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> I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed. That’s not what I’m suggesting. If Goog
by jolux 6y ago
> I've literally never seen any suggestion that if Google had written this code themselves anything would have changed.
That’s not what I’m suggesting. If Google had written it themselves it would have had to have been identical, and that is why it’s infringement. The code is the same in the Android SDK as it is in Harmony and Java SE. It doesn’t matter where they got it from, it’s copyrighted, and the copyright belongs to Oracle.
I’m no fan of Oracle, but I also believe that Google has a history of playing fast and loose with copying other people’s technologies and asking for forgiveness later. My overall opinion about the consequences of that case are similar to those expressed in this article: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-copyright-fair-use/ https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-c...
- gpm 6y ago> which were taken from Apache Harmony, an open-source cleanroom Java implementation developed by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) > - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v._Oracle_America In what world does Oracle own the copyright to this code? It might (if you buy Oracle's api argument) be an illegal derivative work of Oracle's api, but even that doesn't make them own it. I'm also very curious to see a source that this is the same code as in Java SE, that seems highly unlikely...
- jolux 6y agoIt’s an illegal derivative. Sun never granted a license. And of course the interface declaring code will be the same, otherwise the types would be incompatible and the documentation would be confusing: http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-asks-court-to-clear-up-potential.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-asks-court-to-clea...
- wbl 6y agoHistorically functionally required aspects of a work have not been considered subject to copyright. Oracle's position is contrary to a long history of reimplementation of APIs.
- jolux 6y agoIt’s not functionally required because there are multiple (infinite, even) ways of implementing the functionality of most APIs, and the specific choice of function names and types and such chosen is itself a creative process. This was the ruling the appeals court came to.