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Can someone explain what the practical outcomes are of this verdict? For programmers and companies?

• revelation 14y ago
  This particular one? Not much. But its good news to hear that a jury isn't to be fooled by mispresenting facts. Oracle literally tried to present dexopt as a dynamic optimizer, because it optimizes for the hardware/software configuration on your smartphone. Thats coming from the makers of the HotSpot VM.
  • waqf 14y ago
    I would rather say that Oracle tried to present "dynamic" as a word which refers to what dexopt does. Because there was no dispute over what dexopt does, only over what "dynamic" means.
• 0x09 14y ago
  The all-important conclusion (which has yet to be reached) is to the question of whether APIs can be copyrighted. Up until now, all of our software licensing laws have operated under the assumption that APIs and header files are not copyrightable. At this stage it's expected that the status quo will be maintained, which is good for mostly everyone. If the judge were to rule otherwise, and the rule were to be enforced, many software licenses would need to be adapted, and a lot of messy things start happening for projects that provide compatibility with other APIs. As an example, something like GNUstep couldn't exist.
• taligent 14y ago
  The outcome for and against would have meant absolutely nothing for programmers and companies. It was all about Oracle extracting licensing fees from Google.
  • akmiller 14y ago
    That's not true. Almost all decisions in court are made in light of similar cases that had been tried in the past. Therefore, it stands to reason that any decision made, whether for or against Google, could effect future decisions for companies involved in similar suits. I think, in this particular instance, a decision against Google could have set a terrible precedent.