4 ms·

> It's sort of like asking users to turn a corner of their brain into farmland but then giving the compiler authors the key to the padlock on the fence. Users d

by paulgb 5y ago

> It's sort of like asking users to turn a corner of their brain into farmland but then giving the compiler authors the key to the padlock on the fence. Users don't want to give financial control over a part of their own headspace to someone else. Well put. I think this is why the Google/Oracle court battle was so contentious to a lot of programmers. It wasn't just that people hate Oracle (sure, that too), but also that it was about Oracle trying to claim a monopoly on whatever piece of our brains is dedicated to our knowledge of Java.

grumblenum 5y ago
Well, to be fair, Google is in a unique position to shape opinions and manufacture outrage over their right to ham-fistedly thumb their nose at Oracle's software licenses. Google has hundreds of patents, and they have some applications for patent which are total nonsense (like the heart hand gesture... seriously). I don't think any party involved has a credible moral objection to intellectual property rights. I think they do have different friends D.C.
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  While I do have some sympathy for the argument that Google has too much power in the court of public opinion, Oracle was clearly on the wrong side of history here. The damage to the industry from allowing APIs to be copyrighted would have been immense.
  - grumblenum 5y ago
    >Oracle was clearly on the wrong side of history here. I agree insofar as that is a euphemism to mean that Oracle is not tightly aligned with the interests of the left. Google is a big donor both in cash and in kind. Oracle is much less so. > The damage to the industry from allowing APIs to be copyrighted would have been immense. If I were to copy Google Sheets, offer an online service called "Google Sheets" and the only difference is that I modified a handful of implementation details so the service would run my spyware, and not Google's, then I would lose any copyright claims made by Google, hands down. You could make an identical argument that the web interface is an "API" and copying their code is a necessity of providing equivalent functionality. Google ripped off Sun and got away with it because the US legal process is a farce. Denying the right to copyright ANY code at all would be a morally defensible position, but that's not the ruling.
    - paulgb 5y ago
      If you stole the source of Google Spreadsheets and built it into your product, of course you’d win. Oracle did not claim that Google did that. If you built a spreadsheet app that was compatible with Google Spreadsheets’ formula language, Google (rightfully) wouldn’t have much of a case. In fact, Google pretty much did this by implementing much of Excel’s formula language.

by paulgb 5y ago

grumblenum 5y ago

Well, to be fair, Google is in a unique position to shape opinions and manufacture outrage over their right to ham-fistedly thumb their nose at Oracle's software licenses. Google has hundreds of patents, and they have some applications for patent which are total nonsense (like the heart hand gesture... seriously). I don't think any party involved has a credible moral objection to intellectual property rights. I think they do have different friends D.C.

TheCoelacanth 5y ago
While I do have some sympathy for the argument that Google has too much power in the court of public opinion, Oracle was clearly on the wrong side of history here. The damage to the industry from allowing APIs to be copyrighted would have been immense.
- grumblenum 5y ago
  >Oracle was clearly on the wrong side of history here. I agree insofar as that is a euphemism to mean that Oracle is not tightly aligned with the interests of the left. Google is a big donor both in cash and in kind. Oracle is much less so. > The damage to the industry from allowing APIs to be copyrighted would have been immense. If I were to copy Google Sheets, offer an online service called "Google Sheets" and the only difference is that I modified a handful of implementation details so the service would run my spyware, and not Google's, then I would lose any copyright claims made by Google, hands down. You could make an identical argument that the web interface is an "API" and copying their code is a necessity of providing equivalent functionality. Google ripped off Sun and got away with it because the US legal process is a farce. Denying the right to copyright ANY code at all would be a morally defensible position, but that's not the ruling.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    If you stole the source of Google Spreadsheets and built it into your product, of course you’d win. Oracle did not claim that Google did that. If you built a spreadsheet app that was compatible with Google Spreadsheets’ formula language, Google (rightfully) wouldn’t have much of a case. In fact, Google pretty much did this by implementing much of Excel’s formula language.