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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: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:37PM (6 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:37PM (#943286) Journal
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Informative=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:49PM (4 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 14 2020, @09:49PM (#943294) Journal

    There must have been some industry organization(s) bribing lobbying both sides.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:16AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 15 2020, @04:16AM (#943444)

      They do that long before it comes down to a single issue. The problem with our democracy as opposed to e.g. Finland, or even what it used to be is that we're huge. You don't get elected by going door to door, giving stump speeches, and the like. You get elected by spending massive amounts of money. Seriously, money is the strongest predictor in election success in the US. And so who gives that money? Corporations and other special interests. Do you know what congressmen spend the most time doing once elected? Yip, fundraising for the next election.

      And the thing that really sucks is that there is absolutely no way to fix this problem. Even if you made some rule that congressmen could not accept donations then it'd simply turn into the exact same thing done through proxies. Even if you banned third party political advertising, it'd end up with the same thing done by 'incentivizing' high visibility individuals to 'voluntarily' support them.

      • (Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday January 15 2020, @09:01PM (2 children)

        by dry (223) on Wednesday January 15 2020, @09:01PM (#943782) Journal

        One big problem is that you froze the size of the House of Representatives a century ago while your population has grown. This leads to those Representatives representing a huge chunk of the population so going door to door doesn't work and a small enough group that they're easy to bribe. It also leads to more unbalance in individual States representation.
        Canada, with 1/10th the population has 338 members in the House of Commons, so for for same representation you would need over 3000 Representatives.
        The States could fix this by passing Article the First but likely won't as too many States like having an extra say in how the country is run. The only thing worse then tyranny of the majority is tyranny of the minority.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @01:31AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 16 2020, @01:31AM (#943850)

          The U.S. population has more than tripled [wolframalpha.com] from 1913 to today. Back then, there were 211,000 people per representative, on average, and there is over 710,000 today. Canada's is 108,000 and that would be almost 2860 representatives, not counting apportionment by state. Personally, I'd implement the Wyoming Rule, at a minimum, to lower the average and insure more parity in the future. Then we can talk about changing the population per representative.

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:11AM

            by dry (223) on Thursday January 16 2020, @02:11AM (#943867) Journal

            Yes, the Wyoming Rule would be a start, just to balance things a bit better. Federal systems make it hard to balance representation with the smaller political units having more say it seems. Here PEI has about 36000 per riding compared to my Province at 110,000. The Territories likewise have about 35k-40k even with their size (Nunavut is about 9x the size of Texas).

  • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:27AM

    by TheReaperD (5556) on Wednesday January 15 2020, @02:27AM (#943414)

    Hey, Disney and Sony paid good money for those votes!

    --
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