
Oracle attorney says Google’s court victory might kill the GPL - Jerry2
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/op-ed-oracle-attorney-says-googles-court-victory-might-kill-the-gpl/
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AnimalMuppet
"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Ahem. No, it's just your flawed legal idea that's falling. Code is still
totally copyrightable, and not takeable under "fair use" (unless it's a very
small amount), but using APIs _is_ fair use.

API != implementation. Is that so hard to understand?

~~~
protomyth
Yeah, the argument presented seems to go way beyond the case, but I do have a
bit of a concern.

If using the API is fair use, how does this affect programs using libraries
licensed under the GPL? Can a company claim fair use and not follow the GPL's
restrictions on linking?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> If using the API is fair use, how does this affect programs using libraries
> licensed under the GPL?

If you use the library, you're using - executing - the _implementation_ , not
just the _interface_. That's not covered by this case, and you can't ignore
the GPL's restriction on linking.

The analogy of this case would be if you kept the same function signatures of
the library, but re-implemented it. Can you do that without violating the GPL?
This case says "yes".

~~~
protomyth
thanks for explanation - I thought as much, but it seemed to be missing from
the stories

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grizzles
I guess we're moving into the sour grapes stage of the litigation. I guess
corporations really are people: 1\. denial (tick) 2\. anger (TICK) 3\.
bargaining (tick) 4\. depression (coming soon) 5\. acceptance (#NeverAccept?)

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exabrial
I literally just spit some beer out onto the bar. Are they high? Who at Oracle
comes up with this shit?

Oracle is a threat to the GPL. They'll sure anyone.

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jayarcanum
Oracle better stop fucking around. Larry's gonna learn a late lesson.

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aceperry
Leave it to Oracle to continue with the FUD.

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cm3
Some more words from Annette Hurst: [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-
free-software-how-googl...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-free-
software-how-google-killed-gpl-annette-hurst)

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DyslexicAtheist
apparently the GPL has only ever been challenged once in court. From "THE
STORY OF BUSYBOX AND THE FIRST GPL LAWSUIT"
[http://torquemag.io/2013/03/busybox/](http://torquemag.io/2013/03/busybox/)

quote:

> _Fascinating. Strangely, the BusyBox seems to have been the very first U.S.
> lawsuit to enforce the GPL so his statement seems to suggest that there were
> cases before that – I can’t seem to find any._

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ashitlerferad
There have been lots in Germany:

[http://gpl-violations.org/news/](http://gpl-violations.org/news/)

