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Google files opening Supreme Court brief in Oracle v. Google copyright lawsuit

163 points by alpb 7y ago

sarcasmatwork 7y ago
FYI: https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google
- ronilan 7y ago
  the lawsuit will now be known as Google v. Oracle, since Google asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. After nine years, we’ll have to get used to calling the case by this new name Interesting. Poetic. Google can’t win this fight (if they win) as a defendant, only as an aggressor.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Google can’t win this fight (if they win) as a defendant Sure they can (and it's the only way they can), if they win at the Supreme Court, it will be as a Defendant-Appellant. And if, as is often the case, the final formalization of the victory comes on remand back to the trial court from the Supreme Court after the Supreme Court declares the controlling law, that victory will be as a simple Defendant.
    - ronilan 7y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. IANAL. (It’s been a beautiful saga. I hope they make a movie out of it.)
gpm 7y ago
Docket: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/18-956.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do... Direct link to brief: http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/127663/20200106172508533_18-956%20ts.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/127663/20200... Schedule: Petitioner’s (Google) brief: January 6, 2020 Respondent’s (Oracle) brief: February 12, 2020 Reply (Google) brief: March 13, 2020 Oral Argument: Likely late March, possibly in April, otherwise delayed to October. Ruling: If Oral argument is heard late march or in April, sometime this summer.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Sometime before summer, right? Doesn't the court adjourn at the end of June or so?
  - gpm 7y ago
    The last day on the schedule is June 29th, you can view it here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/2019TermCourtCalendar.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/2019TermCourtCal... Depends on how you define summer I guess.
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
This coming from the company that files patents like crazy and gives out t-shirts that say “patent heroes wanted”. Call me cynical but I feel like google is narrowly interested in open innovation when they are at risk for billions in fines, and definitely also supports openness in other ways, but still supports a lot of proprietary and closed source work. There are lots of business reasons to be closed source, but don’t talk up a big talk about the value of openness when you’re really just trying to cover your ass. Lots of google tech fails on openness.
- daenz 7y ago
  I don't think you're being unreasonably cynical. We have numerous demonstrations of companies pretending to be virtuous when it benefits them, while also being evil when it benefits them. It's fortunate that their posturing lines up with values that some of us hold, but I consider it nothing more than a profitable coincidence.
- gpm 7y ago
  This is coming from a whole lot more than just Google. They are the ones who will lose money in the immediate lawsuit, but we all stand to suffer if Oracle's interpretation of the law is held up. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the entire software community who has weighed in on this to support google in the form of amicus briefs (which I really do encourage you to read). Here is a partial list of other groups who have already filed motions in support of Google: Microsoft, EFF, Python Software Foundation, Mozilla, RedHat, (see the docket for a complete list). In addition their was a very interesting brief submitted by a bunch of famous computer scientists, instead of an organized company. The names attatched included Edwin Catmull, Alan Kay, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup, Andrew Tanenbaum, Ken Thompson, Guido van Rossum, Steve Wozniak. The total list of people is 78 long and they are all of similar caliber (though I did pick out the names I had the strongest recognition for), see their brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190225134131839_18-956_Oracle_v__Google_Computer_Scientists_Amicus_Motion_Brief_FILE.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190...) This case isn't about Google making or loosing some money, Google being open or not. None of the amici care about that, the supreme court doesn't care about that. Only Google and Oracle care about that. This case is about the law that governs us all and what effects it has on us all. And yes, Microsoft is agreeing with the EFF in a lawsuit...
dehrmann 7y ago
Just because Oracle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2040s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2040s I await the day the lawnmower defense becomes the new Chewbacca defense.
ikeboy 7y ago
... and this is why we're opening our web index so anyone can build applications on top of it? Google built one of the most valuable companies in the world on intellectual property. They want open innovation when it's a competitor being open, or when being open has strategic benefits. They don't give a damn otherwise.
jborichevskiy 7y ago
Google could lead by example here - perhaps by letting people download a reliable, usable copy of the data they're making 70 billion dollars a year from. But they won't even do that. https://beepb00p.xyz/takeout-data-gone.html https://beepb00p.xyz/takeout-data-gone.html
- zozbot234 7y ago
  That blogpost is complaining that Google isn't keeping around as much data as OP would like. I mean, seriously? Damned if you do, damned if you don't?
  - jborichevskiy 7y ago
    Let's be real; it's not like your data is also purged from their predictive models when it's no longer available in Takeout. They'll still be using it for profit. The least they can do is let you download a copy of it.
    - nl 7y ago
      I'd be surprised if behavioural data over a two years old is useful for any predictive models, and I expect they would remove it from their models to avoid spurious correlations.
    - svat 7y ago
      Yes your data is purged when you delete it from your activity (https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/) (not instantly because there are many systems involved, but within a strict deadline). This is taken seriously, and there are teams at Google making sure this happens. (Not sure how much is public, but some details in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809259) (Note that anonymized data, such as aggregate data that cannot possibly be used to identify individual users, cannot be deleted this way: e.g. (say) the number of YouTube views for "Despacito" (if you had watched it) will not decrease by 1 when you delete your activity, because that number was never associated with you in the first place.) If something used to be in your Takeout data but is no longer there, that's most likely because Google no longer has that data about you.
jmspring 7y ago
Oracle is no saint, but Google isn't a saint in this either. Google is one of the strictest companies I've talked with when it comes to people working on personal projects, contributing to open source, etc. even when in California and on your own time/equipment.
CaliforniaKarl 7y ago
Who here remembers Groklaw? PJ was covering Oracle vs. Google with the same level of detail that she used on SCO vs. IBM. Coverage ran up into the first appeal, when she stopped updating the site. • The list of all Oracle vs. Google filings (up to the site's closing), with links to articles that mention them. Not all filings had corresponding articles: http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoogle http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoog... • The list of all articles related to Oracle vs. Google, in reverse-order (newest at the top): http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=archives&year=-1&use_s_page=OracleGoogle http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=archives&year=... PJ, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well! (Edited: Removed characters that messed up formatting)
- ethbro 7y ago
  Stopped updating it for a reason -- http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175
  - pisky 7y ago
    Has that site been hacked? When I use Chrome's simplified view there is a paragraph injected talking about and linking to live porn.
    - ShorsHammer 7y ago
      > http:// http:// no donkey in this race but how sure this is not you and your circumstances rather than the site itself? Living in certain countries my ISP used to inject all sort of nonsense into every unencrypted site they could. Anyone not using tls these days is intentionally exposing their readers to harm, which you seem to be experiencing. Personally I won't view such sites on principle and block them with https-everywhere, though guessing many others do allow it, due to being the default setting worldwide.
      - anderskaseorg 7y ago
throwawaymath 7y ago
What great PR speak. The core topic of the article is an update in the ongoing copyright legal dispute between Oracle and Google. But the title and opening paragraph invoke an ethos of justice, which inherently frames Google as a valiant champion defending freedoms for its users.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  In fairness, they are. The entire industry sans Oracle is against Oracle on this one. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190225134131839_18-956_Oracle_v__Google_Computer_Scientists_Amicus_Motion_Brief_FILE.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190...
  - throwawaymath 7y ago
    Sure, but that's not really my point. I don't really care about Google or Oracle here. I'm saying that Google is spinning it really well, regardless of whether the spin is justified, so that the framing of their position is more interesting than just "Google v Oracle update." That's a really effective framing for any company in a highly publicized legal dispute. If it happens to be true for Google in this particular dispute, that's nice but not necessary for the PR speak to be advantageous.
sitkack 7y ago
Google should bring XMPP back to its chat application(s), Openess doesn't stop at API workalikes.
- teekert 7y ago
  This is the new definition of open. A documented API, probably with no guarantees and many requirements. Is the Nest thermostat really open when you can only write values to it via the cloud? Why not a simple local mqtt solution? I would not call this "open".
runningmike 7y ago
Time for Google to support open innovation for real. Some Key principles for open innovation Creating value is not an end but a means for making our world better. You embrace openness when creating value for your customers. You use an OSI approved license when developing software. You use an Creative Commons License to share documentation that has value. You embrace openness as basic value for knowledge sharing and growth. Think of open science, open data, open access, open research. Knowledge and improvements should be beneficial and reachable for everyone. Your organization is inclusive.
auggierose 7y ago
I find the term "useful Arts" interesting in patent law, as it clearly suggests that there are "unuseful arts"!
bjornsing 7y ago
If software interfaces can’t be copyrighted, how come CPU ISAs can...? Anybody know?
- gpm 7y ago
  How come you assume they can be? My understanding is that they have generally been protected by patent but I'm open to being proven wrong (preferably by being shown a court case, but being shown big licensing agreements for copyright would also be interesting).
  - bjornsing 7y ago
    I’ve just assumed it so because I’ve read it a few times in various contexts, but now that I google it more thoroughly it looks very much like you’re right. Perhaps this confusion stems from the fact that chip companies tend to license the ISA bundled with documentation and software tools, which are of course covered by copyright (see e.g. the MIPS Open license).
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Via patent agreements.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 7y ago
First Google should provide the Java community an platform that actually supports Java language alongside its standard library instead of Google's version of J++, just like the NDK supports C and C++ standard library. None of the other Java vendors has ever had any problem with either Sun or Oracle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines Or just like with Microsoft with J++, they can create their own .NET aka Android with either pure Kotlin/Native or Dart and see how successful it will turn out to be without piggybacking into the Java eco-system (Fuchsia).
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  The NDK does not (completely) support the C and C++ standard library. Certain parts (name resolution, at least, IIRC) are missing.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Where is name resolution (of what, DNS?) on ISO C and ISO C++ standard? POSIX is neither part of ISO C nor ISO C++.
gigatexal 7y ago
if Oracle loses does anyone think they'll be more or less open to relicensing ZFS so it's more GPL / Linux friendly?
- utopian3 7y ago
  Why would ZFS' license be related to the outcome of this court case?
  - gigatexal 7y ago
    They could open source it as a part of goodwill to the Linux community
DannyB2 7y ago
Just to point something out. IBM sponsored and was the primary contributor of resources to an independently developed Java work-alike called Apache Harmony. (about JDK 1.5 level, IIRC) Apache Harmony was, naturally, under the Apache license. Google wanted something like Java for Android, so Google used Apache Harmony. Sun was okay with Google having something like Java in Android and had said so. (perhaps reluctantly) Oracle sees Sun for sale, and envisions a big "sue google" sign on Sun's back. Oracle buys Sun, to get Java and sue Google. Very soon after acquisition this becomes apparent. James Gosling leaves Oracle for reasons that were not quite clear at the time, but soon become clear. Oracle claimed Google had used Java code. But Android had Apache Harmony. So Oracle changes its argument to . . . But the APIs!!! (Groklaw had documented all this back in the day.)
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Google explicitly calls out in its brief the fact that Sun, as the original author of the code, very explicitly did not consider Google to be infringing. Although I do wish Google tried harder to press the point that, based on Oracle's argument that copying the API infringes copyright, Oracle itself is in violation of others' copyright. Ars Technica has an example of that (Amazon's AWS), and the brief does give a vague allusion to this fact, based on what I presume is the trial records: > Notably, Java SE itself “reimplements” interfaces from earlier programming languages. JA154-157; see also JA211.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    According to Gosling they did, just did had they money to do anything against it, and decided to make juice out of lemons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be&t=57m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be... Also Google could have bought Sun and own Java, apparently they did not, as they thought they could get away with it.
    - danShumway 7y ago
      This is inaccurate. According to Gosling in the video you link, Sun believed the clean room implementation probably wasn't clean. That has nothing to do with whether or not Sun believed that usage of the API was infringing.
fotcorn 7y ago
Question: My understanding is that the Supreme Court is here to interpret the constitution and other laws. When it now decides that Oracle is right and APIs are copyrightable, can't the other parts of the government introduce a new law making APIs not copyrightable again?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gpm 7y ago
  If the supreme court decides for Oracle, congress can absolutely pass a new law that reduces the scope of copyright to exclude APIs. The constitution limits what congress can say is copywritable, but doesn't require that they say anything is. There's even a good chance that they will in my opinion, given the amount of lobbying dollars on the side of sanity in this case. Still, I would rather not rely on congress doing anything sensible in a timely manner these days, especially when existing copyright law already sides with Google (IMO). It would also not be retroactive, so everyone under the sun can sue everyone under the sun over previous violations.
- tracker1 7y ago
  Yes, but there is a lot of financial interest at stake that could make it even more interesting in practice... not good, but interesting.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Congress can, yes.
pgsbathhouse 7y ago
Google's arguments were already refuted in the earliest hearings. There's a reason this is going to the supreme court, the rulings didn't really match up with accepted evidence and testimony of experts in the court. Google will lose this. You don't explicitly copy code, take other people's engineers after exiting licensing talks with the company you took from, and have it not be about stealing someone else's intellectual efforts. The courts have already explicitly denied Google's claim they did this for compatibility or interoperability. The grey area is how much damage Google has done to Oracle, and it's hard to put an explicit price on that. But given the popularity of Android and how Google's has massively benefited from the platform, in no small thanks to the development community around it, and given the absolutely morbid failure of its other community dev efforts it's not really hard to see that Android wouldn't be what it is today without Java; having a familiar platform for developers to code against is priceless (but not legally). Google wanted all the benefits of using Java without actually paying for it. Sun put a lot, and I mean a lot of money into Java. Java had well defined licensing terms for how to use their code. Oracle bought Java. Oracle has the rights to license and price their code however they want. Google does not. Google was in talks with Oracle to license Java but backed out when they didn't want to pay to use it. Instead Google took engineers from the company they copied code from, and re-licensed said code. It's black and white but people's blind hate for Oracle leads them down an argument or view point the courts have already denied and are now ignoring. Don't sacrifice your principles for some cheap hit against Oracle. If Google can just throw their man power around to ignore your license, your open source license will not matter. You will not get credit for the work you do. Google and others can just feel like they don't want to abide by your license, take your code, and re-license it however they want. It's already hard to enforce any type of open source licence but if Google comes out on top it really won't matter moving forward. That is what is at stake here. "What we’ve actually been asked to do (by Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin]) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need." - Email from Tim Lindholm, a Google Engineer From the most recent hearing: "Ultimately, we find that, even assuming the jury was unpersuaded that Google acted in bad faith, the highly commercial and non-transformative nature of the use strongly support the conclusion that the first factor weighs against a finding of fair use." - https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20180327178 https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20180327178
lloydde 7y ago
Last year I went to refresh my memory on the status of the case and all pop press referred to “11,500 lines of code” copier. I couldn’t find any clarification of those are all API calls. Anyone know or better yet have a reference with analysis?
belorn 7y ago
There is a lot comments focusing on which side will win, but I would like to hear peoples thought about how the judges can reach the desired conclusion and what the potential risk or prospects to areas outside of programming API. As long there is not explicit paragraph in copyright about programming API I would think that there will be an effect outside the scope of this lawsuit. One area of copyrighted works I have seen people also question the legibility of being copyrightable is standard documents and law texts. They seems to me as very similar to an program API, if somewhat less strict when implemented. It would definitive lower the cost of interoperability if such works would be lifted outside of copyright. On the risk side however, I am wondering if the Idea–expression distinction get pushed towards the idea side, then will companies just use that finding as an argument in favor of patenting API? 20 years is better than the practically infinity that is copyright, but I am not sure it will make the situation much better in the general case.
ksec 7y ago
Would we need new software license with regards to Copyright protection once this case is closed in Orcale's flavour?

163 points by alpb 7y ago

sarcasmatwork 7y ago

FYI: https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google

ronilan 7y ago
the lawsuit will now be known as Google v. Oracle, since Google asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. After nine years, we’ll have to get used to calling the case by this new name Interesting. Poetic. Google can’t win this fight (if they win) as a defendant, only as an aggressor.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Google can’t win this fight (if they win) as a defendant Sure they can (and it's the only way they can), if they win at the Supreme Court, it will be as a Defendant-Appellant. And if, as is often the case, the final formalization of the victory comes on remand back to the trial court from the Supreme Court after the Supreme Court declares the controlling law, that victory will be as a simple Defendant.
  - ronilan 7y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. IANAL. (It’s been a beautiful saga. I hope they make a movie out of it.)

gpm 7y ago

Docket: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/18-956.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do... Direct link to brief: http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/127663/20200106172508533_18-956%20ts.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/127663/20200... Schedule: Petitioner’s (Google) brief: January 6, 2020 Respondent’s (Oracle) brief: February 12, 2020 Reply (Google) brief: March 13, 2020 Oral Argument: Likely late March, possibly in April, otherwise delayed to October. Ruling: If Oral argument is heard late march or in April, sometime this summer.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Sometime before summer, right? Doesn't the court adjourn at the end of June or so?
- gpm 7y ago
  The last day on the schedule is June 29th, you can view it here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/2019TermCourtCalendar.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/2019TermCourtCal... Depends on how you define summer I guess.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

This coming from the company that files patents like crazy and gives out t-shirts that say “patent heroes wanted”. Call me cynical but I feel like google is narrowly interested in open innovation when they are at risk for billions in fines, and definitely also supports openness in other ways, but still supports a lot of proprietary and closed source work. There are lots of business reasons to be closed source, but don’t talk up a big talk about the value of openness when you’re really just trying to cover your ass. Lots of google tech fails on openness.

daenz 7y ago
I don't think you're being unreasonably cynical. We have numerous demonstrations of companies pretending to be virtuous when it benefits them, while also being evil when it benefits them. It's fortunate that their posturing lines up with values that some of us hold, but I consider it nothing more than a profitable coincidence.
gpm 7y ago
This is coming from a whole lot more than just Google. They are the ones who will lose money in the immediate lawsuit, but we all stand to suffer if Oracle's interpretation of the law is held up. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the entire software community who has weighed in on this to support google in the form of amicus briefs (which I really do encourage you to read). Here is a partial list of other groups who have already filed motions in support of Google: Microsoft, EFF, Python Software Foundation, Mozilla, RedHat, (see the docket for a complete list). In addition their was a very interesting brief submitted by a bunch of famous computer scientists, instead of an organized company. The names attatched included Edwin Catmull, Alan Kay, Brian Kernighan, Bjarne Stroustrup, Andrew Tanenbaum, Ken Thompson, Guido van Rossum, Steve Wozniak. The total list of people is 78 long and they are all of similar caliber (though I did pick out the names I had the strongest recognition for), see their brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190225134131839_18-956_Oracle_v__Google_Computer_Scientists_Amicus_Motion_Brief_FILE.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190...) This case isn't about Google making or loosing some money, Google being open or not. None of the amici care about that, the supreme court doesn't care about that. Only Google and Oracle care about that. This case is about the law that governs us all and what effects it has on us all. And yes, Microsoft is agreeing with the EFF in a lawsuit...

dehrmann 7y ago

Just because Oracle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2040s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2040s I await the day the lawnmower defense becomes the new Chewbacca defense.

ikeboy 7y ago

... and this is why we're opening our web index so anyone can build applications on top of it? Google built one of the most valuable companies in the world on intellectual property. They want open innovation when it's a competitor being open, or when being open has strategic benefits. They don't give a damn otherwise.

jborichevskiy 7y ago

Google could lead by example here - perhaps by letting people download a reliable, usable copy of the data they're making 70 billion dollars a year from. But they won't even do that. https://beepb00p.xyz/takeout-data-gone.html https://beepb00p.xyz/takeout-data-gone.html

zozbot234 7y ago
That blogpost is complaining that Google isn't keeping around as much data as OP would like. I mean, seriously? Damned if you do, damned if you don't?
- jborichevskiy 7y ago
  Let's be real; it's not like your data is also purged from their predictive models when it's no longer available in Takeout. They'll still be using it for profit. The least they can do is let you download a copy of it.
  - nl 7y ago
    I'd be surprised if behavioural data over a two years old is useful for any predictive models, and I expect they would remove it from their models to avoid spurious correlations.
  - svat 7y ago
    Yes your data is purged when you delete it from your activity (https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/) (not instantly because there are many systems involved, but within a strict deadline). This is taken seriously, and there are teams at Google making sure this happens. (Not sure how much is public, but some details in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19809259) (Note that anonymized data, such as aggregate data that cannot possibly be used to identify individual users, cannot be deleted this way: e.g. (say) the number of YouTube views for "Despacito" (if you had watched it) will not decrease by 1 when you delete your activity, because that number was never associated with you in the first place.) If something used to be in your Takeout data but is no longer there, that's most likely because Google no longer has that data about you.

jmspring 7y ago

Oracle is no saint, but Google isn't a saint in this either. Google is one of the strictest companies I've talked with when it comes to people working on personal projects, contributing to open source, etc. even when in California and on your own time/equipment.

CaliforniaKarl 7y ago

Who here remembers Groklaw? PJ was covering Oracle vs. Google with the same level of detail that she used on SCO vs. IBM. Coverage ran up into the first appeal, when she stopped updating the site. • The list of all Oracle vs. Google filings (up to the site's closing), with links to articles that mention them. Not all filings had corresponding articles: http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoogle http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=OracleGoog... • The list of all articles related to Oracle vs. Google, in reverse-order (newest at the top): http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=archives&year=-1&use_s_page=OracleGoogle http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=archives&year=... PJ, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well! (Edited: Removed characters that messed up formatting)

ethbro 7y ago
Stopped updating it for a reason -- http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175
- pisky 7y ago
  Has that site been hacked? When I use Chrome's simplified view there is a paragraph injected talking about and linking to live porn.
  - ShorsHammer 7y ago
    > http:// http:// no donkey in this race but how sure this is not you and your circumstances rather than the site itself? Living in certain countries my ISP used to inject all sort of nonsense into every unencrypted site they could. Anyone not using tls these days is intentionally exposing their readers to harm, which you seem to be experiencing. Personally I won't view such sites on principle and block them with https-everywhere, though guessing many others do allow it, due to being the default setting worldwide.
    - anderskaseorg 7y ago

throwawaymath 7y ago

What great PR speak. The core topic of the article is an update in the ongoing copyright legal dispute between Oracle and Google. But the title and opening paragraph invoke an ethos of justice, which inherently frames Google as a valiant champion defending freedoms for its users.

dodobirdlord 7y ago
In fairness, they are. The entire industry sans Oracle is against Oracle on this one. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190225134131839_18-956_Oracle_v__Google_Computer_Scientists_Amicus_Motion_Brief_FILE.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/89487/20190...
- throwawaymath 7y ago
  Sure, but that's not really my point. I don't really care about Google or Oracle here. I'm saying that Google is spinning it really well, regardless of whether the spin is justified, so that the framing of their position is more interesting than just "Google v Oracle update." That's a really effective framing for any company in a highly publicized legal dispute. If it happens to be true for Google in this particular dispute, that's nice but not necessary for the PR speak to be advantageous.

sitkack 7y ago

Google should bring XMPP back to its chat application(s), Openess doesn't stop at API workalikes.

teekert 7y ago
This is the new definition of open. A documented API, probably with no guarantees and many requirements. Is the Nest thermostat really open when you can only write values to it via the cloud? Why not a simple local mqtt solution? I would not call this "open".

runningmike 7y ago

Time for Google to support open innovation for real. Some Key principles for open innovation Creating value is not an end but a means for making our world better. You embrace openness when creating value for your customers. You use an OSI approved license when developing software. You use an Creative Commons License to share documentation that has value. You embrace openness as basic value for knowledge sharing and growth. Think of open science, open data, open access, open research. Knowledge and improvements should be beneficial and reachable for everyone. Your organization is inclusive.

auggierose 7y ago

I find the term "useful Arts" interesting in patent law, as it clearly suggests that there are "unuseful arts"!

bjornsing 7y ago

If software interfaces can’t be copyrighted, how come CPU ISAs can...? Anybody know?

gpm 7y ago
How come you assume they can be? My understanding is that they have generally been protected by patent but I'm open to being proven wrong (preferably by being shown a court case, but being shown big licensing agreements for copyright would also be interesting).
- bjornsing 7y ago
  I’ve just assumed it so because I’ve read it a few times in various contexts, but now that I google it more thoroughly it looks very much like you’re right. Perhaps this confusion stems from the fact that chip companies tend to license the ISA bundled with documentation and software tools, which are of course covered by copyright (see e.g. the MIPS Open license).
pjmlp 7y ago
Via patent agreements.

deleted 7y ago

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pjmlp 7y ago

First Google should provide the Java community an platform that actually supports Java language alongside its standard library instead of Google's version of J++, just like the NDK supports C and C++ standard library. None of the other Java vendors has ever had any problem with either Sun or Oracle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines Or just like with Microsoft with J++, they can create their own .NET aka Android with either pure Kotlin/Native or Dart and see how successful it will turn out to be without piggybacking into the Java eco-system (Fuchsia).

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
The NDK does not (completely) support the C and C++ standard library. Certain parts (name resolution, at least, IIRC) are missing.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Where is name resolution (of what, DNS?) on ISO C and ISO C++ standard? POSIX is neither part of ISO C nor ISO C++.

gigatexal 7y ago

if Oracle loses does anyone think they'll be more or less open to relicensing ZFS so it's more GPL / Linux friendly?

utopian3 7y ago
Why would ZFS' license be related to the outcome of this court case?
- gigatexal 7y ago
  They could open source it as a part of goodwill to the Linux community

DannyB2 7y ago

Just to point something out. IBM sponsored and was the primary contributor of resources to an independently developed Java work-alike called Apache Harmony. (about JDK 1.5 level, IIRC) Apache Harmony was, naturally, under the Apache license. Google wanted something like Java for Android, so Google used Apache Harmony. Sun was okay with Google having something like Java in Android and had said so. (perhaps reluctantly) Oracle sees Sun for sale, and envisions a big "sue google" sign on Sun's back. Oracle buys Sun, to get Java and sue Google. Very soon after acquisition this becomes apparent. James Gosling leaves Oracle for reasons that were not quite clear at the time, but soon become clear. Oracle claimed Google had used Java code. But Android had Apache Harmony. So Oracle changes its argument to . . . But the APIs!!! (Groklaw had documented all this back in the day.)

jcranmer 7y ago
Google explicitly calls out in its brief the fact that Sun, as the original author of the code, very explicitly did not consider Google to be infringing. Although I do wish Google tried harder to press the point that, based on Oracle's argument that copying the API infringes copyright, Oracle itself is in violation of others' copyright. Ars Technica has an example of that (Amazon's AWS), and the brief does give a vague allusion to this fact, based on what I presume is the trial records: > Notably, Java SE itself “reimplements” interfaces from earlier programming languages. JA154-157; see also JA211.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  According to Gosling they did, just did had they money to do anything against it, and decided to make juice out of lemons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be&t=57m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be... Also Google could have bought Sun and own Java, apparently they did not, as they thought they could get away with it.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    This is inaccurate. According to Gosling in the video you link, Sun believed the clean room implementation probably wasn't clean. That has nothing to do with whether or not Sun believed that usage of the API was infringing.

fotcorn 7y ago

Question: My understanding is that the Supreme Court is here to interpret the constitution and other laws. When it now decides that Oracle is right and APIs are copyrightable, can't the other parts of the government introduce a new law making APIs not copyrightable again?

deleted 7y ago
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gpm 7y ago
If the supreme court decides for Oracle, congress can absolutely pass a new law that reduces the scope of copyright to exclude APIs. The constitution limits what congress can say is copywritable, but doesn't require that they say anything is. There's even a good chance that they will in my opinion, given the amount of lobbying dollars on the side of sanity in this case. Still, I would rather not rely on congress doing anything sensible in a timely manner these days, especially when existing copyright law already sides with Google (IMO). It would also not be retroactive, so everyone under the sun can sue everyone under the sun over previous violations.
tracker1 7y ago
Yes, but there is a lot of financial interest at stake that could make it even more interesting in practice... not good, but interesting.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Congress can, yes.

pgsbathhouse 7y ago

Google's arguments were already refuted in the earliest hearings. There's a reason this is going to the supreme court, the rulings didn't really match up with accepted evidence and testimony of experts in the court. Google will lose this. You don't explicitly copy code, take other people's engineers after exiting licensing talks with the company you took from, and have it not be about stealing someone else's intellectual efforts. The courts have already explicitly denied Google's claim they did this for compatibility or interoperability. The grey area is how much damage Google has done to Oracle, and it's hard to put an explicit price on that. But given the popularity of Android and how Google's has massively benefited from the platform, in no small thanks to the development community around it, and given the absolutely morbid failure of its other community dev efforts it's not really hard to see that Android wouldn't be what it is today without Java; having a familiar platform for developers to code against is priceless (but not legally). Google wanted all the benefits of using Java without actually paying for it. Sun put a lot, and I mean a lot of money into Java. Java had well defined licensing terms for how to use their code. Oracle bought Java. Oracle has the rights to license and price their code however they want. Google does not. Google was in talks with Oracle to license Java but backed out when they didn't want to pay to use it. Instead Google took engineers from the company they copied code from, and re-licensed said code. It's black and white but people's blind hate for Oracle leads them down an argument or view point the courts have already denied and are now ignoring. Don't sacrifice your principles for some cheap hit against Oracle. If Google can just throw their man power around to ignore your license, your open source license will not matter. You will not get credit for the work you do. Google and others can just feel like they don't want to abide by your license, take your code, and re-license it however they want. It's already hard to enforce any type of open source licence but if Google comes out on top it really won't matter moving forward. That is what is at stake here. "What we’ve actually been asked to do (by Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin]) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need." - Email from Tim Lindholm, a Google Engineer From the most recent hearing: "Ultimately, we find that, even assuming the jury was unpersuaded that Google acted in bad faith, the highly commercial and non-transformative nature of the use strongly support the conclusion that the first factor weighs against a finding of fair use." - https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20180327178 https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20180327178

lloydde 7y ago

Last year I went to refresh my memory on the status of the case and all pop press referred to “11,500 lines of code” copier. I couldn’t find any clarification of those are all API calls. Anyone know or better yet have a reference with analysis?

belorn 7y ago

There is a lot comments focusing on which side will win, but I would like to hear peoples thought about how the judges can reach the desired conclusion and what the potential risk or prospects to areas outside of programming API. As long there is not explicit paragraph in copyright about programming API I would think that there will be an effect outside the scope of this lawsuit. One area of copyrighted works I have seen people also question the legibility of being copyrightable is standard documents and law texts. They seems to me as very similar to an program API, if somewhat less strict when implemented. It would definitive lower the cost of interoperability if such works would be lifted outside of copyright. On the risk side however, I am wondering if the Idea–expression distinction get pushed towards the idea side, then will companies just use that finding as an argument in favor of patenting API? 20 years is better than the practically infinity that is copyright, but I am not sure it will make the situation much better in the general case.

ksec 7y ago

Would we need new software license with regards to Copyright protection once this case is closed in Orcale's flavour?