
Oracle and the End of Programming as We Know It - MrFoof
http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/232901227
======
waterlesscloud
"You might recall that the Lotus v. Borland suit (1990) originally resulted in
a ruling affirming the copyrightability of a menu hierarchy."

Well those resources were certainly well spent, as the current dominance of
these two companies indicates.

~~~
bluedanieru
Here's to the pattern continuing in the case of Oracle. They are a blight.

~~~
kijin
I'd be a tad bit concerned about a patent troll obtaining Oracle's IP if they
ever go down, though.

Oh, the joy of having to choose the lesser of two evils.

~~~
nextparadigms
Let's worry about the first, "real" evil right now, rather than a hypothetical
one in the future.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Or, take a cue from Stallman and worry about both.

------
WildUtah
API copyrights is a terrible idea that would promote vendor lock in and block
interoperability. It would be a disaster for companies writing to a small
niche API or who lost access to a flaky vendor's approach to their problem.

This wouldn't really be so bad as far as programming languages go. AT&T
already cross-licensed the C and UNIX ecosystem to the University Of
California's open source BSD project and you could inherit their license. Java
VMs and compilers could be distributed under GPL (and Android would be a
better platform under GPL with less fragmentation). Python, Ruby, Perl, and
the like license themselves to the world freely and easily.

I can't think of any really major programming languages that would be harshly
damaged. C# is largely effectively proprietary because Microsoft rattles the
patent sabre at non-Windows implementations. I don't know what the status of
Javascript might be, but the standard API is fairly tiny.

Of course, no unfree language or API in the future would ever gain traction
without a monopoly platform provider of some kind to require it and still it
would never spread beyond that platform. Users would be too terrified of
vendor lock-in.

Things like Wine would need to take development overseas, but the need for
them is shrinking along with the use of proprietary platform binaries.

~~~
batista
_> C# is largely effectively proprietary because Microsoft rattles the patent
sabre at non-Windows implementations._

C# is an open standard, submitted to ISO and ECMA (at least for versions <
latest). MS also signed a legally binding patent pledge to not sue anyone for
the language and runtime IIRC.

There exist at least two C# open source implementations that I know of, Mono
and some GNU project.

~~~
gouranga
The runtime is a hodgepodge of standardised bits and Microsoft extensions
though.

~~~
nextparadigms
That's my worry. They could always find some technicality to sue over.

------
liotier
IT lawyer and digital liberties' advocate Carlo Piana mentions at
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/115445134403759043734/posts/coVx...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/115445134403759043734/posts/coVxN3TDcmj)
that such API copyrightability has been largely denied by the SAS v. WPL case
that came out today (nice coincidence !) : "[...] neither the functionality of
a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files
used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions
constitute a form of expression of that program and, as such, [they] are not
protected by copyright in computer programs" -
[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&...](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=122362&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=115060)

~~~
viraptor
Fortunately that happens in Europe, but that also means the ruling doesn't
apply abroad. With US being very keen on trying to apply local laws to
companies/people in other countries... We'll see what happens.

------
fpp
A ruling could also go along the line that Sun / Oracle might have a copyright
to the API but Google was free to use them.

In any case I guess we will see appeals from either side.

The author mixed in C# and VB in Mono - while MS has in the past applied and
received patents on their APIs they have explicitly provided this use. This
might be the way forward - company who created those APIs keeps control but
let everyone use them.

Nevertheless, IMHO if I provide a solution like the Java language into the
public domain / license it under GNU, parts like APIs become elements of
speech - otherwise the whole thing becomes rather philosophical (and solved
far more than 100 years ago by Hegel - 100% information is not possible).

------
lucian1900
Actually, if APIs/languages turned out to be copyrightable, IBM might just sue
Oracle for using SQL and other related APIs. Oracle are even trying to
invalidate the defence of implicit acceptance (same situation with both Sun
and IBM).

Really stupid move on Oracle's part.

~~~
DrJokepu
That would be actually very good for Oracle. Oracle would pay a certain amount
of money to IBM in exchange for licensing these APIs. As they say, business is
IBM's middle name so it's not like they're going to make this a political
question, they will happily take the money. Suddenly, the barrier to enter to
relational database market is a lot higher, and PostgreSQL (and MySQL copies
without a license from Oracle) are illegal. How is this a stupid move on
Oracle's part?

~~~
jurre
I guess it would speed up nosql adoption quite a bit if things would actually
get that far.

~~~
jrgnsd
NoSQL isn't a replacement for SQL. It's a separate technology.

~~~
jurre
Yes I understand that, but if SQL would become oracle expensive I think you
will see a lot of companies/projects switching to one of the many nosql
options that don't infringe IBM's patented API.

~~~
roel_v
I don't think you understand. How can you switch from the one to the other if
they're separate technologies? Going on foot is not a substitute for driving a
car when we're talking about transporting 100 refrigerators from a port to a
warehouse 300 km inland, it's only a substitute when we're talking about
transporting a person less than a few kilometers and when time is of little
importance.

That's not to say that there are no alternatives to relational databases or
SQL, but the leap to 'oh then NoSQL will take over' doesn't make much sense.

~~~
jurre
Both are in the business of storing data that can later be retrieved again, so
I don't think your analogy really holds in this case. Maybe you are thinking
of one particular nosql solution but I think almost all projects could find an
alternative to a database that uses SQL. That is not to say that it shouldn't
be a relational database or that there's a one shoe fits all solution out
there.

~~~
GlennS
I think you would really struggle to find adequate replacements for relational
databases in at least two areas: reporting and ad-hoc queries.

~~~
viraptor
Mongodb has ad-hoc queries (not as simple as SQL, but still). Many engines can
run huge aggregated queries (hadoop?)

But I think the problem is placed in the wrong place. If SQL the language/API
is copyrighted, then isn't it easier produce a new API with the same
functionality?)

------
rfugger
According to Groklaw, the jury will not decide whether copyright applies to
APIs. The judge instructed them to assume it does, find whether there is a
violation, and if so, the judge will decide whether APIs can be copyrighted at
all. If they find no violation, he doesn't have to rule on the matter.

------
cageface
I know it would be extremely traumatic to the entire Android ecosystem but I'd
personally be happy if Google just shat out Java entirely and put their
efforts into making Go the native tongue of Android.

~~~
grogs
Why?

~~~
cageface
Go is a cleaner, more elegant language that makes better use of memory.

------
skrebbel
Good observation. I wonder what would happen if programming and selling
software in the US suddenly becomes too dangerous to do. Would it impact the
rest of the world?

~~~
marcusf
I'd hope it'd help to further flame innovation in Europe and Asia. Crippling
US innovation with onerous IP laws (like this might lead to) would probably
lead short-term to a dip in global tech innovation (and a correlated rise in
IP law expenditures :)) until money and talent moves elsewhere on the globe.
One can hope.

On the other hand, the US has always been good at exporting copyright
provisions and IP laws so worst case, we'll all be at the behest of rent-
seekers like Oracle, etc.

------
fierarul
>However, a silver lining could present itself: The jury could affirm that the
APIs are copyrighted but that the syntax of the function signatures are a fair
use exception.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but aren't APIs a documented bunch of function
signatures and class hierarchies? According to the silver lining above, what's
_not_ covered by the fair-use?

~~~
pron
Hmm, maybe publishing the API in book form?

------
pavanky
This is a sad situation. I don't want to name names, but the startup I am
working at is being sued by a much bigger company for exactly the same thing.
Copyright infringement over their APIs.

------
codeka
One question is what will happen with Apache Harmony? From what I've read of
the case, Apache have basically done the exact same thing that Google did, but
Sun/Oracle never bothered to go after them. How will that project survive with
the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over it?

~~~
dteoh
The Apache Harmony project has been discontinued.

~~~
codeka
Oh, you're right! I only wondered because of what I've been reading about the
case, since it was mentioned a few times.

Though I guess the same question could be asked of GNU Classpath, which as far
as I can see is still actively maintained.

------
Irishsteve
Any idea how much would this license that Google possibly needed may have
cost? Or would it have been one of a kind?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The Sun CEO at the time claimed that they would have paid Google to use Java,
the disagreement was who got to make decisions and neither side trusted the
other to get it right (personally I think history has vindicated Google on
this point).

~~~
pron
Well, considering the success of Amazon's Android fork, I think that
vindication is still pending.

And no matter who's been right - legally or business-wize - I find it
seriously annoying to have two Javas.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Amazon use Dalvik don't they? Why not the JVM?

~~~
pron
Because OpenJDK is GPL licensed, and I guess Amazon didn't want to open-source
their code. BTW, Google doesn't want to open-source (or even let Apple look
at) the Nexus Android code.

------
pron
I don't care who wins this case, but as a Java developer I hope that
eventually Android will come into the Java fold, adhere to standards and run
on an awsome, standard JVM. Imagine using all JVM languages, unmodified, on
Android. Both Oracle and Google will gain from this, as well as the entire
Java developer community.

(Side note: a ruling on API copyrights could have far reaching ramifications,
some might be quite unfortunate, but it's important to make clear that Oracle
did not start out trying to establish API copyrightability. They simply set
out to nail Google for Android, and API copyright was simply a tool in their
legal toolbox.)

~~~
codeka
You can run other JVM languages on Android today. The Android compiler take
Java byte code and translates it to Dalvik byte code.

See here for Clojure: <http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Android+Support>

"Works out of the box with 1.2.0+" -- other JVM languages should have a
similar story.

~~~
spacemanaki
That's not really fair, tbh, (and I'm a huge fan of Clojure). It's dog-slow on
Android. I don't know the details, but I think it's has a lot to do with
differences between Dalvik and Hotspot.

~~~
thebluesky
Clojure is currently significantly slower than Java in general, likely due to
dynamic typing. See:
[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=al...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=clojure&lang2=java)

~~~
spacemanaki
Right, but that's not terribly relevant to this thread. As I understand it the
difference between Clojure on Dalvik and Java on Dalvik is much greater than
Clojure on Hotspot and Java on Hotspot.

