5 ms·

Surprised that Oracle hasn't yet sued these developers for some api violation or similar bullshit.

by webmobdev 6y ago

jolux 6y ago
I mean, this is software that consumes an Oracle API, not software that replicates and exposes an Oracle API.
- qz2 6y ago
  Larry's lawyers would probably see that as a technicality which can be resolved in court.
  - schoolornot 6y ago
    AWS DMS basically does this and then some.
    - jolux 6y ago
      Looks to be another migration service.
  - jolux 6y ago
    I wouldn’t put it past them but I think a more analogous case would be Postgres copying all the SQL for their default schemas for compatibility reasons.
    - pulse7 6y ago
      Just like Oracle copied IBM's SQL in the late 70's...
      - jolux 6y ago
        People always say this but it’s not at all clear cut to me that this is covered by the appeals court’s ruling.
- gpm 6y ago
  Wouldn't assuming an oracle api make it a derivative work though...
  - jolux 6y ago
    I mean I don’t think the Oracle license is viral? I don’t know much about proprietary software licensing though.
    - gpm 6y ago
      The default state of copyrighted works (and most commercial licenses) is "no derivatives allowed". A viral license is "derivative works allowed only if they are distributed under the same license". A permissive open source license is "derivative works allowed and they can be licensed freely". I imagine any license oracle has offered on it's db is the no derivative works kind not an open source kind.
      - jolux 6y ago
        I understand copyright but I’m not sure an open source library that uses a proprietary API is considered a derivative work. Is there case law here?
        gpm 6y ago
        Oh, so the other context here is the Google Oracle lawsuit. In it Oracle is arguing that google implementing portions of the java standard library api in android was copyright infringement. It's due in front of the supreme court October 7th (Wednesday after next). It's... certainly a novel interpretation of what is copyrightable, and if they win it's going to cause quite a few problems (e.g. wine is going to be infringing windows copyright, and windows is going to be infringing Linux's copyright (with WSL and some of their other apis), and so on and so forth. Literally everyone, including oracle (see: sql, cloud apis, etc), has been acting like APIs aren't copyrightable. So anyways, no, no case law (yet) since no one has even established that APIs are copyrightable.

Surprised that Oracle hasn't yet sued these developers for some api violation or similar bullshit.

jolux 6y ago

I mean, this is software that consumes an Oracle API, not software that replicates and exposes an Oracle API.

qz2 6y ago
Larry's lawyers would probably see that as a technicality which can be resolved in court.
- schoolornot 6y ago
  AWS DMS basically does this and then some.
  - jolux 6y ago
    Looks to be another migration service.
- jolux 6y ago
  I wouldn’t put it past them but I think a more analogous case would be Postgres copying all the SQL for their default schemas for compatibility reasons.
  - pulse7 6y ago
    Just like Oracle copied IBM's SQL in the late 70's...
    - jolux 6y ago
      People always say this but it’s not at all clear cut to me that this is covered by the appeals court’s ruling.
gpm 6y ago
Wouldn't assuming an oracle api make it a derivative work though...
- jolux 6y ago
  I mean I don’t think the Oracle license is viral? I don’t know much about proprietary software licensing though.
  - gpm 6y ago
    The default state of copyrighted works (and most commercial licenses) is "no derivatives allowed". A viral license is "derivative works allowed only if they are distributed under the same license". A permissive open source license is "derivative works allowed and they can be licensed freely". I imagine any license oracle has offered on it's db is the no derivative works kind not an open source kind.
    - jolux 6y ago
      I understand copyright but I’m not sure an open source library that uses a proprietary API is considered a derivative work. Is there case law here?
      - gpm 6y ago
        Oh, so the other context here is the Google Oracle lawsuit. In it Oracle is arguing that google implementing portions of the java standard library api in android was copyright infringement. It's due in front of the supreme court October 7th (Wednesday after next). It's... certainly a novel interpretation of what is copyrightable, and if they win it's going to cause quite a few problems (e.g. wine is going to be infringing windows copyright, and windows is going to be infringing Linux's copyright (with WSL and some of their other apis), and so on and so forth. Literally everyone, including oracle (see: sql, cloud apis, etc), has been acting like APIs aren't copyrightable. So anyways, no, no case law (yet) since no one has even established that APIs are copyrightable.