2 ms·
Would this give Oracle the ability to send a retroactive bill to Google for the great privilege of using a Java all these years under the assumption that Progra
by maeon3 15y ago
Would this give Oracle the ability to send a retroactive bill to Google for the great privilege of using a Java all these years under the assumption that Programming languages are not copyrightable?
Will new laws be retroactive? Does this mean the TRUE inventor gets a windfall? Does this mean James Gosling is a trillionaire? Who is awarded the rights of a language when new laws are created to copyright things that were previously not copyrighted? I guess it is he who can afford the most lawyers and the most justice. When previously non copyrighted things are copyrighted, the ownership should go to the parties involved in CREATING the language (gosling and sun micro), not the current holders of the language itself. It's like people are trading copyrights and patents as stocks in a stock market. We are trying to reward the content creators here. Not the lawyers and machine distributing it.
- bluedanieru 15y agoWho's this "we" trying to reward content creators? Whose side do you think legislators are on? Copyright law in its current form exists mainly to make The Walt Disney Company money, after all they're the ones who paid for all the fucking laws.
- wmf 15y agoI don't think they're talking about changing the law. I suspect Oracle's position is that programming languages (including Java) have been copyrightable all along. Also, talking about "true inventors" is laughable in our work-for-hire industry.