5 ms·
It is absurd that "judges" should be in the position to judge issues which they have no understanding of. I would bet that at least some of the members of the
by blunte 6y ago
It is absurd that "judges" should be in the position to judge issues which they have no understanding of. I would bet that at least some of the members of the Supreme Court do not even know how to check and send email. In the same way they depend on others to perform basic and advanced computer tasks, they should depend on a "jury" of tech experts to filter the cases and provide suggestions or hopefully reasonable analogies to concepts the judges can comprehend.
But now, on the topic of copyrighting APIs... it's stupid, and it's protectionist, and it's the kind of thing a company does when they can't compete or want to try to block competition. Most types of copyright are bogus for the same reasons. Not only is there the strong possibility of more than one person coming up with the same idea at approximately the same time, in different places, but very few ideas are truly unique or revolutionary. Instead, it becomes a race to see who can copyright (or patent) something first - either defensively or with future hopes of preventing competition or extracting payment from a competitor.
If modern copyright and patent law had always existed, humanity would be decades or perhaps centuries behind where it is now.
- 1123581321 6y agoYou are describing Supreme Court clerks with your first suggestion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_law_clerks_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_law_clerks_of_the_S...
- blunte 6y agoI find it hard to believe that even a top performing law school grad would be a subject matter expert comparable to a 5 or 10+ year developer for this topic.
- ledauphin 6y ago(speaking as a software developer) this dramatically underestimates the intelligence of top lawyers relative to average software developers, and also misunderstands the facts of how law works (the subject matter expertose required is still mostly in law rather than in software development).
- blunte 6y agoIntelligence is not equivalent to experience. A very intelligent person might be able to consume and comprehend information better than a normal person, but they will still not understand some nuances and subtleties that only come from lengthy firsthand experience.
- 1123581321 6y agoA great deal of (conflicting!) SME testimony has already gone into this case.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gerash 6y agoI find it frustrating that, say, Kavanaugh can go ahead and imply that all these 83 notable people in your field are having a knee jerk reaction but the sky isn't falling. Why does he think he has any better understanding than 83 notable computer scientists? https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/128391/20200113145027664_18-956%20Google%20v%20Oracle%20Computer%20Scientists%20Merits%20Amicus%20FOR%20FILING.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-956/128391/2020...
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI don't think that's what Kavanaugh was doing. If you're thinking of taking those 83 into account in your ruling, but you aren't exactly sure that they're solid, you ask a question: Hey, Google, explain to me why these are important. It doesn't mean that he's dismissing them. It is at least as likely that he's considering relying on them, and wants to have a solid justification for doing so. (Remember, Oracle also claimed that the world would end if the court decided for Google.)
- gerash 6y agoFair enough. I hope that was indeed the case. I also think that Google lawyer went into legal technicalities with merger doctrine, etc. (which I don't understand) without trying to provide real life analogies (with all their caveats) which some justices tried to do instead. One analogy that comes to my mind is that the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, hand brake, etc. are like APIs of a car and are implemented differently in a gas car vs. an electric car. It makes sense for an electric car company to stick to that API rather than replace the steering wheel with a joystick or buttons and have all drivers learn this new method to drive a new car. It would've made more intuitive sense