language and allow third parties to take better advantage of its code;[9] Oracle states that Sun refused because Google's intention was essentially to fork Java to a Google version of the language, and to prevent it being inter-operable with other versions, an idea which was "anathema" to the "write once run anywhere" basis of the language.[12] Because of these differences of view, the negotiations failed to reach a deal and Sun refused Google a license for Java.[12] > At this point in time, the OpenJDK implementation offered by Sun was not as mature or complete as the Java Standard Edition.[13] Instead of licensing Java, Google chose to develop a cleanroom version of the Java Standard Edition libraries

pvelagal 7y ago

How about similarities of C++ and Java ? Who copies whom ? int, float, char key words ? if - then - else, while loop, for loop, curly braces { } comments // and /* main() method ? socket API : socket, connect, listen, accept ? and So many keywords similar to C++ ? (break, continue, char, double, new, public, private, return, static etc.) Java benefitted from Collective knowledge of Computer Science and design patterns that were invented outside of Sun microsystems. The JVM is written in C++ ? Can we cay JVM APIs are wrappers around C++ API ? Do they pay Bjarne Stroustrop ?

erikpukinskis 7y ago

What property has Google destroyed that Oracle is trying to protect? Owning a property doesn’t give you the right to sue other people who develop a property that offers the same services.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anon1m0us 7y ago
No one said they destroyed it. Google appropriated Oracle's intellectual property for Google's own use, specifically because Google didn't want to pay for the use of that intellectual property. If I write a book and you read it, love it, and then retype the book, print it and sell it, you have violated my property rights. You and many others here don't want it to be that way, but it is exactly that way.
- umvi 7y ago
  If you write a book and I only copy the title and chapter names, but fill in my own story, did I violate your property rights?
  - gpm 7y ago
    This is a bad analogy. You don't need to copy title and chapter names to allow other people to "interoperate" (read, scan, and index I guess?) with the book. Moreover substantial creativity goes into title and chapter names. Both of which imply they should be substantially more copyrightable than APIs.
    - wtallis 7y ago
      > This is a bad analogy. You don't need to copy title and chapter names to allow other people to "interoperate" (read, scan, and index I guess?) with the book. Bad analogies are inevitable, and aren't the commenter's fault. It's the Federal Circuit's fault, for trying to blur the lines between functional matters (the domain of patents) and copyright matters. Any analogy that's simple enough to quickly understand will suffer from basically this same flaw, or else not apply to this case.
      - anon1m0us 7y ago
        Software is both patentable and copyrightable, so there's no blurry line here. You are trying to say it's blurry, but it's quite clear.
        wtallis 7y ago
        Oracle's trying to get copyright duration on the exclusive rights to something that falls under patent subject matter, so yeah, they're blurring the lines. Ultimately, the problem for Oracle is that the APIs are too functional to be eligible for copyright protection, too abstract to be eligible for patent protection, and too generic to be eligible for trademark protection. But that doesn't stop them from trying to get the best features from all the above.

wtallis 7y ago

You seem to be trying really hard to give the impression that copyright law is a special case of common law property rights. The US Constitution plainly disagrees with you on that.

anon1m0us 7y ago
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 states: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/article/article-i https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/arti... Sun invented Java. Oracle bought Sun. Oracle owned Java. Google copied Java without compensating Oracle, who owned the rights to Java. It's pretty clear. The Supreme Court should confirm that Google owes Oracle compensation for the use of Oracle's intellectual property.
- wtallis 7y ago
  Re-read that bit of the Constitution that you quoted, and tell me why the Supreme Court should hand down an opinion that will require the entire software industry to grind to a halt for a few decades while we sort out who owns API copyright on everything that's already in use everywhere before we can continue building on top of any of it. How does that "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" in any way? More importantly, how is any part of the government obligated to extend IP rights to be as powerful as you want to treat them? Congress was granted the power to create copyright law, but they chose to do so with more limitations than just duration.
  - anon1m0us 7y ago
    I think rather, it's on you to explain why the software industry doesn't have to respect property laws like every other industry. The industry wouldn't have to grind to a halt if it had been respecting those rights from the beginning. If companies want to provide their code, API's, or any other intellectual property to the world at large, a la public domain, they are free to do that. No one is stopping them. But if someone in the software industry wants to protect their IP, they should have those rights, just like any other inventor/writer in any other industry.

nwallin 7y ago

> Oracle bought Sun, and with that purchase, the ownership of intellectual property in the form of the Java API. Google then proceeded to copy that property into their own property without abiding by the usage restrictions Oracle, the property owner, specified. You have the order backward. Google made Android with the full consent from Sun. Their CEOs had a handshake deal, and neither of them believed there was any need for a legal contact. Fourish years later Oracle bought Sun and promptly sued Google. The handshake deal wasn't legally binding, apparently. I know this doesn't necessarily change the legal picture, but it certainly changes the ethical one. Your timeline makes Google out to be a predator, maliciously stealing Oracle's precious IP. The actual timeline makes Oracle out to be the predator, buying Sun for little other purpose than to sue people. I suspect Google wouldn't have gone with Java if it were owned by Oracle at the time. Which would have made for an interesting alternate timeline. Maybe they'd have gone with D? Who knows. C++03 was kind of ass, but if they'd have gone with c++ we'd have new c++ as a first class citizen which would also be rad.

anon1m0us 7y ago
That is not what the wikipedia article says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America > Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White to develop a mobile phone platform.[7][8] Google purchased Android in 2005 and continued developing the Android operating system.[8] During development of Android, Google wanted to incorporate the Java Standard Edition libraries. Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt had approached Sun's president Jonathan I. Schwartz about licensing the Java libraries for use in Android. Sun offered a licensing deal of between US$30 and 50 million. Schmidt said Google would have paid for that license, but they were concerned that Sun had also requested some shared control of Android along with the fee.[9][10][11] Google states that they wanted more control in order to open source the language and allow third parties to take better advantage of its code;[9] Oracle states that Sun refused because Google's intention was essentially to fork Java to a Google version of the language, and to prevent it being inter-operable with other versions, an idea which was "anathema" to the "write once run anywhere" basis of the language.[12] Because of these differences of view, the negotiations failed to reach a deal and Sun refused Google a license for Java.[12] > At this point in time, the OpenJDK implementation offered by Sun was not as mature or complete as the Java Standard Edition.[13] Instead of licensing Java, Google chose to develop a cleanroom version of the Java Standard Edition libraries