

Jury in Oracle v. Google has reached a verdict on all questions but one - grellas
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120504153813681

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ShardPhoenix
It seems completely insane to have a jury of random people decide these kind
of technical questions.

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rayiner
They give the jury very detailed guidance, in layman's terms, for each
question. The jury is not being asked to use any technical expertise--they're
being asked to judge the credibility of the experts who have presented each
side's evidence.

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rbanffy
It's like asking a dozen parakeets which of the two nuclear physicist in the
room is right about string theory. I fail to see how their opinion can be
relevant.

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rayiner
Programming isn't nuclear physics and juries aren't parakeets. And you're not
asking juries broad questions like "who is right about string theory?" you're
asking them very pointed questions like "did X present sufficient evidence to
show that Y is true?" Even in a technical trial, you're not asking the jury
technical questions like whether some code implements quick-sort or bubble
sort. The law by and large doesn't deal in those sorts of questions and as a
result those questions don't get posed to the jury.

Look at the questions posted:
<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120504153813681>

"B. Has Google proven that its use of Oracle’s Java documentation constituted
“fair use”?"

The judge will explain in detail what "fair use" means according to the law.
The factors of fair use are something like this:

1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole; and

4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.

An average person can evaluate whether Google's use of Oracle's documentation
was commercial or educational. They can be made to understand the difference
between documentation and actual code that makes a product work. They can be
made to understand the difference between a few lines of code and a program
containing millions of lines. They can hear evidence from experts about the
potential impact of the use and decide who they find more credible.

It's not like on TV where there is a "guilty/non-guilty" verdict. The juries
are asked very specific things that are expected to be within the range of
comprehension of an ordinary person.

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rbanffy
In this specific case, it's hard to imagine an average layperson being able to
grasp such concepts after a reasonable amount of instruction by experts and
the judge.

Let's use the Java interface construct as an example. It's expressed as code,
but is it really just code? Isn't it really a spec other classes must
implement in order to become valid Java code, expressed in code for the
benefit of the compiler?

I consider my own unit tests as part of the documentation of the systems I
deliver. There is little question as to whether the doctests are
documentation, but testing them makes them execute. What are they then?

What if my code, during startup, reads UML files and compiles them to behavior
that becomes part of the system during execution?

And my analogy works both ways - the opinion of a dozen theoretical physicists
on birdseeds is equally relevant.

~~~
rayiner
> In this specific case, it's hard to imagine an average layperson being able
> to grasp such concepts after a reasonable amount of instruction by experts
> and the judge. Let's use the Java interface construct as an example. It's
> expressed as code, but is it really just code? Isn't it really a spec other
> classes must implement in order to become valid Java code, expressed in code
> for the benefit of the compiler?

1) The jury doesn't decide whether Java interfaces are protectable code versus
unprotectable specifications. That's a legal determination for a judge. The
judge deals in these sorts of general or philosophical principles. The jury
deals in specific facts.

2) Technical distinctions aren't necessarily legally operative distinctions.
The law tends to be based on things that are within typical peoples'
experience.

3) You have days of peoples' undivided attention to explain things to a jury.

So in this example, the judge would be the one to decide whether Java
interfaces, in principle, were protectable or not. The jury would decide
things like the fact of whether Google copied Oracle's interfaces. Someone at
Google might testify that they never saw Oracle's interfaces, and came up with
them independently. The jury will decide whether they believe his story.
They'll be shown code. They don't have to understand how it works to know
whether the same variable names, etc, are being used.

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mauriciob
From the comments:

    
    
      The form says only to answer 4 if they answered YES to 1A, Google _has_
      infringed the SSO
    

Having a Jury with no technical knowledge would obviously lead to this.

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pan69
Having a Jury would obviously lead to this.

Not meaning to offend anyone but; to me a jury system is the most backward way
of justice. Simply grab a random group of people of the street to essentially
make life impacting decisions based on the theatrical performance of a lawyer.

It's like saying; Hey guys, we're short on brain surgeons, we're going to
introduce brain surgeon duty. Everyone can cut meat, right?

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eli
Have you ever been on a jury? I kinda thought that way too, then I served as a
juror for a serious criminal case. I was very impressed with the result of the
selection process (nice mix of race/gender/class that pretty accurately
represents the city) and the seriousness with which nearly all the jurors took
their task. People really wanted to get it right.

Just one data point, but I believe there are studies to back this up -- people
have far more confidence in the jury system if they have been on a jury.

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dnr
Maybe criminal cases are different. I was a juror recently for a civil case,
and while I agree the jurors took their task seriously, most of them lacked
the analytic intelligence required to rationally weigh the evidence. It came
down to whose lawyers told the more emotionally compelling story.

The whole experience left me with much less faith in the jury system.

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lawdawg
apparently it is _not_ question #4, which leads to a few possibilities:

1\. Unanimous on question 1, and therefore question 4 as well.

2\. question 1 is the one they are still debating, and therefore haven't even
considered #4.

Regardless, I don't think you can say whether this is good or bad for
Google/Oracle either way. Yes, if they were stuck on #4, it would be bad for
Oracle, but I can see them already deciding Yes to #1 and No to #4, and can't
decide on #2 or #3.

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0x006A
Time to watch 12 Angry Men while they discuss question number 4

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redthrowaway
Watching a movie about a lone juror changing everyone's mind on what was
supposed to be a slam-dunk case doesn't seem like good karma at the moment.

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tubbo
Great, but which questions are they sure on? Title should have just been "Wait
until Monday to find out Google v. Oracle verdict"

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iamgopal
so who will likely to win ?

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lucian303
@ShardPhoenix It IS completely insane to have a jury, a group of people
specifically chosen because of their below-average intelligence and lack of
technical knowledge, decide any kind of technical questions, especially this.
Sad place we inhabit in this universe indeed ...

