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The case Google v. Oracle America, previously named Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., is being heard by the US Supreme Court. At the center of the case is whether programmers require permission to use an application programming interface (API). The outcome will determine the extent to which APIs can or should be copyrighted. If it turns out that copyright can be used to lock competitors out of using any given API, then there are severe repercussions for software development, as all programs these days rely heavily on pre-existing libararies which are then accessed via APIs.
Google: The case for open innovation:
The Court will review whether copyright should extend to nuts-and-bolts software interfaces, and if so, whether it can be fair to use those interfaces to create new technologies, as the jury in this case found. Software interfaces are the access points that allow computer programs to connect to each other, like plugs and sockets. Imagine a world in which every time you went to a different building, you needed a different plug to fit the proprietary socket, and no one was allowed to create adapters.
This case will make a difference for everyone who touches technology—from startups to major tech platforms, software developers to product manufacturers, businesses to consumers—and we're pleased that many leading representatives of those groups will be filing their own briefs to support our position.
At bottom in the case is the issue of whether copyright law bars the commonplace practice of software reimplementation, "[t]he process of writing new software to perform certain functions of a legacy product." (Google brief p.7) Here, Google had repurposed certain functional elements of Java SE (less that 0.5% of Java SE overall, according to Google's brief, p. 8) in its Android operating system for the sake of interoperability—enabling Java apps to work with Android and Android apps to work with Java, and enabling Java developers to build apps for both platforms without needing to learn the new conventions and structure of an entirely new platform.
Devclass: Google says nature of APIs under threat as Oracle case heads to US Supreme Court:
The case – ten years in making – centres on Oracle's claims that its Java patents and copyrights were infringed by Google when the search giant created its Android mobile operating system. An initial ruling in Google's favour was overturned on appeal, and the case is finally due to land in the Supreme Court this year. Google filed its opening brief for the justices this week.
When was the last time, outside of school, when you yourself have written a program entirely from scratch and not used even a single set of application programming interfaces? Yeah. Thought so.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 14 2020, @08:01PM (17 children)
There haven't been all that much improvement in the software industry as a whole in the last 20 years, and there has been quite a lot lost. Innovation? I'm not seeing it? Stupid Ubuntu file manager doesn't allow multiple windows, or even side by side lists of two directories - something both DosShell and Windows 3.0 had.
"Innovation " is mostly limited to fscking up the UI, by making it more complicated by "simplifying " it. Innovation? How many different browsers are there today? Programming languages? Perl 6 is dead. Python isn't even included in some Linux base installs, so dead. Ruby? Another zombie. C is more or less intact, but c++ lost it's way when it tried to become more than
Java finally got fast enough, as did the hardware, to actually be used. But they had to go screw that up, and J2EE is just another excuse to make things so bloated that it guarantees job security.
Operating systems? Linux and Windows both hit their peak at the turn of the century in terms of real advances.
Linux and bsd still have problems with hardware compatibility, especially with sound and printers. Even on old hardware.
Emojis are not a mark of progress.
And the misnamed OpenJDK doesn't install the applications necessary for development by default - without javac, etc., it's not a JDK. It's a JRE. It's easier to either go with Oracle or use an older Sun JDK than to keep twiddling to find out why a JDK can't be used for development.
At least there were reasonable excuses 20 years ago. The field was still wide open. Today, not so much. So screw Oracle, but also screw all the others who made things overly complicated so they could justify a paycheque.
C99 is good enough, Java 1.5 is good enough, mc at least let's me see files in two directories side by side, but I'm beginning to suspect that life is too short to bother with Linux, Windows, or the bsds. I hate OS X, but it's starting to look better because everything else has become a steaming pile of bug ridden shit.
Open source has failed. It has led to fragmentation, bugs that aren't fixed, awful user interfaces, and hegemony of the big boys setting both the agenda and what gets fixed, because without paid bug fixers, it's easier to scratch your own itch. We got what we paid for. Oracle is a symptom of a larger problem.
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(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:39PM (15 children)
As far as I can tell, OpenJDK comes with a javac and development tools. OpenJDK was reorganized sometime after java 8. It now no longer includes a separate JRE subfolder. The JRE is "merged" into the JDK. So look in the top level /bin for things like javac, jar, etc.
OpenJDK is GPL v2 + Classpath exception. Oracle cannot undo that.
There are now multiple places to get prebuilt OpenJDK.
Adopt Open JDK
https://adoptopenjdk.net/ [adoptopenjdk.net]
https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK [github.com]
https://github.com/ojdkbuild/ojdkbuild [github.com]
Open JDK
http://openjdk.java.net/ [java.net]
Azul Systems Zulu
http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/ [azul.com]
Amazon
https://aws.amazon.com/fr/corretto/ [amazon.com]
https://github.com/corretto [github.com]
Eclipse
https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/ [eclipse.org]
https://adoptopenjdk.net/releases.html?variant=openjdk11&jvmVariant=openj9 [adoptopenjdk.net]
https://github.com/eclipse/openj9 [github.com]
Red Hat
https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/download/ [redhat.com]
https://access.redhat.com/articles/1299013 [redhat.com]
SAP
https://github.com/SAP/SapMachine [github.com]
BellSoft
https://bell-sw.com/java.html [bell-sw.com]
Oracle JDK -- supported for a limited time unless you pay
https://jdk.java.net/11/ [java.net]
Oracle Binary License Agreement - DANGER Will Robinson!
http://java.oracle.com/ [oracle.com]
See:
Time to look beyond Oracle's JDK
https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/time-to-look-beyond-oracles-jdk.html [joda.org]
Java is Still Free 2.0.0
https://medium.com/@javachampions/java-is-still-free-2-0-0-6b9aa8d6d244 [medium.com]
JDK Distributions
https://sdkman.io/jdks [sdkman.io]
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(Score: 2, Disagree) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 14 2020, @11:57PM (14 children)
And unless you have a Sun-licensed JDK, you can be affected by this issue if Oracle wins, because even a separate implementation of the API would be copyright infringement. That includes Apache Harmony. The GPL doesn't protect from copyright infringements.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:52PM (4 children)
If Oracle wins is an important question.
GPL does protect you from claims of copyright infringement against you from the licensor/author of the code. That's one of the reasons for an open source license. A few years ago this silly "no license" movement sprang up, then quickly died. People writing software didn't want to deal with the complexities of understanding licenses. Can't we all just get along? We're all nice guys. Etc. The author says he would never sue me for using his code that he put up on GitHub. I say: if you're such a good guy, then put that promise in writing, it's called a license.
I don't "install" Java on Linux (or Windows). I have multiple unziped (un-tar'ed) Java runtimes. I use scripts that launch all my Java dev tools, servers, etc. The scripts are trivially pointed at different versions of Java (or different 'vendor' builds) for testing.
Sun put the JDK under the GPL + classpath license. They can't take it back. Nor can Oracle. Oracle's official proprietary builds are based on OpenJDK. Oracle's paid developers contribute to OpenJDK, which is upstream from Oracle's builds. What Oracle offers is binary builds, like everyone else. But you can pay to have continued support and patches way beyond the end lifetime of a particular version of Java. Hence, lots of Java programs (not mine) are still on Java 8 and pay for support. Red Hat, Azul Systems and others similarly offer paid support. There are also volunteer efforts to backport important patches to no-longer-supported versions of Java. So you can still get Open JDK updates for Java 8 with important security fixes for example.
I'll also clarify (informally, in a nutshell) what the "classpath" exception is to the GPL. Open JDK is GPL, full stop. That means if you have a program that runs on Java, YOUR PROGRAM comes under the scope of the GPL. The classpath exception is an additional clause from Sun stating that your program does NOT come under the scope of the GPL if it is merely using Java as a runtime platform and adds significant value beyond the bare JDK. (eg, you can't use a "hello world" program as an excuse to redistribute the entire JDK and evade the GPL, and let your "hello world" program launch other larger programs.)
If you have a major Java application and want to pay Oracle / Red Hat / Azul Systems / and others for commercial support -- be my guest.
Or you can use Open JDK without commercial support. If it breaks at 3 AM, it's your problem. But that is true of an unsupported Linux installation as well.
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(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:31PM (3 children)
What this means is that if Oracle is found to have a valid copyright to code that others have included in ANY code that Oracle hasn't given a license to, that code is infringing - in the USA.
Exceptions would be JDKs and JVMs that were obtained directly from Sun with a more permissive license, to use and redistribute. This doesn't somehow get passed on to later versions distributed by Oracle - just that they cannot retroactively change a license agreement they were never a party to.
Same reason why Linux can't be changed to a newer version of the gpl -,too many copyright holders, some of whom can't give permission to change the license because they're dead.
The alternative is to rewrite from scratch. Might not be a bad idea but it will never happen.
But no version of the GPL has EVER provided protection from claims by 3rd parties of copyright infringement. Any infringing code HAS to be removed or an agreement made to relicence it under the GPL. Copyright law doesn't allow for anyone to change the license of code owned by someone else. The GPL certainly doesn't allow it. So your basic premise is wrong.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:45PM (2 children)
It is correct that the GPL doesn't protect you from your own infringement of someone's copyright.
Oracle's Open JDK source code, to this very day, is still GPL + classpath.
In fact, the GPL+classpath licensed Open JDK is upstream to Oracle. Oracle pays developers to work on Open JDK. Oracle uses Open JDK to build its own binary product, which it supports.
There is no need to rewrite. Oracle's Open JDK source code is GPL+classpath licensed.
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(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:34PM (1 child)
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:47PM
It is true that Oracle holds the trademark on Java. And Oracle can insist that nobody can deceptively market anything as being "real java". Just as Coke can prevent Pepsi from implying that it is Coke. Yet Pepsi exists.
If Oracle wins its copyrightable API argument, it will be a major tectonic shift in the entire industry. Bigger than Android or Java.
Even people who hate Java may be affected.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:58PM (8 children)
ALL Open JDKs are sun licensed. That license is the GPL + classpath exception. No matter who you get your Open JDK from.
Oracle can't retroactively undo that.
Oracle CAN stop contributing to Open JDK for future versions. But they seem (at present) to think it is in their interest to keep Open JDK as an upstream to their own builds of Java.
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(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:44PM (7 children)
Anyway, it only matters to less than 5% of the worlds population. China has already jumped ahead of the west in terms of technology (more patents every year than the US, Europe, Japan, and Taiwan combined). They've also passed the USA in terms of purchasing power parity. Java is more or less irrelevant in the long term - after all, even Java is implemented in c. Eventually someone will come along with something better and simpler, and Java will die.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:58PM (2 children)
The way GPL works is that all code in Java that did not exist at the time of Sun still falls under the GPL+classpath.
More patents is not a sign of innovation. It is more a sign of hindering innovation.
Java may eventually become irrelevant. I don't have a crystal ball. Today, it is still the number one programming language on job sites, discussion, questions and commercial use.
Java is implemented in C. And getting hard to maintain. GraalVM aims to change some of that. More of the JVM runtime will be written in Java.
There are a lot of things simpler than Java, and Java has not died. Java does what it does very well. Better is more subjective. If someone comes along with something better that makes Java irrelevant, then Java deserves to die. And I'll be happy to switch to something better. But right now, despite it being fashionable to hate Java, it is still the best at what it does. Lots of large corporations make vast use of Java and spend boatloads of money on it -- for a reason. They're not all just stupid. Java is not perfect for everything. It has its warts. And it is completely inappropriate for many use cases.
If there were one perfect programming language, we would all be using it already.
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(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:42PM (1 child)
The alternative is that Oracle loses. I'm okay with either result wrt Java. It's not going to change my world much if Java dies, or if it's restricted to outside the USA. Either result is because the US legal system is not fit for purpose.
Just look at the 20% of death row inmates who, after all appeals, are found not to have been guilty because of DNA.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:52PM
That's the wrong question. The question is if APIs are found to be copyrightable. Any APIs. All APIs. Not just Oracle's APIs. And not just APIs used by Android.
Another legal question is if APIs are part of the code covered under GPL. Does source code "include" APIs inherently.
In your worst case scenario, if Oracle destroys Java, it basically will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Java is of immense commercial value. Oracle knows that. If they destroy it over their squabble with Google / Android, that would be monumentally stupid. But I can't predict the future.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:59PM (3 children)
Just to point out: It is a SIMPLE FACT that Oracle's Open JDK is GPL + classpath licensed.
You can't argue that fact away.
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(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:44PM (2 children)
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:53PM (1 child)
If you license your code under GPL, then aren't APIs in that same code also under GPL, or not?
Of course, I can imagine Oracle's Lawyers making a case out of that.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 15 2020, @11:51PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:51PM
J2EE should have been named: Java Enterprise Edition Web Tooling Framework
Or simply: JEE WTF
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