

Google (Potentially) Blows the Door Off Oracle's Copyright Claims - grellas
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120426075025438

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Roboprog
Even if Oracle wins, they may lose.

Imagine if:

Google looses the right to use the Java API in Android.

Google makes a conversion tool to convert the Android API to another API / VM
format. (maybe based on Parrot???)

"" releases an ANSI / ISO spec for an improved high level language (not just a
C++ replacement like Go), and makes the spec open to encourage "safe"
adoption.

"" provides reference implementations for mobile (Android) and server (GAE)
type uses.

"" creates a subsidiary to sell and _support_ the SDK to encourage corporate
adoption. I'm not exactly sure how this last step supports their core
business, other than making sure there is a talent pool available. But as long
as I'm dreaming...

THAT is a result I'd like to see. Send Java off to the old programming
languages retirement home, where it can sit and trade war stories with Visual
BASIC and dBASE.

~~~
chwahoo
This seems to be a big leap from the current events.

But, indulging the leap :), why would you want it to be a new language? Phones
are getting fast - why not python or ruby? (Or Scala, Dart, ...)

However, I don't think Java is a bad language for many programs--and doubt
it's headed to a retirement home anytime soon. (I'm frankly thrilled with Java
for moving some many developers to a "safe" language/environment rather than
C/C++ and its buffer overflows :)

~~~
xsmasher
Sluggishness and battery life are big complaints about current-gen phones;
going higher-level is probably not a good idea.

I'm still not sure why Google went with Java over C++, other than thinking
"phones are fast enough."

~~~
Drbble
Java isn't so much slower than objective-C if at all, and Android has a native
API for low level programming.

~~~
xsmasher
JIT compilation is swell, if you don't count time time it takes to kick in.
And you're still at the mercy of the garbage collector.

If it doesn't matter because you can use C or C++ for critical parts... well
you can do that from Objective-C too, and it's trivial. It's far simpler than
working through a JNI bridge.

I'm still puzzled by the decision, given the horror of J2ME and the failure of
Java on the desktop. Why not C++?

~~~
Roboprog
Pointers and arrays. It's too much work to develop most things in C and its
direct descendants. It's of course a shame that Pascal got pushed aside: most
of the speed of C, but with array bounds checking and MUCH less need for
pointers due to reference parameters and function return space allocated by
the calling routine. And perhaps Pascal is even too much work, since we still
have to manually deallocate many types of data, since it lacks even reference
counting.

I agree with you on the garbage collector, though. It really slows down things
by thrashing on multilevel caches, despite generational GC. I would really
like to perhaps see something that gave you a choice of either reference
counting + destructors, or, garbage collection. I can't see how you could make
mixing libraries written for one or the other style work with an arbitrary
ref-cnt / GC selection, though.

I'd probably miss exception handling in any event, as well.

Damn trade offs. I want it all, and I don't want to pay for it!

------
chicagobob
Don't forget that Groklaw is quite slanted in Google's favor just like FOSS
Patents is slanted against Google. To get a balance you need to read both
(well actually even more sources).

~~~
Steko
This.

Perusing the comments at Groklaw where everyone is so confident this is the
smoking gun that will end Oracle's case reminds me of this bit from Jonathan
Chait about people who get their news from hyperpartisan sources:

"It must be like being following the state-controlled media in a totalitarian
country. First you read that our brave troops are marching toward the enemy
capital and will soon complete a glorious victory. Then, after a while,
there's no glorious victory, but you start reading about how our brave troops
are inflicting heavy losses on the enemy as they courageously defend the
motherland."

[http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/fred-barnes-again-
see...](http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/fred-barnes-again-sees-
glorious-peoples-victory-hand)

~~~
gillianseed
Well you get the same 'slanted' coverage from Florian Muller, except he is
directly paid by Oracle and Microsoft. I don't know if Groklaw has ever
recieved any money but I doubt it.

Like someone else mentioned, Groklaw has had strong track record when it comes
to predicting the outcome of these types of lawsuits.

~~~
cooldeal
>I don't know if Groklaw has ever recieved any money but I doubt it.

Do you know how PJ makes money or how Groklaw gets funding to run? If
questioning FM's money sources is fair game, why not do the same for PJ? Just
because "she"'s batting for your team?

If Florian did the same thing as PJ and hid behind an anonymous blog, we
wouldn't even know any sources of his funding.

~~~
gillianseed
Eeh? PJ is Pamela Jones, she hasn't been 'anonymous' since the Maureen O'Gara
attempted character assassination of her back in the SCO days. She is an open
source advocate who has worked as a paralegal.

I'm sure her personal finances have been put under heavy scrutiny (SCO
certainly did), feel free to do so yourself.

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kodablah
Even without this matter of law, Jonathon Schwartz (Sun CEO at time of Android
development/release) is doing a very good job of blowing the door off of
Oracle's case [1]. All Oracle can do now is say that the CEO at the time
doesn't shape legal policy (ha).

[1] <http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120426122828498>

------
ohashi
In English please?

~~~
grellas
Copyright protects expressive works in tangible form. So, a computer language
can't be protected because it is an abstraction. But the source code for any
implementation of that language can. Here, Oracle is not claiming a copyright
in the Java language, nor is it claiming that Google copied any source code
(except very insubstantial elements). Oracle claims that the API is protected
by copyright and that Google infringed various API elements by copying the
structure, etc. in spite of its having done so through a clean-room
development. Therefore, Oracle's ultimate copyright claims in the case _all_
turn on its assertion that it can sue upon only a a subset (the API pieces) of
the overall copyrighted work (Java) and not the whole work.

The other important piece of the analysis is as follows: copyright protection
applies automatically as a work is created and takes a tangible means of
expression; however, you cannot sue for infringement of a copyright work
unless it is registered as a federal copyright with the Copyright Office.

The Google motion contends that Oracle registered the entire work (Java) and
not any subset of that work. Oracle claims it was registered as a "collective
work" and that this gives it the right to sue on a component part of the work
only. In its motion, Google says that the work was _not_ registered as a
collective work and that Oracle therefore can't - as a matter of law - sue
over a component piece only.

The motion turns on technical issues but they are ones that would seem to be
verifiable one way or the other and thereafter tested under the legal
standards just summarized. If the Java registration fails to meet the test,
the Oracle loses on its copyright claims as a matter of law (meaning the judge
tosses it and it doesn't even go to the jury).

This is truly a bombshell and appears to have caught the Oracle attorneys
completely off stride. We will see what happens.

~~~
Scorponok
Do you have to register it with the copyright office as soon as you create it,
or could you create it, register it 10 years later, then immediately sue
someone who copied it?

~~~
sp332
US law generally doesn't allow actions to be made illegal after the fact ( _ex
post facto_ ). So no, the act must be illegal when it was committed.

~~~
_delirium
In this case, though, copyright infringement is already in principle illegal
whether a work has been registered or not; the registration requirement is
just a procedural requirement that bars collecting damages, not something that
makes the action legal or illegal.

However U.S. copyright law does have a statutory limit on how retroactive
registrations can be. If you file a registration within 90 days of first
publication, the registration is retroactive to the date of publication; but
if you file more than 90 days from publication, registration is only effective
from the date of registration.

Fwiw, even with unregistered works you have some options available to you,
just not damages. For example, you can file a DMCA takedown notice.

~~~
HNatWORK
If you file a DMCA notice and the infringing party files a DMCA counter-
notice, would you have to register the copyright before you could sue for
infringement?

~~~
_delirium
I believe the answer is yes, you need to first register before filing suit. If
the offending work continues to be published, you can register and then sue.

An exception is foreign works, whose owners can file a suit without first
registering, since treaty obligations don't allow the U.S. to subject foreign
holders to "formalities". However foreign holders are limited to recovering
"actual damages" in such suits, and need to register to be eligible for per-
copy statutory damages.

------
moomin
I'm sure this would be a great result for Google, but it would kick the
question of whether APIs were copyrightable into the long grass.

~~~
jlawer
If APIs were copyrightable there would be no Wintel machines... IBM would have
killed Compaq for daring to build a clean room BIOS.

Logically I can't see why an API _should_ get copyright protections. By its
definition it is a interface, and the moment you start allowing restrictions
on implementing an interface your killing competition. It seems that in almost
ever other field fair use has decided that whatever is required for
compatibility is not copyrightable.

That said my beliefs and the law can at times be completely different
things...

~~~
taligent
I don't see why existing anti-competition laws would suddenly disappear if an
API was copyrightable ?

And your argument about Wintel machines is actually backwards. Because if APIs
were copyrightable there would be MORE competition in that circumstance. Due
to less standards.

I am actually in favour of having standards organisations take a greater role
in pushing real standards rather than de-facto ones.

~~~
regularfry
The best standards are those which have been taken from real-world
implementations. In other words, the way you get a good standard is to ratify
a de facto one.

------
narrator
If Google wins, what's to prevent them from creating a server side JVM that's
better than Oracle's? It would be quite cool if they created a server side
fork of dalvik that could run thousands of isolated instances at the same
time.

------
sad_panda
There seem to be more than just a few pro-Oracle people on this thread. Why?

