Op-ed: Oracle Attorney Says Google's Court Victory Might Kill the GPL (arstechnica.com) 357
Annette Hurst, an attorney at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who represented Oracle in the recent Oracle v. Google trial, has written an opinion piece for Ars Technica in which she urges developers and creators to not celebrate Google's win in the hard-fought copyright case as the decision -- if remains intact -- is poised to make them "suffer" everywhere and also the free software movement itself "now faces substantial jeopardy." As you're aware, in a verdict earlier this week, a federal court announced that Google's Android operating system didn't infringe on Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by "fair use." Hurst writes: No business trying to commercialize software with any element of open software can afford to ignore this verdict. Dual licensing models are very common and have long depended upon a delicate balance between free use and commercial use. Royalties from licensed commercial exploitation fuel continued development and innovation of an open and free option. The balance depends upon adherence to the license restrictions in the open and free option. This jury's verdict suggests that such restrictions are now meaningless, since disregarding them is simply a matter of claiming "fair use." It is hard to see how GPL can survive such a result. In fact, it is hard to see how ownership of a copy of any software protected by copyright can survive this result. Software businesses now must accelerate their move to the cloud where everything can be controlled as a service rather than software. Consumers can expect to find decreasing options to own anything for themselves, decreasing options to control their data, decreasing options to protect their privacy.
Multiple Award Winning (Score:5, Insightful)
"Best Sour Grapes of May 2016"
"Best Nail in Coffin for Confidence in Legal Judgement"
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Re:Multiple Award Winning (Score:5, Funny)
Let me rephrase the lawyer's text into something more comprehensible to the masses:
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me. I'm a lawyer working for a multibillion dollar software company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, Google's victory will destroy the GPL!
Re:Multiple Award Winning (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Multiple Award Winning (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the point the lawyer for Oracle is trying to make is a distinction that does not exist.
Oracle has been trying to make a case that API=Code so others cannot copy their API's without a licence. For everyone else on the planet, API!=code and APIs are free to use ether because they are not copyrightable (as the judge originally ruled and I agree with personally) or because they are fair use.
Now that the Java APIs used in Android have been determined by the jury to have been fair use, Oracle is now attempting to make the case that because (in their opinion) API=Code, if APIs are fair use then so is ALL code, including the GPL.
Nobody except Oracle & co believe that API=Code so the woman has no point.
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Look genius:
This is an API:
extern int add(int a, int b);
This is code:
int add(int a, int b)
{
return a+b;
}
Copy the prototype all you want, I don't give a crap.
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Design of a really good API is a far from easy task - though I'm certainly not going to argue that Java's libraries constitute a "good API". Designing really quality and useful APIs involves organising some fairly abstract ideas into very concrete representations, and designing as few simple operations on those representation as possible, while still managing to get whatever the job is done. Doing so without restricting what can be done, and as the same time without making the effort of getting what you wan
Re:Multiple Award Winning (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if designing an API is hard... at least not in the US, which does not follow the sweat of the brow doctrine [wikipedia.org].
It does matter if API design involves substantial creativity. If the API design is not simple and obvious, and if the work to design the API is a substantially creative endeavor, the API becomes eligible for copyright, and indeed, this is what the courts have now found (at least in the specific case of the Java APIs). As much as I don't like the idea of copyrightable APIs, I can't really fault the ruling.
Fortunately, the court has now also ruled that using APIs is fair use, which is an essential ruling from an interoperability PoV. And despite this op-ed piece, I'm certain that most companies will be relieved that there are limits to Oracle's absurd attempts to squeeze money of out any company that use Java.
Personally, I'm just happy that the company I work for chose C#/.NET as the scripting platform for customers, not Java. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but Microsoft and .NET has turned out to be much more trustworthy platform stewards than Sun/Oracle and Java.
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It does matter if API design involves substantial creativity. If the API design is not simple and obvious, and if the work to design the API is a substantially creative endeavor, the API becomes eligible for copyright, and indeed, this is what the courts have now found (at least in the specific case of the Java APIs). As much as I don't like the idea of copyrightable APIs, I can't really fault the ruling. Fortunately, the court has now also ruled that using APIs is fair use
And that's really what I find strange, because if you think APIs are creative and copyrighted, when if not in the Google case are they infringed? They copied much of it, for profit, reducing the market for licensed use of Java. It feels like one bad twisting of the law to fix another bad twisting of the law. And "fair use" is an affirmative defense that depends on your particular case, just because Google won doesn't mean the APIs are now free. If you use them in some other way in some other context maybe t
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As far as I understand it, if you re-implement GPL software using the original code (not API, but implementation code) as a starting point, then you are violating the GPL. But the Java standard library is colossal and the bits that Google copied directly are tiny and obviou
They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Informative)
It's the implementations that they're protecting with the GPL, not the interfaces.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the implementations that they're protecting with the GPL, not the interfaces.
She is a lawyer, not a programmer. What she is saying is nonsense, but it is grammatically correct, and succinctly encapsulates Oracle's outrage at the verdict.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
She is a lawyer, not a programmer. What she is saying is nonsense, but it is grammatically correct, and succinctly encapsulates Oracle's outrage at the verdict.
No where near as outraged as all the OSS developers are at all of Oracle's patent trolling over the years, so what was she thinking trying to co-opt them?
We love copyright law, you're not going to beat us at our own game. Oracle should stick to abusing patent law. They'll still lose. Now they also look like idiots.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Interesting)
This, I suspect, is going to form a part of their appeal, a sort of IP version of "what about the children?", except this variant is called "what about the GPL?"
This is about interfaces, not their implementation, and no one is challenging that code can be copyrighted. But I get it, maybe the next judge will be the right kind of fucking moron for Oracle to gain a victory.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Informative)
The GPL has been tested in court numerous times, both in the US and in the EU. [visionmobile.com]
Along with the Artistic License, it is actually the only open source license I know of that has been tested in court. It makes sense that there's not much to go to court over with a BSD-like license, but it'd be nice to have the Apache License or the Mozilla Public License tested.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Informative)
Lawyers are today's hired guns. They do and say whatever is in their employer's interests, with little (or no) regard for the truth.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, no - their first allegiance is supposed to be to the court, and the pursuit of truth. There was even a high profile case recently where the judge sentenced the lawyers to regular ethics course for blatantly lying to the court.
Now in practice... they're supposed to at least keep up appearances. Which seems to be what most ethics courses boil down to anyway.
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She is a lawyer, not a programmer. What she is saying is nonsense
Maybe she shouldn't be talking about something of which she is ignorant. Then again, she's an attorney and from what I've been able to observe, attorneys frequently talk out of their collective asses about things which they know nothing about, especially in technical or scientific fields.
A company I worked at a while ago was planning to threaten another company with a claim that "you couldn't possibly have implemented that without stealing our stuff"; I remember the threat letter repeatedly claiming it was "inconceivable" that they could have done that.
"The Princess Bride" came to mind. [imdb.com]
Maybe hyperbole is Standard Operating Procedure for lawyers in many situations - perhaps the belief is that if you can get the people to whom the hyperbole is addressed to believe it, you win.
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A better way of putting this: She is one of the 96% of lawyers who give the others a bad name.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the interfaces are fair use, I could have a non-GPL project depending on a GPL library, and that dependency won't affect the licensing of my project.
This reduces the difference between the GPL and the LGPL. However, in order to sidestep that difference entirely, you have to distribute your application separately from the GPL'd library.
As a practical matter, I don't think people tend to be that concerned when I, for instance, release code under the MIT license with GPL dependencies. Compile the work and d
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that doesn't make sense, and it doesn't change anything. It's not about libraries, it's about interfaces. You could create you own library using the same function names/signatures, but you can't use someone else's code beyond that.
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point - and if you really think about it, that's the way it SHOULD be. If we prevented the case you describe, all emulators like WINE, MAME, etc would not be possible. It goes all the way back to DR DOS, etc. I think it's pretty clear that the open source community has gained SO MUCH MORE from being able to reverse engineer interfaces than any sort of "workaround" of GPL-like library licenses. Linux itself was based on UNIX/POSIX. If clean-room implementation of interfaces weren't fair game it would never have existed!
Re: They don't know what they're talking about (Score:2)
I think that is a grey area historically. It's why LGPL and GPL3 were created. But the community in general is ok with that.
What they are not ok with is if you distribute your interface and the GPL compiled code closed. You would have to either have your installer check and install the GPL version from a 3rd party or distribute the GPL code freely (many consumer products do this). Additionally, any modifications you do to the GPLed code would have to be released too as they are GPLed.
Also, keep in mind th
Re:They don't know what they're talking about (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, here [sourceforge.net] is RMS's take on this question. I should point out that I do not agree with his analysis.
As a counter example, I like people to consider NDISwrapper [wikipedia.org]. No one in their right mind would claim that just because the user linked a proprietary closed source network driver with a GPL implementation of NDIS, that somehow turns the driver written by Broadcom for Windows into a derivative of the Linux kernel.
When I consulted to clients about the issue, I suggested the following criteria, under the claim that it is not industry standard, but it is defendable in court:
I claim that these are good criteria to explaining how independent are the APIs from their implementation, and accordingly, how much copyright protection they deserve.
Shachar
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Not biscuit. It's a muffin
Not muffin. McMuffin. Try ordering a muffin in McDonald's and wait for the blank stare from the cashier.
I just carry a picture that matches the one on the cash register.
Bonus, this will also work with a robot as long as it has a camera as one of its inputs...
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Not biscuit. It's a muffin
Not muffin. McMuffin. Try ordering a muffin in McDonald's and wait for the blank stare from the cashier.
I just carry a picture that matches the one on the cash register. Bonus, this will also work with a robot as long as it has a camera as one of its inputs...
Only problem is that even robots can not make a McMuffin that looks remotely like the picture they have in the store of said McMuffin.
It will just cause a system error that the poor mechanical soul will never recover from.
Re: They don't know what they're talking about (Score:4, Funny)
If Skynet decides that human society is beyond saving because Skynet worked a McJob at McDonald's in it's youth, it's... kinda hard to argue, actually.
Have to do more than "claim fair use"... (Score:2)
...I think a judge has to rule that it IS fair use, to render copyright "meaningless". He's just sore the judge ruled that way.
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Not quite.
The judge could (amongst other things) as I understand it have ruled it was fair use, have ruled it was infringing - or dismissed the case because it was not a copyrightable matter.
The best case would be the latter. The first is still extremely problematic for devs, though for a very different reason the shill above claims.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
See the later caveats in that celebration.
Re: Have to do more than "claim fair use"... (Score:4, Informative)
The judge did rule that interfaces are not copyrightable but that got overturned on appeal. He then asked the jury to decide if it was fair use. The jury voted yes to that.
Re:Have to do more than "claim fair use"... (Score:5, Informative)
The judge (William Alsup) did rule that the java API were not copyrightable in the earlier case [wikipedia.org]. The appeals court overturned this ruling. Hence the current case which was started on the basis that the API was copyrighted and the open question was about fair use.
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Losing Attorney is BSing (Score:5, Insightful)
There never was copyright on the interface code as it is required to function. This was about Oracle bean counters trying to make their balance sheet look better through shenanigans rather than actually doing real work.
This case was not about the core code which is still covered fine by copyright and the GPL.
These comments are just spin.
Re:Losing Attorney is BSing (Score:5, Insightful)
These comments are just spin.
Precisely. We don't need some ignorant attorney telling us, the ones who write the code, what our business or interests are regarding software. We don't need copyright to help us share or get paid for our work. She doesn't get it. The GPL was a hack of the copyright laws designed to prevent legal interference in the affairs of the open source movement and to neutralize a legal weapon so that it couldn't be used against us to prevent sharing. It was not necessary to enable sharing. If copyright did not exist, software would still be shared freely and the GPL would have been largely unnecessary. There have been a few minor incidents where copyright law was used successfully to force sharing of GPL code from an otherwise unwilling party, but in my opinion none of these cases revealed anything but banal or poorly written additions to the original GPL code, certainly nothing of lasting importance that wouldn't have been shared otherwise. To summarize, copyright is mostly a hindrance and rarely a help to the open source movement. The GPL mostly exists to ensure that a-hole attorneys, like Annette Hurst, leave us alone. We share code because we ourselves benefited from that sharing when we were learning our craft and it would be an act of disrespect and deep ingratitude to refuse to reciprocate when the time came.
Re: Losing Attorney is BSing (Score:4, Informative)
LGPL covers the code that implements the interface, and allows for less restricted use. It covers the same thing as GPL, just like every other license, its just a different one. Its no more or less different from GPL than BSD or MIT, for instance.
Re: Losing Attorney is BSing (Score:4, Informative)
GPL, you link to the API and distribute, you are required to provide source.
LGPL, you link to the API and distribute, you can keep your source closed.
GPL and LGPL, you re-implement the API, you can keep it closed source. That's actually the POINT of open source. If you're not willing the put the work in, you can share with others. If you put all the work in yourself, you can do whatever you'd like.
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Infringement happens when linking occurs, nothing limits distribution prior to that as they are separate parts.
After linking of an incompatible binary with a GPL library you cannot distribute the GPL library, you can still distribute your useless application separately.
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GPL never claimed it could go further than "derived work". Static linking is worse than dynamic linking. Intermixing source code worse than just static linking and everyone agrees this almost invariable creates a derived work. LGPL doesn't allow for linking explicitly. This ruling allows for reimplementing APIs which is even less than dynamic linking.
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Static linking is worse than dynamic linking.
Why? Seems about the same to me, the only difference being the --static flag on the compiler command line (or whatever, depending on your compiler).
Static creates a copy. COPY right (Score:3)
I think by "worse" GP means "more clearly brings the result under the license used by the library". Static linking creates a strong case that the resulting executable must abide by the license of the library.
The reason why is because copy right is essentially about the right to create copies. Static linking EMBEDS a -copy- of the library into the executable. Therefore you're clearly making and distributing copies, and must follow the GPL is whichever license applies.
With dynamic linking, you're not copying
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I think by "worse" GP means "more clearly brings the result under the license used by the library". Static linking creates a strong case that the resulting executable must abide by the license of the library.
I'm not sure that's true. Because they're both derivative works.
Re:Static creates a copy. COPY right (Score:4, Interesting)
Well a statically compiled binary, which contains a copy of the library, is obviously a derived work, no question about it.
Judge Alsup ruled that using an API dynamically (and even re-implementing it) isn't, because the library's API can't be copyright protected anyway. The appeals court disagreed in this case. So it's debatable so using an API via dynamic linking. It may come down to the specific facts of the case, or the mood of the judge or jury.
On to fair use. A key consideration in fair use is how much of the original work is used. If you copy the whole thing verbatim, it's generally unlikely to be fair use. If you use 1% of the original, it's much more likely to be fair. Static linking copies the entire function verbatim. Dynamic copies only the header line. Not much different than copying the full text of a book versus copying only the chapter titles.
With dynamic linking, there's an argument to be made either way. Different courts may decide different cases of dynamic linking differently. Static linking, verbatim copying of the entire implementation - that's not even arguable, not at all.
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The best part was when that vapid bitch got in front of a microphone to state quite plainly that they "didn't buy Oracle" just to file the suit against Google.
Presumably you're referring to the Oracle co-CEO saying they didn't buy Sun just to file the lawsuit? [arstechnica.com]
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re-implementing an API and wholesale lifting a GPL software package are not even vaguely related. And, the end part of her quote, where she proclaims doom and gloom if we don't all move to the cloud, is ponderous hyperbole. The is just scare tactic garbage from an attorney who wants to bait the waters before she takes on the appeal and charges Oracle millions of dollars for the privilege.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
"Software businesses now must accelerate their move to the cloud where everything can be controlled as a service rather than software. "
I think it's less hyperbole and more a sign of what Oracle is considering. She's let the cat out of the bag - Oracle must be exploring options to charge even more for their products.
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Oracle has a pretty good cloud service. They sell their database to other services especially Verizon. There is no bag they have been openly talking about moving towards administering the database and away from just selling licensing.
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"Software businesses now must accelerate their move to the cloud where everything can be controlled as a service rather than software. "
I think it's less hyperbole and more a sign of what Oracle is considering. She's let the cat out of the bag - Oracle must be exploring options to charge even more for their products.
I'm sorry, this is news? It's been more or less the public strategy for Microsoft and every other big software house for the last few years. There's no cat in any bag anymore, the cat escaped a few years back.
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Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an inherent part of their case that they are intimately related.
There is no bright-line seperating out APIs and code.
And indeed, they won a partial victory on this, in that the decision states that there can be _unfair_ use of APIs.
Their argument is simply that this judgement means that another judge (because there is no bright line) could determine that using (say) half or 90% of the linux kernel against GPL restrictions could be 'fair use'.
Should this be bullshit - yes.
Is it - well - it relies on courts acting rationally.
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"Fair use" has always been an affirmative defense against copyright infringement - the Oracle ruling doesn't really change that.
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Are we all suddenly suppose to pay royalties to the first one who called their function by that name? What about if someone wrote a program that then auto-generated creating billions of function names from every language, but each function was simply "return(1)"? Am I to get billions of dollars from every company in existence now for them infringing my copyright on all those function names?
In other words, your argument is ridiculous. The real copyright is and always has been on the specific implementation of the code, not what it is named.
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The is just scare tactic garbage from an attorney who wants to bait the waters before she takes on the appeal and charges Oracle millions of dollars for the privilege.
This could cost Oracle millions?
So what is the downside?
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
Think of the poor unemployed yacht builders.
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No, they're vaguely related. They both involve taking and using something that you didn't create. Of course, they're related in much the same way that bumming a stick of chewing gum and stealing a car are related....
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Not only that, but we've already had the debate on interfaces/APIs and GPL.
http://clisp.cvs.sourceforge.n... [sourceforge.net]
And FSF had specifically supported Google in this case.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/lice... [fsf.org]
Oracle is just continuing their long-standing trend of treating both customers and developers as idiots. The only appropriate response is to flip the bird.
Bullocks! (Score:5, Informative)
Never read such a stupid article. If oracle has won; alot of open source projects had been dead in the USA. In EU they had lived on since there APIs are not copyrightable because of interoperability.
Now they can continue to live even in the US.
As for the point that this makes it possible for people to steal open source code. It wont. Since it's always been possible to take open source code and reimplement it as closed code. Its never been forbidden before and thus this won't change that. APIs has never been seen as protected by the software industry before and its a sad state that USA has changed that.
Re:Bullocks! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Now they can continue to live even in the US.
The damage has already been done. The federal circuit court ruling, namely that APIs are copyrightable, still stands. By arguing fair use Google won the consolation prize in this case, but fair use must be argued each time on a case-by-case basis . It's a fig leaf that offers little protection against the aforementioned court ruling. Google or anybody else could be sued again tomorrow for copyright infringement of a different API in a different instance and they would have to defend fair use all over again
Stallman's defense of Oracle (Score:5, Funny)
Oracle's loss is a huge threat to free software and the GPL. That's why Stallman has been campaigning on their behalf for years now, hanging out with Ellison on his private catamaran, writing op-ed pieces supporting Oracle's treatment of Java post-Sun acquisition, etc.
I'd post the links, but it's easy enough to find them with Google.
Oracle wants us to have crappy computers. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is plain double-speak. If Oracle had their way they'd kill GPL software. Innovation revolves around an application programming interface. The API is the "shape" of the program. The code inside the shape is the implementation. The GPL revolves around the implementation and has nothing to say about the shape. If shapes were always copyrightable then that would absolutely kill innovation. All of a sudden if you used someone else's shape in a way they didn't like they could totally shut you down with just the threat of a lawsuit - not everyone has deep pockets to fight that. Copyrighted API's would become just another kind of currency much in the way software patents already are. If you can't beat them with money then beat them, forced licensing, with other kinds of currency. In the Oracle world we wouldn't even enjoy the powerful computers we have today. Decades ago Phoenix clean-room reverse-engineered IBM's BIOS and made the same shape with a different implementation. If that shape had never been open we would have never experienced the rapid advancement of a bazaar that component manufacturers can revolve around. We would have been stuck with IBM's will and computing would have stagnated because they would not necessarily have had an interest in advancing it as much as competition does. At the time IBM's BIOS was reverse-engineered they weren't even the best computers. There were others that were much better like the Commodore Amiga, however, when the ecosystem around an open BIOS happened then the feedback effects from that made it win. Without a doubt.
Re:Oracle wants us to have crappy computers. (Score:5, Informative)
IBM's BIOS wasn't reverse-engineered. The source was available directly from IBM via the Technical Reference Manual. Phoenix and Compaq both merely did a clean-room reimplementation based on looking at the function call interfaces in the actual source code and what that code actually did, then writing a detailed set of requirements for the coders. No reverse-engineering was needed.
Re:Oracle wants us to have crappy computers. (Score:4, Insightful)
The source was available directly from IBM via the Technical Reference Manual.
That brings back some sweet memories. I saved up and bought a TRM for $100, which was a lot of money back then. I remember reading every line of the source code, all in 8086 asm. I figured out plenty of tricks and shortcuts by jumping into the BIOS code instead of going through interrupts, and tweaking where the BIOS stored variables. Good times.
Re: Oracle wants us to have crappy computers. (Score:5, Informative)
IBM's BIOS was not reverse engineered. The commented Assembly Language source code for the BIOS is published in the Technical Reference Manual which anybody could purchase.
Phoenix had to hire programmers to read the IBM source, write a human language specification, then hand that specification over to a seperate team to code their version of BIOS. Anybody on the first team, or anybody who had access to and read the published IBM source code was disqualified to work on the reimplementation.
In other words, IBM published their BIOS in commented human readable source code. The PC was in this regard among others, an open architecture.
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It would be like claiming that open use of the QWERTY keyboard risks destroying the writing of books, because, you know, somehow, free use of QWERTY in some way makes it more likely that people will be able to steal novels.
Parade of horribles (Score:5, Insightful)
Like commercial software, which you do not own but merely use under license...
Like commercial services, which grant themselves increadibly broad licenses to everything that you post, store, and transmit, usually for far longer than merely the duration that you use the service...
Like commercial software and servicves, which report back telemetry data, raid amazing quantities of your PII for the services' own benefit (well I'll just be uploading that contacts list for you...), and generally function as your own personal stalker for the benefit of the service and many other third parties (dear advertising partner, our user is a 18-34 year old female who is 4 months pregnant and just about to walk past your storefront).
Yeah. Having someone reimplement a GPL-licensed software product by mirroring the APIs is certainly going to lead to things worse than that.
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Like commercial software, which you do not own but merely use under license...
Like commercial software that is now sold under "term licenses" so the minute you stop paying it shuts off.
Cue Cartman's extended laugh..... (Score:2)
Complete utter nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
Before Oracle v. Google, everyone assumed (based on extensive legal precedent) that APIs were not subject to copyright at all. Yet the GPL was just fine. Why would the GPL be threatened all of a sudden just because one more API turned out to be copyable?
The only tangible result of this case has been a very slight strengthening of copyrights, since the appeals court rules that APIs might be copyrightable under certain circumstances. How does strengthening copyright weaken a license that relies on copyright?
This is either monumental stupidity, or outright shilling. Hanlon's razor suggests I ought to go with the former, but I'm going to wait and see.
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Can you explain this a little?
As programmer it makes no sense to me. Are you saying that the only code protected by copy-write is the code inside the function curly braces, and not the code outside (i.e. the functions, parameters, returns). This seems like an arbitrarily grey line. What about expressive languages that blur the lines between function declarations and executable code? What if significant code is all written in a macros, where there is no difference? This also dismisses code architecture as un
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Are you saying that the only code protected by copy-write is the code inside the function curly braces, and not the code outside (i.e. the functions, parameters, returns).
Even in C, this wouldn't be the case, because some code that actually does stuff is outside functions. But your parenthetical is almost right - the function names, and parameter and return types.
What about expressive languages that blur the lines between function declarations and executable code? What if significant code is all written in a macros, where there is no difference?
There is no difficulty here. The specification of what must be given to the program and what will be returned from the program. Everything else can be subject to copyright.
As programmer it makes no sense to me.
Think about what the world would be like if interfaces had been copyrightable. The precedent comes from Borland v. Lotus [wikipedia.org], where it was ruled that
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You asked a mouthful there!
Bottom line: copyright is supposed to protect creative and original works. You cannot copyright a simple list of facts, no matter how much research it took. Languages (computer or ConLan) are generally considered tools for expression; something written in Klingon can be copyrighted, but the Klingon language itself cannot be. A dictionary defining the meanings of Klingon words can be copyrighted, but not the language itself.
Note that no computer language ever has been copyrighted.
Wrong! (Score:2)
Bullshit ... (Score:3)
... consumers don't "own" a fucking thing, ever, anywhere.
Read the goddam EULA.
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Read the goddam EULA
I'll be glad to if you can tell me where it is. The only thing on my system that has an EULA is a game I bought about 15 years ago. (Oh, and flash, but I've currently go that disabled.)
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Read the goddam EULA
I'll be glad to if you can tell me where it is. The only thing on my system that has an EULA is a game I bought about 15 years ago. (Oh, and flash, but I've currently go that disabled.)
Where THEY are. Even if you're running an open-source OS like Linux there are EULAs. All over the place. The GPL is a EULA. Virtually every application you installed came with a EULA. Usually the EULA is one of the installed files. Sometimes it's embedded in the code. Sometimes it's on the site that you downloaded from or on the box it came in. Assuming you can find a software product in a physical box anymore. EULA frequently come with your hardware and your ebooks.
We've seen so many EULAs and they've beco
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As anonymous coward said, the GPL is not an EULA, it's a distribution license. It's also completely optional. Unless you want to redistribute the code, you can completely ignore the GPL and simply use the copy under normal copyright terms. Therefore, until I actually distribute some of this software myself, there is no license!
Likewise, the BSD and MIT license, which simply say "you can copy/modify this as long as you preserve attributions" and not much else. That's not a user license; that's a distribution
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Farm supplies (Score:2)
There's a farm supply store near me that'd love a steady supply of the kind of high-quality bovine waste product Ms. Hurst is spewing...
HA HA HA (Score:2)
Isn't this corporates attorney cool-aid barf she gets paid for?
As I get this, API - application interface - like the front end, how to talk to an set of functionality of a software package, not the guts behind doing the actual work, such as in Unix/Xenix/Linux commandline/sh/ksh/csh, library definitions, awk,samba and what else there is on GPL goodies around for decades.
And getting this Oracle case decided in Oracle's greedy bosses sick mind's favor, all this would be in jeopardy.
Quite the opposite of thi
Oracle just trying to save face (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we supposed to believe that Oracle really had the best interests of the Open Source community at heart? Are we really supposed to believe that this case was all about Oracle's altruistic intentions instead of a $9Billion payday??
Now that they have lost this particular legal battle, Oracle are just trying to save face in front of the Open Source community. This lawsuit has alienated a massive segment of the developer community. Arguably that alienation began the moment Oracle acquired Sun, and this lawsuit simply confirmed many people's worst fears. It is clear, from comments in the trial, that Oracle only acquired Sun to have total control over Java, and anything related to it. Now that this lawsuit has confirmed that Oracle don't have the control they thought they did, their only option is to try and sway public opinion with the developer community. I don't see how that will start to happen unless Oracle abandon any appeal and let this case rest.
Hurst said that the whole Open Source community is in jeopardy because this will allow anyone to ignore copyright on source code and claim 'fair use'. Sure, there may be a possibility that 'fair use' could be pose a risk to enforcing the GPL, but the precedent in this case is limited because it specifically involved APIs. That hardly means that the GPL is now worthless. What is certain is that all developers everywhere, including the Open Source community, would have been in far greater jeopardy had Oracle been victorius.
If Oracle had been victorius, then Annette Hurst would have been busy firing off dozens of other API copyright lawsuits instead of writing Op-ed pieces on ArsTechnica. (The only thing that surprises me about this article is that ArsTechnica were so willing to publish something from such a clearly biased source.) Given that this was published so quickly after the trial, I find it hard to believe that Hurst penned this in her spare time after the trial as her personal opinion instead of the opinion of her client. To me it just seems like a lame 'Plan B' approach to sway public opinion for her client while they work on an appeal.
To be clear, I don't for one second believe that Hurst and Oracle have the best interests of the Open Source community in mind. I also don't believe that this is just about making money out of Google (although that is the starting point). This is about Oracle trying to regain total control over Java and anything related to it. The are billions of devices and programs that use Java or make use Java APIs (and not just Android devices), so the potential licensing revenue stream would be massive for Oracle. This is about Oracle trying to put an Open Source genie back in the bottle, and represents a far greater threat to the GPL than fair use ever will.
...really? (Score:2)
Software businesses now must accelerate their move to the cloud where everything can be controlled as a service rather than software.
Nope, nope nope nope fuck you in the neck nope.
Total BS; I've done the right thing. (Score:3)
It is the INTERFACES that are open, not the implementation.
Many years ago, I had to implement a set of printer drivers but, as usual, the printer codes were proprietary. Using the man pages only, which described the interfaces and data format, I wrote a new subset of the pnm functions for a pnmto program (since I could not locate any LGPL implementation of pnm). I did, in fact, type in all of the characters for the new headers myself, and the text did not match the original headers, except for the function names and parameters.
revised headline: (Score:2)
"Oracle Makes Shit Up To Inspire FUD"
An *Oracle* win would have killed off FOSS (Score:3)
The Oracle lawyer has it completely backwards. If APIs could be protected by copyright then FOSS could be easily locked out of making compatible implementations. Oracle is not in this battle to get a few billion dollars from Google. They are in this battle to kill off all independent software development. As bad as software patents are, changing the ground rules so APIs can be protected by copyright would be much much worse.
Rick said it best (Score:3)
"I'm gonna need you to take your opinions, and shove 'em waaaaay up inside your butthole."
Can you copyright a language (Score:3)
Given this blurring of the line between API and language, I argue that any answer you might make about APIs should apply equally to programming languages and vice versa.
My understanding is that most believe the programming languages cannot be copyrighted, but this understanding have never truly been tested in the courts. I think Adobe's Postscript has come fairly close to being tested, but Adobe never really pulled the trigger on some of its threatened legal action. However, I am having trouble getting an accurate history of Postscript licensing, so if anybody else has more details, they can certainly add to this post.
parse failure (Score:3)
WTF are you trying to say? Is GPL the worst, or not? If not the worst, then what is worse? Never mind, you're just another fuckweed grousing about open source.
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Which is why it is at the heart of two of the most successful software projects in history; the GNU toolset and the Linux kernel.
In the real world, not the fantasy land you come from, results count, and the result of the GPL is an ecosystem of kernel modules, libraries and applications that is used on hundreds of millions of systems around the world every day.
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What's telling is that she chose to present her viewpoint on a tech site. If she had conviction, she would present it on a forum with an audience of lawyers where she would face the criticism of her profession.
Re:Nice Work. (Score:4, Funny)
It's the first hot holiday weekend of the summer, so give 'em a break. They've probably been drinking since like 11am.
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[SJW mode] And what's wrong with that? [/]
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Much as I love poking at the dashslot noneditors, assuming that Annette is a female name is so 1960. If you had posted support for your side, then just maybe.