Supreme Court May Decide the Fate of APIs (But Also Klingonese and Dothraki) 210
New submitter nerdpocalypse writes: In a larger battle than even Godzilla v. Mothra, Google v. Oracle threatens not only Japan but the entire nerd world. What is at stake is how a language can be [copyrighted]. This affects not just programming languages, APIs, and everything that runs ... well ... everything, but also the copyright status of new languages such as Klingon and Dothraki.
SFLC's brief explains parts of this well (Score:5, Informative)
Software Freedom Law Center's brief regarding whether the Supreme Court should take the case or not:
https://www.softwarefreedom.or... [softwarefreedom.org]
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So in layman's terms... (Score:5, Insightful)
So in layman's terms... the SFLC want the Supreme to refuse to hear the case, because they think that the copying of a trivial function, difficult to implement in any other embodiment, allows a "thin end of the wedge" argument in favor of GPL'ing everything on Android.
They specifically cite the Lotus v. Borland case in support of this.
They specifically avoid citing the Ashton Tate v. Fox Software case, because doing so would contradict their claims, and weaken the argument that the Supreme court should hear the case.
Clearly, someone needs to file an Amicus brief citing Ashton Tate v. Fox Software, and suggest that the brief needs to be heard.
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They specifically avoid citing the Ashton Tate v. Fox Software case,
how does Ashton Tate v Fox Software relate to this? That case was thrown out on a technicality, and was eventually dropped.
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Unclean hands is not a mere technicality.
It's a technicality because it's unrelated to the main questions of the case.
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I saw it as even less than copying of a trivial function, but rather simply copying the *name* of that function to do the same thing.
Copyright doesn't protect the names of things... trademarks do. Is Oracle planning on arguing that they have trademarked the names of every Java api function that Google happens to have used the same name for?
Re:SFLC's brief explains parts of this well (Score:5, Interesting)
What I gather is the linked article at Slate seems more ominous than this sounds.
The Slate article is sensationalistic, like most news these days, designed to make people feel outrage.
From the brief, I understand that Google took code and changed it (which may or may not be against the terms) and then redistributed it (via the SDK? the Android OS?) for developers to use.
Java was designed with the intention of every implementation to be 100% compatible.....the same APIs, the same runtime, etc. When Google made Android, they used an incompatible version of Java (mainly changing UI code, but also the runtime and some other things). They used Java to make things easier for developers.
So now the question is whether it is allowed for Google to do that, or if Oracle has the right to stop them. This isn't about whether you are violating copyright if you use a language, and that's one area the Slate article seems confused.
It is also not about whether you can use an API for interoperability purposes. That is covered by fair use, and will still be covered by fair use, no matter how this case is decided. But interoperability not why Android used Java.......Android used Java to make it easier for developers to write programs for their system.
API versus Look and Feel (Score:2)
We nerds know what API is. Unfortunately most of the non-nerds out there can't grasp the concept of API
Most of them will eventually equate "API" with "look and feel" - and they will think that if Microsoft can get to defend their "Windows look and feel" of course Oracle can deny Google to use their Java API
Add to that Apple at one time obtained a 'rounded corner' patent, therefore, I will not be surprised if the SCOTUS ending up siding with Oracle
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First, foremost, always and finally, API's are ultimately a collection of names. Names are not copyrightable entities.
The only way you can infringe on somebody's IP for copying a name of something is if that name was trademarked.... but trademark and copyright are two different things. Java may be trademarked, but that's not what Google copied... they copied the
of the functions that are in Java. Unless Oracle can show they've trademarked the names that Google copied, I can't see how they can re
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First, foremost, always and finally, API's are ultimately a collection of names. Names are not copyrightable entities.
What makes you think that names are not copyrightable? We are not talking about real names of persons here, but made up names of functions, constants, and so on. In principle, some text is not copyrightable if it had to be the way it is and didn't require any creative effort. So the New York phone book isn't copyrightable, because it contains (except for mistakes) exactly the text that it should contain. But the names in an API may very well be copyrightable, because the creator of the API could have used a
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Nice summary, but beyond the intention that all Java implementations be 100% compatible, Sun released much of Java under GNU GPL in 2006.
I will admit up front that I tried to read the GNU licensing back in the early 90's and I found it to be such a tar-pit-trap of self referencing and whole creation of terminology that I have felt ill towards Stallman ever since
I believe that this litigation may be the ultimate dissection of the GNU GPL and I am more than interested in seeing how the Supreme Court parses it
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I believe that this litigation may be the ultimate dissection of the GNU GPL and I am more than interested in seeing how the Supreme Court parses it all out.
The most likely scenario is that the supreme court will decline to hear the case, and it will be sent back to a lower court to see if Google can make a case for fair use (which might involve the GPL).
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Java was designed with the intention of every implementation to be 100% compatible.....the same APIs, the same runtime, etc.
Who are you trying to fool?
Of course that's the way Java was designed! But the very moment Oracle gained rights to it, Oracle started adjusting the code and the license to give Oracle unique compatibility and unique licensing. Anyone who thinks otherwise just hasn't watched it happen. Java is the single biggest RECENT reason people have accused Oracle of trying to kill open source. For a while MySQL took the headlines but that's done.
MySQL... same story in a nutshell. That's why nobody uses Oracle MyS
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Of course that's the way Java was designed! But the very moment Oracle gained rights to it, Oracle started adjusting the code and the license to give Oracle unique compatibility and unique licensing.
Really? What have they changed? I was trying to find the license earlier, but couldn't find it.
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the gist is the java support classes, like String etc, that they used. like, they're used exactly like oracles String class and more importantly named as such as well. if that's copyrightable or not... like if you make an api that uses com.phantomfive.java.superApi can someone else make an implementation of that api and use your naming?
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NB even if it is copyrightable, someone can still make an implementation under fair use: especially for interoperability purposes.
"Fair use" in copyright law has a different meaning than "I'm using it, and what I'm doing is fair". Google can make a parody of Java and claim fair use :-)
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but it's very different from this... much of what this comes down to is many assuming some things would be fair use, while Oracle is saying they aren't:
You are wrong here, the issue before the court is not fair use. In order for it to be fair use, the thing must be copyrightable in the first place. The question before the court is whether it is copyrightable in the first place (the answer is probably yes.......nearly everything is).
If the court decides APIs are copyrightable, the case will be sent back to a lower court to determine if Google has a fair use defense.
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It depends on what you mean by 'entire API'. Modern computer languages are more than just the syntax and compiler. Even C would be pretty useless as a language without a standard set of libraries that every C app uses. sprintf is arguably not a library API, but an intergral part of the C language. Same goes for the classes in the 'java' API. Without them, it's not Java, and you can't claim that the language is freely implementable without those API's also being freely implementable. Otherwise, there a
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If all Google has done is re-impolement the API using Oracle's names and calling sequences but its own code, then Oracle has no case. Or rather, the logical, nerdly conclusion would be that it has no case. Judges and lawyers may think otherwise.
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Copying the *name* of something is not ever a copyright infringement. Names are not copyrightable.
It may be a trademark infringement, however.
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It's not just one name/word, but multiple names/words in a single API call, and thousands of API methods copied exactly, not just one or two.
Also, don't forget than an API declaration in Java syntax is useless without the API comment -- the documentation that tells you what the API does, what exactly are the inputs and outputs, and any limitations. That too was copied by Google.
We're not dealing with copying
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> but rather copying tens of thousands of words scattered throughout the Java Standard Library implementation.
Which, in turn, are copied from other standard library implementations, at least as far back as The C Standard Library, and and The C Programming Language.
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Because only literary works and works with sentences having proper grammar can be copyrighted? Who made up that rule?
This API issue is about creative expression, and with or without grammar, there is plenty of creative expression in designing APIs. Or is it a mindless and easy task so that you use can use a perl script to generate API for your library?
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I didn't suggest that was the case... I only said it would take more than just reciting nouns. The nouns would actually need to be *USED* in some kind of creative fashion, and facts (such as saying that a particular noun exists, which is what the human-readable form of an API is) are not creative.
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It's not all nouns. Class/Interface name: Noun or sentence fragment Method name: verb, sentence fragment or noun Method arguments: noun or sentence fragment I fail to see how an API containing all nouns would be comprehensible to any programmer using the API.
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Correct. Copyright only protects creative works, and its purpose is to encourage publication of creative works. APIs are not creative works. And even if they were, since the very nature of APIs makes it necessary to publish and document them, there is no need to provide a separate incentive.
Keep in mind that copyright doesn't exist to funnel money to corporations like Oracle, it exists t
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Based on what exactly? You're completely wrong.
Copyright encourages people/companies to create stuff by ensuring no one can copy/use their creation without payment, i.e., it blocks freeloaders.
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Based on the current legal situation (they haven't received copyright protection in the past), and based on the fact that most of them are simply functional.
It's unproven that copyright accomplishes that even for the stuff it clearly applies to (books, music, etc.).
But as far as APIs are concerned, even that argument
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Note that if Java's API were judged to be a creative work, then Java's APIs themselves would be violating many other copyrights, since they are derived from APIs found in Smalltalk, C++, and others.
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You seem to be confusing copyright with patents. Copyright deals with preventing copying of "expressions of ideas," whereas patents deal with preventing copying of "basic structure or operations" of ideas. What creative expression has Java copied from Smalltalk or C++?
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The general structure and design of APIs. If APIs are copyrightable like literature, then translation of an API from Smalltalk to Java should fall under the original copyright just like translations do for literature. Even within the same programming language, literary plots can be copyrighted, so if APIs are copyrightable, then the structure of an API should also be protected, just like a literary plot. And if there is any creativity in the Jav
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Google copied the name and calling sequences in the API, not Oracle's code. Since a code library is a functional extension of the language the API is for, Oracle is attempting to extend the concept of copyright to elements of the language itself. If it can do that, we lose another big chunk of our freedoms.
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Technically, that API is also code because it's written in the Java language syntax. Why the double standards: API declaration code should not be copyrightable, it should be public domain, whereas API implementation can be copyrighted.
False argument: a library is o
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An API extends the function (not the syntax) of a language by allowing its users to do more things in some standard manner. Oracle can copyright the code with which it implements the API, but so far not the names and calling sequences it chooses for its library.
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Every programming language has a different API to provide the exact same functionality to apps. How difficult would it be for Google to create another set of API methods that are different from the Java lib, but provide the same functionality as the Java lib?
The functionality of the java library is not patented, rather the expression (syntax) of the functionality is copyrighted. You can use different method names and argument names and change the scope of the method and class to differentiate from Java. In
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For what? For Implementing standard POSIX APIs?
POSIX.1-2008 is simultaneously IEEE Std 1003.1â-2008 and The Open Group Technical Standard Base Specifications, Issue 7.
I don't think any single company owns a IEEE standard.
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Not a problem if Oracle gives these distros a free license since it has few users. Android, on the other hand, has billions of users and Google has paid exactly $0 for Java the language or java the library.
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Sorry, but ripping the entire API and reimplementing it is not fair use.
It can be fair use........for example, if the purpose is interoperability......but that is a defense Google would have to make.
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How much would it cost for Google to license Java from Oracle? Also, why don't they use their "Go" language instead of Java if the intention is to save cost of licensing Java?
I don't think there is any case for interoperability since Android Java apps don't run on other platforms. Similarly, Java apps from other platforms don't run on Android OS.
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How much would it cost for Google to license Java from Oracle?
Oracle wants a billion at least.
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Bullshit. If your point is correct, then Compaq's reverse engineered BIOS was illegal and the whole era of the PC Clone was a violation of IBM's IP rights. We'd need to pry the BIOS out of every PC Compatible in existence. And since IBM doesn't even make PCs anymore, that means we all cease using desktop and laptop PCs. It probably even applies to Apple by this point.
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Everyone knows the importance of software today and you cant just rip off IP
Won't someone think of the lawyers?! Ohh, yes, you. Thanks :-)
Pretty much all software is built on the shoulders of giants, all of the base work is math theory. The only parts of software that I can agree should be covered by IP is trademarks, User Interfaces, or raw source code.
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If they win, APIs are copyrightable and their databases using all sorts of APIs/SQL etc. are owned by their respective owners. Oracle thus have a whole database business they would lose to others
I don't think anyone ever said, "I want to use Oracle because the APIs are so amazing." Usually it's more like, "that's a horrible cludge but at least the functionality is there." OracleDB gets use because of the implementation, not the API.
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Why not check the web first? Almost the entire case is about API copyrights.
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It probably wasn't even copied, it was written by the same developer, who happened to use the same variable names for an uncreative piece of boiler plate code.
And that's the important question, whether it was copied or not. Having identical code raises a strong suspicion of copying. However, if you threw away some code that I wrote last week and asked me to write it again, there's a good chance that the result would be identical. Especially for some trivial code like this, where the exact result of the function, including exceptions thrown, has been prescribed.
Godzilla (Score:2)
We are all aware that Godzilla is now a citizen of Japan?
Jurisdiction (Score:5, Funny)
The US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction outside of the USA.
So this isn't going to affect Klingons
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Unless they visit the USA.
Re: Jurisdiction (Score:2)
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No need to enter the country to fall under US jurisdiction. Just have a US bank account will do.
Or post leaked information on the internet that the US government does not want exposed, no matter if you're not a US citizen nor received/published the information within the borders of the US or it's Territories.
That's just how fascists roll.
Strat
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Like all courts, SCOTUS has jurisdiction where it can enforce its rulings. That means on US territory, against people with US bank accounts, against companies doing business on US soil, against people who travel to the US, against nations the US invades, etc. That isn't rocket science, and it has nothing to do with "fascism".
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Like all courts, SCOTUS has jurisdiction where it can enforce its rulings. That means on US territory, against people with US bank accounts, against companies doing business on US soil, against people who travel to the US, against nations the US invades, etc. That isn't rocket science, and it has nothing to do with "fascism".
Tell that to Julian Assange. The US wants to bury the guy under the prison, and has and still is going to incredible lengths to get their fascistic hands him.
Strat
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But doesn't the studio own the Klingon worlds? Once the Klingon's go back to work on the world sets then the studio control them. Outside of the studios when not on company time they are free.
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Google knows the Klingon Emperor's fetishes while Oracle helps keep his secret Ferenginar bank accounts organized. The US Supreme Court is a helpful referee so the two won't inflict contradictory blackmail on the helpless absolute ruler and leave him - and everyone below him - with no good options. Because it's so well-organized and considerate of consequences, corruption is hardly worthy of the name anymore
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But the TPP wants to extend US Copyright terms to a lot of new jurisdictions. So, watch out Klingons - if you happen to live along the Pacific rim.
The TPP may not be an entirely bad thing, and Obama may not be lying about that. But without fixing US intellectual property laws, extending them to the world negates any possible good aspects of these trade agreements. So no TA's without fixing US law, please. And of course, there will be no fixing US law until this same Supreme Court decides that it's reall
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US intellectual property laws are no more broken than those abroad. Much of US intellectual property law is the result of international agreements that were imposed on the US by European publishers (e.g., the Berne convention). A lot of recent US intellectual property law is the result of lobbying by international corporations and foreign governments, both as a way of pol [wikipedia.org]
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't Google just ship an OpenJDK build for ARM instead of screwing around with breaking the portability contract of the byte code?
This whole situation is the most asinine pissing match I have seen since SCO...
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Why can't Google just ship an OpenJDK build for ARM instead of screwing around with breaking the portability contract of the byte code?
The biggest thing they changed from Java was removing all the UI code (Swing and AWT). That wouldn't have been very useful on a phone, and leaving it out saved space. (Sun had a version of Java that didn't have the UI code, but J2ME isn't open source, you have to pay for it).
I have no idea why they didn't use the same bytecode. Their own implementation was rather lousy and had strange bugs like this one [facebook.com].
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I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You might also add.....I am never wrong; as soon as I am wrong, I switch sides and them I'm right again.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Why can't Google just ship an OpenJDK build for ARM instead of screwing around with breaking the portability contract of the byte code?
For the same reason that they went with Dalvik, and the same reason their libc is derived from BSD libc (Bionic), instead of GLibc: to get out from under the license, and allow, indisputably, commercial code for which source code is not provided, and to (effectively) technologically, rather than merely legally, indemnify developers, in order to attract commercial developers to the platform.
Oracle has tried to get a piece of Android on and off for years, the same way it tried to get a piece of Linux, and the same way it bought out MySQL and the BSD dbm libraries, when they couldn't legally raise their hand against them.
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Because OpenJDK is bloated and slow, and because it comes with unacceptable legal restrictions attached to it.
I had to laugh when I read this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the enormous flaw in this notion is that if you always have to invent new words simply to avoid copying anyone else, then nobody else is actually going to understand you. This is particularly true for things like spoken or written languages, but carries an element of truth to it for computer languages as well. While inventing any language can arguably already be challenging, inventing one that other people will actually use or adopt is usually either a function of the notoriety of the inventor, a matter of blind luck, or some combination of the two.
Since it can be argued that copyright provides a mechanism for otherwise possibly unknown artists to publish their works on the same relatively level playing field as those who may have already gained some notoriety, it seems I think that suggesting that such things should somehow be copyrightable is even at best wholly counter-productive.
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Yet if you think of an API as being the chapter-titles of a book, what you're saying is that it's ok to steal all the titles from an existing work and write your own chapter contents. I don't see where or why the API of a system would not be under copyright -- the whole point of licenses like the LGPL is to let you use the interface explicitly whereas the GPL denies you the right to use the interface without publishing your code.
Just because someone wants to use your API really, really badly doesn't mea
Re:I had to laugh when I read this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong.
The GPL prevents linking via API to existing GPL'd libraries. It does not stop you from writing your own library with the exact same method declarations but your OWN implementation.
What google did is specifically NOT prevented by the GPL either.
The GPL focusses on linking because that means MY implementation is used by your code. If you write your own library with the same declarations and your own implementation - then even though your application code is unchanged, I no longer hold a claim.
Indeed most of GNU's libraries (both those under the GPL like readline and those under the LGPL like glibc) could not have existed if Oracle is right - since they were mostly re-implementations of long-existing APIs that every Unix OS ever developed also included. LibC in particular - EVERY unix since the very first Bell Labs one has had a generic C library - and they all implemented essentially the same core set of functions. Their APIs are all virtually identical yet they were all deemed legal and all under their own distinct copyrights. Some were proprietory, some were BSD licensed (i.e. the libc's in every BSD today) and GNU made theirs LGPLd.
A better example would be the wine project. Wine reimplemented just about the entire windows API - all the calls are identical - so identical that you can run windows programs and games with Wine - but every implementation written from scratch as a clean-room reverse-engineer process. That has been legal for many, many years -this case threatens that. It would make it possible for Microsoft to get Wine declared illegal.
If this is illegal Wine would actually be MORE illegal since it is much more compatible with the original API than Android is with Java. In fact that is Oracle's entire PR about this matter: that they are trying to sue google for NOT making the API ENTIRELY compatible with theirs !
Disclaimer: I am a former Oracle engineer, I quite my job because I could not in good conscience keep working for the company that filed this suit !
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The GPL prevents linking via API to existing GPL'd libraries. It does not stop you from writing your own library with the exact same method declarations but your OWN implementation. What google did is specifically NOT prevented by the GPL either.
I wouldn't put it that way. It's just that copying the library is very, very obvious covered by copyright law, and copying the API is much less obviously covered by copyright law. If it is covered by copyright law, then it is covered by GPL, and if it is not covered by copyright law then it isn't.
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Thank you. Though I confess upon deciding to do so I didn't act immediately, I got myself another job first.
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The pdf states "Copyright not available for titles and short phrases." But the table of contents of a book is not one phrase, rather it is a sequence of dozens of phrases. So it should be copyrightable, like API.
Google has copied the premise of the book (Java platform), its table of contents (API) and rewritten the text within the chapters (reimplementing API) but keeping the same ToC. It should license the stuff it copied (API/ToC).
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There are far more companies and individuals with APIs for their products that allow extension and customization who are not "standards" than there are products whose interfaces have been explicitly coded to published standards whose licenses grant other parties the right to code to them.
Take, for example, SalesForce. They have an API. But they'd sue the schite out of you if you tried to claim it is a "standard" and use their API in a competing product.
Whether an API is a "standard" or not is entirel
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I fully agree with this. Designing a good API can often be far more difficult and creative task than implementing it, considering you can easily change the implementation later but not the API.
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Because people need to know that legal information may be informative in general but is still not necessarily a legal opinion and people should be able to make informed decisions about how far they will follow whatever is suggested.
Behaving ethically pretty much proves he's not a lawyer, but it's nice that it's explicit.
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You can't copyright generic and short phrases like chapter 1, chapter 2 anyway. There is no creative expression of ideas there.
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You can't copyright generic and short phrases like chapter 1, chapter 2 anyway. There is no creative expression of ideas there.
So what about this:
Chapter 1, in which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout accept each other, the one as master, the other as man.
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You're making the mistake of confusing programming to an API with the API itself. The arguments to a method of an API have named variables, not a wildcard list of arguments. They are well-defined and specific, even if they take a generic list of objects as their trailing argument, the fact that it takes a list of objects is specified.
As to others who have questioned what it takes to qualify as a "standard":
Unless an API is explicitly published for the purpose of use by alternative implementations, it
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APIs have historically not been protected by copyrights, therefore they haven't been "proprietary" (i.e., they haven't been owned). If they had been proprietary, the world would look very different today.
Yes, but not everything you publish is copyrightable. The question isn't whether people can arbi
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APIs have historically not been protected by copyrights,
Since 1980, they have.
In many cases, creating your own implementation is fair use (and indeed, Google's copying of Oracle may also be fair use), which is why you are allowed to create your own implementation for interoperability purposes. But Google here did not copy Java for interoperability purposes. If they had, there wouldn't be a problem.
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Instead, they imitated Java so that it would be easier for programmers to adapt to.
Kind of like how as children when we are learning how to talk, we copy what we hear other people say so that they understand us.
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Instead, they imitated Java so that it would be easier for programmers to adapt to.
Yes, that is why they are in court. Incidentally, if the supreme court declines to hear this case, it is still not over......it will be sent down to a lower court to hear Google's fair use defense.
Kind of like how as children when we are learning how to talk, we copy what we hear other people say so that they understand us.
Copyright laws handle that situation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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As I understand it, if Oracle loses, they might set a precedent which allow others companies to sue Oracle.
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Ironically, if the competitor is small, then it probably doesn't generate enough competition for Oracle to waste their time trying to be compatible with them.... if the competitor is large enough that oracle does care, then they will probably have to overcome what
Affects more than "entire nerd world" (Score:5, Insightful)
Article makes it sound like this is some silly squabble among nerds. Like an argument over a StarTrek episode.
I suspect a lot of non-nerd people may be surprised about the far-reaching implications of this decision.
Why again do we let them decide it? (Score:3)
I know it's a bit offtopic, but ... in the recent past, I couldn't help but come to one revelation: We allow people to make important decisions who have in no way demonstrated that they know anything about the subject. More often than not, they have actually demonstrated that they have ZERO knowledge, and, what's worse, no intention to change this in any way.
Why again do we allow these people to make decisions?
I mean, if, say, scientists would make our laws, I could live with that. Scientists usually know their subjects. That's basically their work. But politicians? Most of them are lawyers, for crying out loud. What knowledge and insight do you expect from someone who was too stupid to study something useful?
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It's fucked up system. Just less fucked up than others we've figured out.
And no, 'scientists' would make lousy laws. Look how they've screwed up thermodynamics. Lord, what a mess that's created.
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If invoking an API is a derivative work of the API, then the Linux kernel is actually as infectious as the Affero GPL, and so are network APIs.
The Linux kernel clearly defines userland software as not being derivative. You can see it here [github.com]. Networking APIs are part of the POSIX standard so that's not a problem, and network protocols can be copied under fair use for interoperability purposes.
Note that "calling an API" is not the question before the court. The question is whether you can copy the collection of APIs as a system for other people to call. No matter how this ruling goes, you will still be able to call an API as before.
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In some APIs, "calling the API" involves implementing a provided interface and handing the reference over (eg DirectShow codecs). Where do you draw the line?
The line is fuzzy, because the law was not written clearly. That is a purpose of judges.....to clarify areas of the law that are not clear.
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Only in the same sense that someone who learns how to speak English by watching television shows, which are copyrighted, is making a derivative work of multiple sources every time he or she says anything.
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All languages are "made up".
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Simple solution to this problem. Find the person(s) who invented the concept of assignment operators, comments, and byte code and mount a major lawsuit against Sun for billions of dollars for copyright violation. Just front end them.
Concepts don't fall under copyright law, trademark law, patent law, or any other law. So that's where your great idea fails.