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> By grabbing parts of APIs, Google took "the most important, the most appealing" parts of Java, Oracle's lawyer told a three-judge panel. ... this made me lau

by nly 13y ago

> By grabbing parts of APIs, Google took "the most important, the most appealing" parts of Java, Oracle's lawyer told a three-judge panel. ... this made me laugh. I find Javas APIs horrific and muddled. Surely not one of the "most appealing" parts?

nl 13y ago
They provide compatibility with the broard range of Java code and APIs. Of course they are the most appealing part.
bsdetector 13y ago
It's not that Java APIs are particularly good, but that they exist and are massive in scope. Sun put a ton of work into designing and documenting these APIs, and morally speaking they should be compensated by having some kind of ownership over it. If the appeal finds for Oracle I'll laugh... Google at least hastened Sun's demise by being too cheap to pay for Java, then they were too cheap to buy Sun when it was for sale. If they end up having to pay Oracle for it, that's karma at work.
- nly 13y ago
  Google never wanted Java, they just want to tap in to one of the largest developer populations around. Licensing Java or buying Sun wasn't in their interests, and this has been proven in court.
- haberman 13y ago
  > Sun put a ton of work into designing and documenting these APIs, and morally speaking they should be compensated by having some kind of ownership over it. And how much work did Tim Berners-Lee put into HTTP/HTML, the Unicode Consortium into Unicode, the W3C into XML, etc? The Java ecosystem depends heavily on these and many more. What kind of licensing agreement does Oracle have with the W3C? If you can own copyright on an API, I can't imagine what argument you would use to justify implementing a protocol without licensing it first. Some parts of the Java API implement APIs that others have designed. Should Oracle need a licensing agreement with the W3C to implement the DOM? Some parts of the Java API are thin wrappers around existing APIs. Is the Java API a derivative work of CORBA? Does Oracle need a licensing agreement with OMG?
  - josephlord 13y ago
    That API's can be copyrighted doesn't mean that they can't be licensed, even freely. Tim Berners-Lee specifically granted permission and encouraged people to adopt the WWW and create their own implementations. The W3C allows people to use its standards freely too (I'm not sure if there is a formal license grant or not). I don't know the status of CORBA but it is plausible that Sun/Oracle did sign agreements to adopt those specifications or that they were properly granted to all comers. Sum encouraged adoption of Java but was always specific and controlling of the distribution of runtimes and development kits. There were always licenses to agree to and real contracts available to people who wanted to develop their own Java platforms. They were quite strict on compatibility and what versions should be supported on what sorts of devices. They did release the JDK under the GPL. If Google had declared that they were using the GPL licensed code and were obeying the terms then they would have been entitled to proceed but they did not do that. They chose to develop the incompatible Dalvik to deliberately avoid Sun's contractual obligations but still benefit from the API design, documentation and existing developer experience expensively created by Sun.
    - haberman 13y ago
      > Tim Berners-Lee specifically granted permission and encouraged people to adopt the WWW and create their own implementations. > I'm not sure if there is a formal license grant or not Where is the actual license? If formats are truly copyrightable, then general "encouragement" is not sufficient, you would need an explicit license, as every open source project has to allow copying of copyrighted code. Where is the actual document that says you can use HTML without infringing the copyright of Tim Berners-Lee or the W3C? The answer is that there isn't one, because no one thinks that formats themselves are copyrightable. > They chose to develop the incompatible Dalvik to deliberately avoid Sun's contractual obligations but still benefit from the API design, documentation and existing developer experience expensively created by Sun. Writing books about your technology does not mean you somehow own the experience that people gain from reading them. Spending a lot of money does not entitle you to exert however much control you feel you deserve. "Intellectual property" is a balance between the interests of creators and the interests of society. Giving first movers complete control over APIs, formats, and languages that become popular would enable a new wave of rent-seeking, very much like the patent trolling we see now.

by nly 13y ago

nl 13y ago

They provide compatibility with the broard range of Java code and APIs. Of course they are the most appealing part.

bsdetector 13y ago

It's not that Java APIs are particularly good, but that they exist and are massive in scope. Sun put a ton of work into designing and documenting these APIs, and morally speaking they should be compensated by having some kind of ownership over it. If the appeal finds for Oracle I'll laugh... Google at least hastened Sun's demise by being too cheap to pay for Java, then they were too cheap to buy Sun when it was for sale. If they end up having to pay Oracle for it, that's karma at work.

nly 13y ago
Google never wanted Java, they just want to tap in to one of the largest developer populations around. Licensing Java or buying Sun wasn't in their interests, and this has been proven in court.
haberman 13y ago
> Sun put a ton of work into designing and documenting these APIs, and morally speaking they should be compensated by having some kind of ownership over it. And how much work did Tim Berners-Lee put into HTTP/HTML, the Unicode Consortium into Unicode, the W3C into XML, etc? The Java ecosystem depends heavily on these and many more. What kind of licensing agreement does Oracle have with the W3C? If you can own copyright on an API, I can't imagine what argument you would use to justify implementing a protocol without licensing it first. Some parts of the Java API implement APIs that others have designed. Should Oracle need a licensing agreement with the W3C to implement the DOM? Some parts of the Java API are thin wrappers around existing APIs. Is the Java API a derivative work of CORBA? Does Oracle need a licensing agreement with OMG?
- josephlord 13y ago
  That API's can be copyrighted doesn't mean that they can't be licensed, even freely. Tim Berners-Lee specifically granted permission and encouraged people to adopt the WWW and create their own implementations. The W3C allows people to use its standards freely too (I'm not sure if there is a formal license grant or not). I don't know the status of CORBA but it is plausible that Sun/Oracle did sign agreements to adopt those specifications or that they were properly granted to all comers. Sum encouraged adoption of Java but was always specific and controlling of the distribution of runtimes and development kits. There were always licenses to agree to and real contracts available to people who wanted to develop their own Java platforms. They were quite strict on compatibility and what versions should be supported on what sorts of devices. They did release the JDK under the GPL. If Google had declared that they were using the GPL licensed code and were obeying the terms then they would have been entitled to proceed but they did not do that. They chose to develop the incompatible Dalvik to deliberately avoid Sun's contractual obligations but still benefit from the API design, documentation and existing developer experience expensively created by Sun.
  - haberman 13y ago
    > Tim Berners-Lee specifically granted permission and encouraged people to adopt the WWW and create their own implementations. > I'm not sure if there is a formal license grant or not Where is the actual license? If formats are truly copyrightable, then general "encouragement" is not sufficient, you would need an explicit license, as every open source project has to allow copying of copyrighted code. Where is the actual document that says you can use HTML without infringing the copyright of Tim Berners-Lee or the W3C? The answer is that there isn't one, because no one thinks that formats themselves are copyrightable. > They chose to develop the incompatible Dalvik to deliberately avoid Sun's contractual obligations but still benefit from the API design, documentation and existing developer experience expensively created by Sun. Writing books about your technology does not mean you somehow own the experience that people gain from reading them. Spending a lot of money does not entitle you to exert however much control you feel you deserve. "Intellectual property" is a balance between the interests of creators and the interests of society. Giving first movers complete control over APIs, formats, and languages that become popular would enable a new wave of rent-seeking, very much like the patent trolling we see now.