
Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle - nkurz
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/oracle-refuses-to-accept-pro-google-fair-use-verdict-in-api-battle/
======
diebir
Oracle is set to repeat the trajectory of SCO. Their primary product (the
Oracle DB engine) is being displaced by the NoSQL and things like Postgres.
The "next generation" of developers equals SQL engines with "old and bad", and
when forced, it ends up with Postgres anyway.

Oracle used to survive in significant part by the support of the "database
administrators" class. This layer of support is also becoming thinner and
older.

There's essentially no way forward for Oracle. They can use hostage tactics to
squeeze money out of exiting customers for a few more years, but otherwise
they are irrelevant in the tech landscape.

Except for Java, that is. The current tech is powered by Linux and there isn't
really anything as big as Java on Linux. Python has been pretty significant
and Go is making inroads, but the default is all Java. It is going to be
interesting to watch how this will play out.

~~~
pjmlp
Maybe for startups, on the enterprise space I am yet to see any customer move
away from Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and similar.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
When I worked government contracting they had broad goals handed down which
they must work toward without it being an explicit requirement. One of these
goals? Get on top of an open source only stack for security, cost and future
interoperability between other groups.

I worked on several projects where they were originally using Oracle or
MarkLogic and we transitioned them to Postgres or various other, open source
tech.

If the slow moving government is moving various projects away from Oracle, I
would be shocked if some businesses weren't doing so as well. Now I don't know
if moving away from proprietary is a trend or the more frequent than moving to
them.

~~~
mastazi
If you are allowed to and comfortable with it, could you share which country
was that? Over the years I have looked at government projects in Western
Europe, SE Asia and Australia, Europeans seem to be the ones that care the
most about open source, while at the other end of the spectrum SE Asian
governments are interested in it just as much as it lets them save money (much
less because of "free as in freedom"). Australia seems to me kind of a mixed
bag, it boasts about using Drupal because it's open source but I know that
some projects are based on proprietary technology. Please note that much of
the information I gathered is second-hand and may be inaccurate.

~~~
bane
I can say from experience that in the U.S., the procurement people are
definitely incentivized to look for solutions built on open standards and open
source because of the ability for the government to have the option to not
ever have to upgrade again, but to continue servicing this specific
procurement (and this specific version) forever and ever and not be beholden
to a specific vender or solution provider.

I've even seen cases where one company will sell a solution into the
government and lose the maintenance contract the next year to some entirely
different company who underbid the original provider -- and there's minimal
slowdown in technical execution because the entire stack is open to some
degree.

The government is starting to develop an allergy to vendor lock-in because of
this.

------
technofiend
Although Oracle denied they bought Sun just to sue Google you have to wonder
since they are claiming "billions" in damages and only paid $7.4 billion after
IBM dropped their $7.0 billion bid.

This purchase was such a seminal moment for the industry you have to wonder
what an alternative history would look like if say IBM or Google made the
purchase not to mention some dark horses like Amazon or Red hat.

~~~
snarf21
They absolutely bought Sun just to sue. I used to know someone personally
involved on the case. Oracle is a horrible company.

To be fair, Google's "don't be evil" is also a bunch of crap. They've done
their fair share of shady and exploitive things.

~~~
apathy
Google wasn't evil, at least not before the IPO (which is when I worked
there). People took the slogan seriously and based decisions on it. I don't
know what happened.

~~~
Teever
The people that intended to do evil merely waited until those who didn't
intend to do so finished implementing the things they were implementing.

Then they used that sound infrastructure to do evil with, as they had intended
to do all along.

Those people that took the slogan seriously were used.

~~~
rifung
Those are very damning accusations. Care to give some examples?

~~~
shard972
I think Google's quiet transformation from a search company to a data company
that is trying to learn everything about everyone is the prime example.

Google buzz was also one of the early moves that showed this, opting everyone
who uses gmail into a social network was pretty evil if you ask me.

~~~
andybak
I am troubled by your expansive definition of the word "evil".

------
niftich
I wish intent and end result counted more strongly. Andoid's compatibility
isn't transitive: once code goes through the Android build pipeline to produce
an Android Application it cannot be meaningfully used in the context of Oracle
Java; it's a one-way transformation to remain "talent-compatible" with a large
pool of Java developers and reuse the base of Java libraries.

Projects like OpenJDK and WINE are efforts to provide an alternate execution
environment for code that is mutually beneficial to the ecosystem, although
perhaps not the wallets of the original owner. A commercial venture ought to
qualify here if the intent is to compete on equal footing -- code targeting
OpenJDK can run unmodified on Oracle Java, code targeting WINE can run
unmodified on Win32, thereby not limiting the original creator's rights.

However, Android Apps contain unrelated _public_ APIs as part of the exported
code, and a full packaged Android App cannot meaningfully run on Oracle JDK,
despite portions of the standard library looking and behaving alike. This
fragments the ecosystem and essentially allows Android to benefit from the
works of the Java rightholders without making those contributions equally as
useful to Oracle Java itself.

~~~
orangecat
_once code goes through the Android build pipeline to produce an Android
Application it cannot be meaningfully used in the context of Oracle Java_

Android apps typically have an MVC-like structure where the UI uses Android-
specific APIs, but the model is straight Java. As an example, I created an
Android game and later decided that I wanted to make a level editor as a
desktop Java application. I was able to reuse the model code in Oracle's JDK
with no changes, even though I didn't have that use in mind when I originally
wrote it.

 _a full packaged Android App cannot meaningfully run on Oracle JDK_

That's true of any platform-specific Java API.

~~~
saurik
Right: and if you remember, the entire concept of a "platform-specific Java
API" is what was at stake when Microsoft lost this very similar lawsuit when
Sun sued them over J++. Either what Google is doing is horrible or what
Microsoft did shouldn't have been a problem :/.

~~~
magicalist
> _Either what Google is doing is horrible or what Microsoft did shouldn 't
> have been a problem_

Maybe go reread about the case? It was basically breach of contract and thus
quite different.

The basis of Sun's lawsuit was that Microsoft had a license to implement Java™
and part of that license was the requirement that their version would be
compatible as defined by the compatibility test suite.

In their attempt to "kill cross-platform Java" they failed to be compatible
and so Sun sued and won.

~~~
saurik
Huh! So, there were multiple rounds of lawsuits, and I will admit I missed
this (very important) detail of the part that Microsoft actually lost. I think
it is still important to note, however, that the main reason any of these
companies actually ended up in contracts with Sun was due to Sun's claims to
ownership over the language standard itself, and there is some really great
phrasing about Sun's feelings on this in this contemporary article from the
Wall Street Journal. But again: you are absolutely right about what is
different, and I am sorry for not noticing this before :(.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB876241941809073500](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB876241941809073500)

------
throwaway30121
Oracle is such a shit company. There are still some great hackers there but
Larry Ellison is an asshole, and I don't envy anyone who has to work for him
even indirectly. "Left Oracle's Java business in tatters" eh? Where was their
mobile OS? Their Dalvik?

The wounds to Java have all been self-inflicted. If they succeed in
copyrighting the API then where does this leave OpenJDK? Operating at the
mercy of Larry fucking Ellison, which means not at all.

I've got 17 years of Java experience under my belt, but frankly with Docker +
Kubernetes for deployment and new system languages like Rust and Go I'm
thinking it's time to jump ship. Or even to C# since apparently MS got the
memo on Open Source (not to mention the need for integrated platform
modularization - no more Maven hell! Yay!).

~~~
gribbly
>Or even to C# since apparently MS got the memo on Open Source

Actually Microsoft was with Oracle on the whole 'API's should be
copyrightable' and lobbied on their behalf during the case.

Microsoft claimed that: "If Google's position that APIs can't be copyrighted
stands, it will "destabilize" the entire software industry"

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-
forese...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-foresees-
chaos-if-google-v-oracle-result-stands/)

~~~
curt15
One wonders where they stand now that they've reimplemented the Linux kernel
APIs in Windows 10.

~~~
curun1r
Or considering they became such a large company selling a product that
targeted IBM compatible systems. In that case, they were a consumer of what
was essentially an API, but one wonders whether Microsoft would be in the
position it is in today if IBM had been able to prevent Compaq and other
vendors from creating clean-room implementations of what was essentially the
IBM PC API.

IBM would have been in a much better position to push OS/2 and supplant
Microsoft's OS offerings if it would have had a monopoly on the PC's
supporting it's PC interface.

------
PunchTornado
Oracle is at that stage where they didn't invent or do anything right in the
last 5 years but try to get money from lawsuits.

~~~
bogomipz
This is actually not true. Their cloud offering is doing really well. There's
some impressive figures here:

[http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/09/15/2016/oracles-c...](http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/09/15/2016/oracles-
cloud-business-doing-well-older-businesses-arent)

~~~
empath75
Growth rate is a nonsense metric. If you're starting from nothing and invest a
shitload of money in sales you'll have an amazing growth rate. IBM and Oracle
are both way behind azure, google and aws.

~~~
parthdesai
I have a friend who works at IBM he tells me that IBM uses Google cloud for
some of their stuff. The irony when you are a cloud provider but use another
service.

~~~
yellowapple
I mean, that in and of itself ain't really ironic. Lots of cloud providers out
there just resell abstractions around / improvements upon other cloud
providers. Cloud66 is one with which I'm familiar; their whole business model
revolves around wrapping AWS with CloudFoundry-like deployment mechanisms
specifically for Ruby codebases (and Docker containers, but I never interacted
with them in that capacity).

~~~
emmelaich
Yes, and note that IBM do a lot of Oracle support.

------
snarfy
The entire software industry should be boycotting Oracle over this case. If
they win it will ruin software development in the US.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
Except that Oracle has become so successful because they've captured the
largest customer(s) of all: the US federal government.

~~~
gohbgl
Well isn't that a coincidence. Extracting money through state granted limited
monopoly rights and lobbying for big government contracts at the same time.
Oracle is really living the crony capitalist dream.

------
moomin
Let's slap a great big IANAL on this before I start:

The fair use decision was wrong. It relied on a fundamental misunderstanding
of the term transformative where the use of the code was considered rather
than merely the implementation. So Oracle has a huge case here.

Moreover, practically it doesn't matter. Even if fair use is established in
this case, the door has been left wide open to hordes of API copyright trolls.
If you thought patent trolls were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

If you care about the economy, the only sensible outcome would be that API
surfaces aren't subject to copyright. Sadly the horse has bolted a long time
ago.

~~~
iopq
If implementing an interface is against copyright, then every Java program is
infringing on Oracle's copyright.

~~~
ktRolster
No because the Java license lets you do that.

~~~
iopq
If having your lawyers read the license is the requirement to using any
programming language...

------
Spivak
Okay, either I'm crazy or everyone else is. Assuming the court isn't trying to
set a new precedent with regards to software it seems like Oracle should have
easily won this case. There is an argument to be made that APIs shouldn't be
copyrightable but surely it's not _fair use_ \-- Google's use of Java doesn't
even come close to meeting the criteria.

~~~
technofiend
This is tricky because if you declare any API no matter how trivial
copyrightable then the first guy to copyright a function to compute sqrt, tan,
atan, etc wins. And if you can't copyright trivial interfaces then the
question becomes where the line is drawn.

There's far more at stake than Oracle trying to squeeze money out of Google.

~~~
Spivak
I completely agree, but I don't really know what to do about it. Surely a
document describing a useful software interface (GUI, CLI, API) is a creative
work and takes effort to produce. Unless we just agree that it's a necessary
exception for the purposes of interoperbility I'm not sure how I would argue
that it shouldn't fall under copyright protection.

~~~
derefr
_Copyright_ would apply to the documentation itself, or the published header
files themselves, as works; it wouldn't apply to the API itself.

Mind you, Oracle was suing Google for using the header files themselves; since
Google could have easily just typed up their own versions that did the same
thing, it's almost more of a "plagiarism" case than a "copyright infringement"
case: they shipped something that was _exactly_ from Oracle, rather than just
paraphrasing it. Oracle was probably in the right to sue over that.

But re: APIs—there's much more well-resolved case-law for this, coming from
the gaming vertical: games have copyright, but _game designs_ (including
things like their network protocols) do not. It has both pros (Microsoft can't
use the Minecraft IP to sue Terraria or Factorio; people can advance AI by
writing bots that play Starcraft) and cons (the iOS and Android stores being
saturated with mechanical clones of each successful game) but it's very
certainly "the way things are."

~~~
jolux
>it's almost more of a "plagiarism" case than a "copyright infringement"

Do you know what the definition of plagiarism is? Google it, "copyright
infringement" is listed as a synonym.

~~~
punctilio
Actually, plagiarism and copyright infringement are different things. For
example, it is possible to plagiarize something that is not copyrighted, and
many forms of copyright infringement wouldn't fit the definition of
plagiarism.

~~~
jolux
True, but the parent seems to think they wouldn't have been plagiarizing if
they had "paraphrased" the declaring code so to speak, which makes the
relationship here explicit. If they had paraphrased the declaring code, it
would have been much harder to say they were infringing on copyright, but
instead, they copied it verbatim.

Of course, in academia paraphrasing is still plagiarism, but it is likely no
longer copyright infringement especially in this case.

~~~
wycx
> Of course, in academia paraphrasing is still plagiarism, but it is likely no
> longer copyright infringement especially in this case.

That seems an odd thing to say. A significant portion of academic writing is
paraphrasing, with attribution. What is a review article, other than
attributed paraphrasing?

~~~
jolux
With attribution, definitely ok, but some think paraphrasing is enough to make
it wholly new. Hell, you can quote verbatim if you attribute.

------
matt_wulfeck
I'm really looking forward to the next 5 or 6 years, when all of the software
patents created in the 90s and 2000's expire. It can't come soon enough.

~~~
binarymax
If only this had to do with patents. Oracle is claiming breach of copyright -
which lasts over a hundred years.

~~~
DannyBee
They originally claimed patents too, which is why this keeps going to the
federal circuit instead of the 9th, who would have ended this silliness

~~~
0xffff2
Huh? "The 9th [circuit]" is a Federal circuit court...

~~~
_delirium
The terminology's confusing, but there's a court named the Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit [1], even though the term "federal circuit court" also
colloquially means the Courts of Appeals in general. This Federal Circuit is a
non-geographical Court of Appeals, separate from the 11 numbered,
geographically based Courts of Appeals, and has exclusive jurisdiction over
patent cases (among a few other things). They also have a reputation of being
very pro-IP-plaintiff compared to the courts in general.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Federal_Circuit)

~~~
0xffff2
Ah, so the "Federal Circuit" is another court at the same level as the other
circuit courts that doesn't have a number associated with it. The choice of
abbreviation is confusing to say the least.

------
golfer
Is Oracle the biggest troll in Silicon Valley right now? Can't think of anyone
else that would claim the title. Maybe Theranos.

~~~
koolba
> Is Oracle the biggest troll in Silicon Valley right now? Can't think of
> anyone else that would claim the title. Maybe Theranos.

I'm not aware of Theranos being a troll. Fraudster for sure, but troll has a
different meaning.

------
iamnotlarry
I got a sales call from Oracle out of the blue a few weeks ago. I have no idea
what brought my company to their attention.

I explained to the sales person that I am an Oracle-certified DBA with years
of experience managing Oracle servers. I then told him there was absolutely no
chance I would ever recommend switching to Oracle. In answer to his questions,
I explained that I could not trust Oracle. I don't mean Oracle the RDBMS, I
mean Oracle the company. He should be able to understand the need to trust
your RDBMS. It would be crazy to use RDBMS software with you data if you
didn't trust it. I think it would be crazy to trust a developer with your
RDBMS if you don't trust the developer.

I don't want to make sure I have the right lawyers and all my legal ducks in a
row to battle Oracle for the heart and sole of my company (what company
doesn't have data at its core these days?). I want to solve problems and
create great things. I want partners in that effort who I trust. I don't trust
Oracle. They do not want what is best for me. I don't want to end up as
roadkill on there quest to be more profitable. I'd rather work with those who
think that my success is their success.

------
faragon
Oracle should stop that, in my opinion. That attitude could kill Java in the
long term.

~~~
CydeWeys
One wonders how much the taint of Java factored into the decision to invent
Go.

~~~
twblalock
My impression is that the Go team had two targets, both based on languages in
common use at Google: C++ programmers, and programmers using languages like
Python who wanted more type safety but didn't want to use a language with a
massive ecosystem.

~~~
emiliobumachar
I might have misunderstood the last part. Why would anyone _not_ want a
massive ecosystem with their language? You can always ignore the ecosystem
while retaining the option to change your mind later.

------
RandyRanderson
Oracle is starting to remind me a lot of SCO:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO/Linux_controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO/Linux_controversies)

That hasn't worked out well for them.

IMO, successful technology companies do not correlate with the value
dollarsSpentOnLitigation/overallRevenue.

I think selling ORCL and buying QQQ will be a profitable trade in the next 5
or so years.

------
exabrial
Another thought too: Oracle kicking the hornet's nest on this may end up being
a "good thing". Their verdict was dubious at best, they might get overturned
and lose even more ground and $.

------
koolba
Is there anyone that's not on Oracle's payroll that sides with them on this
case?

~~~
paulddraper
Microsoft probably wouldn't mind Oracle winning.

~~~
breakingcups
Someone made a great point about the WSL (Linux) layer in Windows in this
thread.

------
bitmapbrother
The sequence, structure and organization of those method signatures, in those
37 Java packages, were all GPL'd in the OpenJDK in 2007 by Sun. Regardless of
whether API's can be copyrighted or not, Google had every right to use the
code Sun GPL'd.

~~~
Oletros
Google didn't use OpenJDK, they used Apache Harmony implementation

~~~
mjw1007
That's true, but the availability of OpenJDK (which, after all, Google have
now switched to) weakens Oracle's argument on the "Effect on the market"
factor.

~~~
dragandj
But OpenJDK is GPL. If Google licensed their Android Java as GPL, I guess
they'd be OK. However, Google's Java is NOT GPL.

~~~
wtallis
If the "structure, sequence, and organization" of APIs is a copyrightable work
in its own right, then couldn't Google make a GPL-licensed derivative SSO
(Android's API) but put their implementation under a separate license? Has
anyone done a legal analysis of how the GPL's copyleft provisions would apply
to this new kind of copyrighted work?

~~~
dragandj
No. Everything that gets linked to GPL has to be GPL.

~~~
bitmapbrother
That's not true. OpenJDK is licensed under the GPL v2 with the Classpath
Exception.

~~~
emiliobumachar
The Lesser GPL exists solely to allow linking to non-free programs.

[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-
lgpl.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.en.html)

------
ptrptr
I hope google just abandons java altogether if this is gonna continue.

~~~
Jean-Philipe
It might put off not just Google, but also other companies using Java.

~~~
quantumhobbit
And I sort hope it does.

------
gime_tree_fiddy
Maybe, this is a little bit off-topic.

But anyone, who tried to use JetBrains IDEs on Ubuntu, might have faced the
problem uglier font rendering with OpenJDK and the fix to it is to use the JDK
from Oracle.

I thought the different with OpenJDK was largely about the licensing. Anybody
with some insight on it ?

~~~
pjmlp
The closed source JDK has quite a few components that aren't the same as the
OpenJDK.

For example OpenJDK 9 will get a new Java 2D render, due to the differences
between the two that were in use
[http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/265](http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/265)

------
anigbrowl
This is turning into the _Bleak House_ of copyright cases.

------
leotravis10
Just as I thought this is over, Oracle just threw another curveball. I feel
this will be upheld but never know with these courts.

------
danjoc
How does OpenJDK stay out of violation if Oracle wins? Doesn't OpenJDK
basically copy the API as well?

~~~
tlogan
Code for OpenJDK can run unmodified on Oracle Java.

Code for Android Apps contain unrelated public APIs so cannot run on Oracle
Java.

~~~
wtallis
What does copyright law care about software compatibility?

------
shmerl
Some just never learn. Oracle is a massive troll.

------
cosatelo
I really hope they win just because I hate using java for android development.
Maybe if they win we'll swift will become the native language.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Agreed, but I do find Kotlin[1] to be a good compromise in the meantime.

1 - [https://kotlinlang.org](https://kotlinlang.org)

------
sanatgersappa
Fuchsia can't some soon enough.

------
pikachuisntcool
I hope Oracle wins. The sooner Java dies, the better.

~~~
sddfd
I still don't understand why Google did not buy Sun Microsystems. They hired a
lot of the staff anyway, and could have avoided the lawsuit.

~~~
uiri
Hiring the staff and handling the lawsuit - Google has their own in-house law
firm anyways - has likely worked out to be cheaper for them than buying Sun
Microsystems would have been.

~~~
coredog64
Yes, but the downside on a lawsuit if Oracle prevails will be much worse.

Imagine, if you will, all that Sun IP in the hands of Google instead of
Oracle. ZFS might have gotten a license friendlier to Linux, Solaris could
have stayed open source, and I would put money on Google having spun Java out
into a completely open foundation that wouldn't have done what Oracle has done
with new EE versions.

------
rbjorklin
Curious to hear your reasons for calling Red Hat a dark horse. (Which I
presume is some kind of slur/holds a derogatory meaning)

~~~
dizzystar
my goodness, this is probably not a native English speaker, or perhaps never
heard the expression before... why be so harsh?

~~~
wtbob
Not understanding is fine: assuming that something one doesn't understand must
be a slur is not fine.

~~~
raarts
He didn't assume but presume. And I think that's quite understandable for a
non native speaker, given the connotation of the word 'dark'.

~~~
selectiveshift
Actually in this case presuming is not understandable, there is no evidence or
reasonable grounds to support his statement.

------
ryanobjc
Who has better connections with Trump?

Sadly to say, that is not an irrelevant fact anymore. Trump is clearly the
kind of president that would reach in to legal rulings he's paid not to like.

~~~
lazugod
Why would he care about two companies he doesn't own? I don't think this is a
big concern.

~~~
mwfunk
Oracle's CEO is on his transition team, and Oracle is one of the few big tech
companies to not publicly support the legal challenge to the travel ban.

