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That's why Google was so cautious to avoid using the Java trademark, and strictly talked about the Dalvik bytecode and compiler and so on. Java compatibility i
by xorcist 7y ago
That's why Google was so cautious to avoid using the Java trademark, and strictly talked about the Dalvik bytecode and compiler and so on.
Java compatibility is enforced by trademarks. In order to call something Java it has to pass certain tests and there is a cost attached to it. There has been many free Java implementations before that had to call themselves something else to be in the clear, IcedTea being perhaps the most well known.
This litigation, however, was never about trademark law. Oracle knows that would be a short lived process. They instead made up argument about how function definitions under certain circumstances could be copyrighted, that could keep their lawyers busy for a long time. By throwing a lot of money at this they could sow fear about their competitor's business model. It's straight out of the Microsoft, by way of SCO, playbook.
- pjmlp 7y agoIronically, given that Android Java is a J++ copy cat regarding the damage to the Java portability story, trademark or not. Worse, Google cleverarly takes advantage of their Android Java fork stagnation to sell Kotlin over Java, while being fully aware that modern Java makes many of those code examples pro Kotlin worthless.
- dtech 7y agoThis is all pretty irrelevant whatboutism. It is all entirely unrelated to Oracle sueing Google. Google could be 100% tracking newer Java language features and Oracle would still have made this lawsuits. It's financial compensation or competitive advantage they are after or something, compatiblity and feature parity is very low on Oracle lawyer's list.
- pjmlp 7y agoLove this Oracle hate around here. Sun and Oracle never sued other JVM implementations, only Microsoft and Google, aka J++ and Android Java. If Google did not wanted a lawsuit, they could have easily made an offer to buy Sun after torpedoing their profits helping the company to close doors, no love for Google from my side on this story.
- wtetzner 7y agoThis isn't about loving or hating Google or Oracle. It's about the implications of APIs being copyrightable.
- pjmlp 7y agoAPIs aren't designed in vacuum, they are the outcome of the work of a group of people that put in the effort and endless hours of work to design them. Whoever is paying their salaries has the right to decide how they get used. If this is the way to fix Android Java, or fully replace it with Flutter, then so be it.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago> APIs aren't designed in vacuum, they are the outcome of the work of a group of people that put in the effort and endless hours of work to design them. You could say the same about the design of an electrical plug or a radio signaling protocol. That doesn't make the functional aspects of the design subject to copyright.
- pjmlp 7y agoBad examples, they are protected by certifications, market compliance processes, and paying for ISO and similar standard documents. Even implementators of languages considered free beer like C and C++, have at the end of the day have someone paying for those 100 CHF. Naturally there are black markets to work around those issues, then if a fire can be tracked back to a not-certified plug, the insurance can consider it isn't responsible for paying.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago> Bad examples, they are protected by certifications, market compliance processes, and paying for ISO and similar standard documents. So then what do you need copyright for? Do the same thing for your API. Copyright is the wrong tool for this. But in particular, notice that if your "market compliance processes" start trying to charge monopoly rents, someone will reverse engineer the thing and launch a competing compliance process which insurance companies will happily accept as long as it has reasonable quality. Also notice that the compliance process for things like that is generally shepherded by a third party non-profit like UL or IEEE and not a competitor in the same market.