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If Oracle gets heavy handed with Java ... doesn't that just mean it's time to use something else? Am I missing something?

by bdunbar 14y ago

salmanapk 14y ago
What Java alternatives do we have other than Mono/C#?
- jrockway 14y ago
  All the other programming languages. What makes C# and Java particularly special?
  - djhworld 14y ago
    Huge communities, vast library ecosystem, widely taught, used a lot in industry
- danieldk 14y ago
  That depends on what you think is important in Java. The language? Plenty of alternatives. The virtual machine? Not so much. Or perhaps even the class library?
A1kmm 14y ago
The legal precedent if the case is reversed on appeal potentially extends beyond just Java; the article is essentially about the ruling that APIs can't be copyrighted, and that numerous amicus curiae briefs argued in favour of APIs being copyrightable. If APIs can be copyrighted, it would seriously harm interoperability. For example, if the ruling holds, someone could make a payments service which replaces Paypal so seamlessly that to integrate it you can just change the 'paypal.com' string for 'competitorsbrand.com' without redoing all the work you did for Paypal integration. This would be bad for Paypal but would be great for making the market far more efficient. Similarly, if it is reversed on appeal, Wine and Mono could be considered copyright violations and sued by Microsoft. If it extended to non-software interfaces a reversal could be even worse - imagine if the idea that turning the round wheel in front of the driver causes a car to move in the corresponding direction was a copyrighted interface? In that particular case, Copyright in the US wouldn't have expired until 1985, so other manufacturers would have needed to come up with different interfaces, and switching makes would have been hard.
- jfim 14y ago
  True. However, Oracle could argue that writing good APIs does require money and domain expertise, which could be considered non-obvious and (maybe) copyrightable. For example, look at the Java date/calendar API; it went through a complete revision and still managed to be broken. It's a good question, however, if API designs should be copyrightable in the same fashion building blueprints are.

If Oracle gets heavy handed with Java ... doesn't that just mean it's time to use something else? Am I missing something?

by bdunbar 14y ago

If Oracle gets heavy handed with Java ... doesn't that just mean it's time to use something else? Am I missing something?

salmanapk 14y ago

What Java alternatives do we have other than Mono/C#?

jrockway 14y ago
All the other programming languages. What makes C# and Java particularly special?
- djhworld 14y ago
  Huge communities, vast library ecosystem, widely taught, used a lot in industry
danieldk 14y ago
That depends on what you think is important in Java. The language? Plenty of alternatives. The virtual machine? Not so much. Or perhaps even the class library?

A1kmm 14y ago

The legal precedent if the case is reversed on appeal potentially extends beyond just Java; the article is essentially about the ruling that APIs can't be copyrighted, and that numerous amicus curiae briefs argued in favour of APIs being copyrightable. If APIs can be copyrighted, it would seriously harm interoperability. For example, if the ruling holds, someone could make a payments service which replaces Paypal so seamlessly that to integrate it you can just change the 'paypal.com' string for 'competitorsbrand.com' without redoing all the work you did for Paypal integration. This would be bad for Paypal but would be great for making the market far more efficient. Similarly, if it is reversed on appeal, Wine and Mono could be considered copyright violations and sued by Microsoft. If it extended to non-software interfaces a reversal could be even worse - imagine if the idea that turning the round wheel in front of the driver causes a car to move in the corresponding direction was a copyrighted interface? In that particular case, Copyright in the US wouldn't have expired until 1985, so other manufacturers would have needed to come up with different interfaces, and switching makes would have been hard.

jfim 14y ago
True. However, Oracle could argue that writing good APIs does require money and domain expertise, which could be considered non-obvious and (maybe) copyrightable. For example, look at the Java date/calendar API; it went through a complete revision and still managed to be broken. It's a good question, however, if API designs should be copyrightable in the same fashion building blueprints are.