The Obama administration has asked the United States Supreme Court to decline Google's appeal against a 2014 federal appeals court ruling finding copyright infringement of Oracle's Java code:
The case involves how much copyright protection should extend to the Java programing language. Oracle won a federal appeals court ruling last year that allows it to copyright parts of Java, whilst Google argues it should be free to use Java without paying a licencing fee. Google, which used Java to design its Android smartphone operating system, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court then asked the Obama administration in January for its opinion on whether it should take the case because the federal government has a strong interest. The Federal Trade Commission, for instance, must ensure companies do not break antitrust laws when claiming software copyright protection against each other.
According to Google, an Oracle victory would obstruct "an enormous amount of innovation" because software developers would not be able to freely build on each others' work. But Oracle says effective copyright protection is the key to software innovation.
In the court filing on Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said Google's argument that the code is not entitled to copyright protection lacks merit and did not need to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Verrilli added that Google had raised important concerns about the effect that enforcement of Oracle's copyright could have on software development, but said those issues could be addressed via further proceedings on Google's separate "fair use" defence in San Francisco federal court.
Google v. Oracle, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-410
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by rliegh on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:01PM
This ruling -which is inevitable now, means the end of open source and the begining of the era when larger companies (Maya, Photoshop) go after their revenue-stealing open source counterparts (Blender, GIMP) and shut them down.
The future, my friends, is totally fucked.
I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's trolling!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:12PM
The threat posed by Blender and GIMP to commercial competitors is about as dangerous as the threat that Tonka construction equipment poses to Caterpillar.
Blender and GIMP are toys compared to the commercial options. They've been no more than toys for many years. Anyone using them wouldn't even be a potential customer for the commercial offerings.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:18PM
I fail to see how blender and gimp are involved here.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:19PM
Read the comment I replied to.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:15PM
There has been no ruling.
And the "White House" and Obama had nothing to do with it. It was the equally clueless Justice Department, who submitted a brief in response to a Supreme Court invitation to comment. SCOTUS asks for amicus briefs on just about every case, DOJ responds on almost every case. Justice wouldn't know a header file if it bit them in the ass.
This administration has pretty much run out of good will with the courts, and the court is clearly able to see the government has no legitimate reason to be on one side of the issue vs the other, and will arrive at the conclusion that favors were owed and are being repaid. If you listen carefully you can just about hear the "plonk" from here.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:17PM
Java doesn't use header files.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:01PM
I bet most implementations of a JVM do though, and I think that's probably what's in question here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:17PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:22PM
Java's going to be around forever, regardless of what happens in this particular case. There is more Java code out there than you could ever hope to imagine. A lot of it will be in use for many years to come.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:21PM
Hah! They said the same thing about COBOL!! And it didn't have headers either!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @12:09AM
Are you kidding? From my brief stint in COBOL-land (a single course in college) I remember writing 5 pages of string declarations for a program with 2 pages of actual code.
Okay so maybe not really headers, but still.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:50PM
There are many languages a lot worse than Java. It sucks that Oracle owns it, but Java and other JVM based languages are pretty good in general in my opinion. If you find Java too strictly typed or verbose, try Groovy. I recently cut the amount of source in one large package by about 50% by switching to to Groovy. It took about half an hour to switch the source to Groovy, delete a lot of the boilerplate code and do a minor change to the build process. Less code to maintain, more readability, and still works perfectly with Java.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday May 29 2015, @09:02AM
No language apart from Java that I know of would take 5 major versions of the language to realise that the inefficiency caused by the above was horrifically stupid, and then, rather than fixing the problem, simply cache all pre-made integers between -128 and 127, so that the overhead would be a bit lower. For 256 Integers, that is.
No language apart from Java that I know of has such baroque syntax for dealing with bignums, in particular when trying to use not-an-object integers as parameters to bignum methods. ``y = x.multiply(BigInteger.valueOf(10));'' is somehow deemed superior to ``y = x*10;''
No language apart from Java that I know would first make System.in mutable, and then when people started changing it make it final, thus immutable, and then later add a setter setIn() so that you can *change the value of a final variable*.
It's a turd, there's no other word for it. And like COBOL, yes it will still be around in decades. The IT world's like that.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WillR on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:10PM
Software development would all move to countries where copyright is a joke... how's your Mandarin?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:43PM
I think it's bad, but I don't think it's that bad. The Regents of UC Berkeley have already placed the entire OS under the BSD license. They are not suddenly going to turn around and clamp down on syscalls.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:08PM
Not all doom and gloom.
Most of those organizations will simply declare their API interface files as open source. Not many are as short sighted as Oracle.
Trying to lock up your API definitions is like trying to charge admission to walk on the sidewalk leading to your supermarket. With three other markets across the street, and another one every 6 blocks, it won't take long for that lesson to be learned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:47PM
> Most of those organizations will simply declare their API interface files as open source.
Great. And what about abandonware? No business will ever clone an API that they can't get official copyright permission for.
When copyright is used to change the default permissions from "allow all" to "deny allow" the result is ossification where all the oddball corner cases turn into dead-ends instead of opportunities. Unfortunately it is those odd-ball corner-cases where creativity is the most extreme.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:51PM
What good is the legal system if it's only used for evil, not for good?
Why doesn't someone sue red hat over System D? Surely there's a case...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:57PM
Are you talking about how systemd is similar in so many ways to how Windows works?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nerdfest on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:03PM
You may be interested in reading some of the recently outed text from the recently leaked "Trade In Services Agreement (TISA)" [eff.org]. From the EFF's text:
The agreement would also prohibit countries from enacting free and open source software mandates. Although “software used for critical infrastructure” is already carved out from this prohibition (and so is software that is not “mass market software”, whatever that means), there are other circumstances in which a country might legitimately require suppliers to disclose their source code.
Yes, the future is pretty bleak. The blanket of corporation mandated "agreements" that generally go against the interests of citizens on both sides of the agreement is staggering.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:41PM
> Although “software used for critical infrastructure” is already carved out from this prohibition (and so is software that is not “mass market software”, whatever that means),
Voting machines aren't part of infrastructure, and can be sold in many markets.
Uh-oh.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:50PM
I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @12:06AM
Yes, of course the ability to accurately count votes isn't critical in a democracy. *flips table*
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @02:26AM
Counting votes with machines that use proprietary software is foolish, unethical, and dangerous. Most voting machines are like that, as well as just insecure.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:25PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Troll) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:36PM
How is what they think relevant? Nobody with any real involvement or power in these kinds of cases actually listens to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:14PM
I think you just answered your own question.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:28PM
they decide what is legal.
It doesn't work to say "The courts can't make such a decision, because that would be really stupid". Maybe so, but courts decide stupid things because that is their understanding of what is legal.
It's up to congress to decide what is right. Good luck with that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:40PM
So what is "right" in this situation? Ignore the players involved, too, and just focus on the issue. If software shouldn't be protected by copyright, then what leg does the FSF have to stand on with the GPL and its related licenses? Without copyright, the GPL is weak, if not completely useless. Do you really want to kill the GPL?
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:18PM
I'd thought this was about only header files, not actual code.
Would someone who RTFA clarify?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:35PM
Filter error: Comment too short
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by monster on Friday May 29 2015, @05:04PM
No, it uses interfaces. Same function, different way.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:37PM
Larry Ellison has a lot of cash to spread around. He'll donate to some congresscritters, get some facetime, move some legislation that will result in Linux being made illegal - this despite that the US government is one of Linux's largest single users.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:07PM
Why call an additional application to append your hosts file? Why not use the redirection features of your shell?
sudo echo 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com >> /etc/hosts
Sorry for the off topic post, but there is not a good mechanism to ask these sort of questions except off topic in a story discussion. Something like a myspace wall would work, but I can't imagine that as a desired feature.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:13PM
> Why call an additional application to append your hosts file? Why not use the redirection features of your shell?
You are like the tenth person to ask him that.
I wish he would just take it out of his sig already, its so pointless.
The answer is, sudo does not do redirection. If it did, it would defeat the purpose because then you could redirect the output of your permitted command to clobber any file you wanted.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:48PM
I wouldn't know either way about the redirection, I just use "sudo vi /etc/hosts".
My point is that we should block ALL analytics servers; Google Analytics is just one specific example among many.
Rather than kvetching about my shell usage, I would expect the gentle reader to clue in to that they should find lots of analytics server IPs on their own, to add to their hosts file, firewall or what have you, on their own.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:10PM
> I wouldn't know either way about the redirection, I just use "sudo vi /etc/hosts".
Look, I know you are insane and all, but come on.
You specifically changed the sig to not use redirection when someone else explained to you it doesn't work.
If I really gave a damn I would go hunt down the exact thread. But it isn't worth the effort.
> I would expect the gentle reader to clue in to that they should find lots of analytics server
Stating the obvious is not insightful.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:52PM
I was concerned that following the advice in my sig might break networking entirely.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by lentilla on Friday May 29 2015, @01:39AM
sudo does not do redirection. If it did, it would defeat the purpose because then you could redirect the output of your permitted command to clobber any file you wanted
sudo does not do redirection - correct - but not for the reason you supplied. It is the shell that is responsible for redirection.
As you point out we've been over this multiple times. I don't want to nit-pick but I see this is a common misunderstanding which should all make perfect sense once we clearly grasp what is going on at a fundamental level.
Let's have a look at proposed command (which will not do what is intended):
sudo echo 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com >> /etc/hosts
The command being passed to the shell (usually "bash" in GNU/Linux) is "sudo". The shell parses the line and finds a redirection operator (">>" "append to file") - so it knows to append the output of "sudo" to the specified file (in this case "/etc/hosts"). Now, here is the important part: which user is doing the appending? Answer: the user that executed "sudo". This is why the command won't do what was wanted - a normal user probably doesn't have write permission to /etc/hosts.
"echo 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com" are the arguments that are passed to "sudo". When "sudo" starts, it checks its configuration and; assuming the requested command is allowed; prompts the user for a password to elevate permissions. "sudo" now parses its arguments, using the first argument as the command to execute and the rest as arguments to that command. In this case, the command is "echo" and it is supplied with the arguments "127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com".
There are various ways to Do What I Mean (namely append a line to a file that needs elevated permission to write in to) and an elegant solution appears in Michael's sig. There are; of course; other methods, many of which have been discussed here before.
Unless interested, this paragraph can be safely ignored since it's in the "more than you needed to know department". Note there is a subtle difference between "echo hi" and "sudo echo hi" that is not related to permissions. The former command is (usually) executing a shell builtin whereas the latter is executing a program (usually "/bin/echo"). You can test this for yourself by finding a shell builtin that doesn't have a executable analogue: "ulimit" under bash would do the trick. Plain old "ulimit" produces some output. "sudo ulimit" complains "sudo: ulimit: command not found".
I wish he would just take it out of his sig already, its so pointless.
Me too! I think; Michael; that you are preaching to the choir. Anyone that can grasp the issue is probably already doing that (I know I certainly am). Those who can't grasp the issue are just going to be left scratching their heads. Getting the word out is great but; at least in this case; if people haven't understood by now they probably never will.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Sunday May 31 2015, @12:54AM
Call shell with the command argument via sudo:
sudo sh -c "echo test > /test.txt"
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by tynin on Thursday May 28 2015, @09:30PM
I believe that the shell handles any redirection before sudo runs. If the redirection fails because of permissions, the whole command fails. It is just trying to protect you from maliciousness.
The correct answer is to man up and run as root and echo anything you want anywhere. If you want to stomp on a file, hey, its your box! Have a lot of fun!!! :)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Zinho on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:51PM
So what is "right" in this situation? If software shouldn't be protected by copyright, then what leg does the FSF have to stand on with the GPL and its related licenses?
The alleged infringement was in the structure and naming of the function headers, not for the code itself. Google is not trying to rip off Oracle's code and claim it is their own; instead, Google wrote a clean-room implementation of some of the functions. For that to work, the cloned functions need to present themselves to the code that will call them with the same name as the code they're replacing, otherwise it doesn't work. The District Court's ruling on this [groklaw.net] (pdf warning) is pretty clear on why this is the case:
So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free
under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function
or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or
method header lines are identical. Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a
method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different.
When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and
no one can monopolize that expression. And, while the Android method and class names could
have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright
protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law.
If the Appeals Court ruling stands, interoperability with existing code would be illegal. The WINE project could be shut down by Microsoft for copyright infringement under this ruling, even if the programmers had never seen a single character of the Windows source.
To make a bad analogy to another field of engineering, Oracle's claim of copyright violation by Google makes as much sense as one architect accusing a rival architect of stealing his blueprints because the designs both call for ASTM A36 steel for the girders and portand cement for the foundation. If Google wants to write a replacement for the API function DoSomething() then there is only one way in Java to write the program headers for the DoSomething() library. Doing so should not be considered a copyright violation, as it is a requirement for interoperability.
Reinstating the District Court's ruling would have no effect on the GPL or copyleft in general.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:53PM
It is commonly asserted by the misinformed that one cannot copyright header files. I assert that is not the case.
void strcpy( char *dst, char *src ); // Copy the nul-terminated sequence of chars from src buffer to dst
It's plainly apparent that the above is an expressive work which is worthy of copyright, especially so when it is in a header file full of similar expressive works.
Why?
"dst", "src" and the explanatory comment are expressive.
A reasonable clean-room clone that would not infringe might be:
void strcpy( char *a, char *b );
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @12:00AM
How does that matter at all to the situation? Comments don't go in the compiled code, and are we seriously going to argue that people should be able to copyright/patent the names of the variables they're using? The fuck difference does that make to the end user?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 29 2015, @03:13AM
my point is that a header file is not an interface; it is a creative work that, among other things, describes an interface.
The parts _other_ than the interface can be copyrighted.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Friday May 29 2015, @01:47AM
I don't think you committed copyright infringement. You generated a derivative work by transformation.
It's usually char *strcpy(char *dest, const char *src);
:-)
(Score: 1) by Refugee from beyond on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:04PM
GPL is a weapon. Why do you think it exists?
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:28PM
In Pamela Jones' absence, Wikipedia has a summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc. [wikipedia.org]
It's about whether APIs are copyrightable or not. If they are, it bodes trouble for the software industry.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:56PM
Last year Ed Felten signed an amicus brief [eff.org] for the same case, arguing the opposite position.
Two weeks ago he was appointed Deputy US CTO [whitehouse.gov] by the White House.
Power doesn't only corrupt, it co-opts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @07:00PM
What makes you think that he had anything to do with this court filing? According to the article the court filing was made by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. You don't have to agree with everything the government does to work there.