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posted by janrinok on Tuesday January 14 2020, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the #include⠀<stdio.h> dept.

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.

Mozilla: Competition and Innovation in Software Development Depend on a Supreme Court Reversal in Google v. Oracle:

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:58PM (8 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:58PM (#943594) Journal

    unless you have a Sun-licensed JDK

    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)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:44PM (#943662) Journal
    Nope - Sun was in no position to license code that didn't even exist after it was bought by Oracle. Oracle, as the new copyright owners, were allowed to refuse any new licenses. That is how copyright works. Any additional code Oracle added to their version of the language that was added to the openJDK can't be covered by Sun's license.

    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)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:58PM (#943674) Journal

      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)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:42PM (#943689) Journal
        The problem is that if Oracle is ruled to own the copyright to the APIs, they can say "stop using them " and OpenJDK would have to be reimplemented using different APIs. The GPL is clear - any code that doesn't have the copyright holders permission must be removed.

        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

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:52PM (#943694) Journal

          t if Oracle is ruled to own the copyright to the APIs

          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)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:59PM (#943675) Journal

      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)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:44PM (#943690) Journal
        And if Oracle is found to be the copyright owner of the Java API, they can exercise their rights to tell OpenJDK to take out a license for the API. The GPL covers code, not APIs.
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        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:53PM (1 child)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:53PM (#943695) Journal

          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

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 15 2020, @11:51PM (#943830)

            7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.