from Hacker News

Software Copyright and Innovation After Oracle v Google

by sean_hogle on 12/14/15, 8:06 AM with 25 comments

• by coldpie on 12/14/15, 10:18 PM

  This court case is, with no exaggeration, the most important software industry case in decades, perhaps ever. As the article says, if you're familiar with Android, Google, Chrome, Firefox, Edge (nee Internet Explorer), OS X, Linux, and the Internet, it is no exaggeration to say that every single one of those technologies, products, and companies are in violation of copyright according to this decision.

  Oracle is literally trying to destroy innovation in the software industry, and they may just pull it off. Their products, their name, and their employees should be shunned for trying to destroy the single most important economic invention of all time: innovation in the software industry. This is not OK, this is not just politics, and they must be stopped.

  Read this article, spread the news, write your congresspeople, donate to the EFF, and cancel your Oracle contracts.

• by tzs on 12/14/15, 9:45 PM

  > Oracle appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ("CAFC" or the "Federal Circuit"). Because Oracle's case included patent claims, the CAFC had jurisdiction over the appeal, and so Oracle was able to avoid review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

  I think this needs to be changed. I can't think of any good reason why in a case like this, where it has both patent and copyright claims, that the appeals need to go to the same court. Why not have the copyright issues appealed to the Ninth Circuit and the patent issues appealed to the CAFC?

  At trail court it makes sense to join issues that would normally be heard in separate courts together when they involve the same underlying facts, because there will be a lot of overlap in witnesses and evidence, and a trial court is both a trier of fact and a trier of law. Holding separate trials in different courts would be wasteful, annoying, and could get complicated and troubling if different courts found different facts.

  Those considerations mostly do not apply at the appellate level. The appeals court does not determine facts. It does not hear witnesses. It just deals with the record from the trial court and the arguments from the attorneys.

• by juliangamble on 12/14/15, 9:00 PM

  "The software industry, and indeed every industry that relies on software, has thrived for decades without the encumbrances of proprietary claims over APIs. Because the Federal Circuit's decision destroys the balance between copyrightable expression and uncopyrightable ideas in software, it threatens competition and innovation. The Ninth Circuit should repudiate it at the earliest opportunity."

  BAM!

• by derekp7 on 12/14/15, 9:57 PM

  When presenting this to someone, is it helpful to use a human language analogy? For example: In english, when you refer to a "car", you are talking about a machine that moves people on roads. Whereas when you refer to a "boat", you are talking about something that floats on water. What Oracle wants Google to do, is to make up a new name for "car" and "boat", and try to get all developers to adopt these new definitions when using Google's products.

• by Twisell on 12/14/15, 11:30 PM

  It's also interesting to read the counterpoint arguments of Florian Mueller on his FOSS patents blog.

  http://www.fosspatents.com/2014/01/api-copyrightability-to-b...

  The crucial point being that code written for Dalvik is actually not compatible with Java runtime. So how can you argue that borrowing code without consent is good for interoperability... when the product you deliver just break it?

• by ChuckMcM on 12/14/15, 11:05 PM

  I explained it to my parents by saying "You can copyright your street address, and anyone who writes it on an envelope to be mailed to you has just committed a copyright violation."

  They said that sounded pretty stupid, I agreed, but its the current law as far as I can tell.

• by elevenfist on 12/15/15, 4:02 AM

  The basic analogy is that an api is like the pointy end of a drill bit. Google and Oracle want to help people drill in screws or hex keys. Sun started selling flat screw bits, and google, in order for handymen (developers) to be able to use the same skills, also started selling flat bits (or flat head screws if you prefer).

  The one distinction complicating this a little is more thought and creativity goes into designing an api then designing the interface between a drill bit and screw.

• by jbandela1 on 12/15/15, 12:04 AM

  This is a risk of using proprietary languages. Even if the implementation is open source if a single company actually controls the language you are running risks. In addition with Java there is the precedent of Sun and Visual J++ so it was known that Sun would go after people who provided incompatible implementations. This whole saga is simply a very bad move on Google's part with foreseeable consequences.

• by Ace17 on 12/15/15, 7:17 AM

  The Sega-vs-Accolade times seem so far away ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade

• by Oletros on 12/15/15, 9:19 PM

  The thing I will never understand about the case is why the one accused is Google when they used the Apache Harmony implementation done by the Apache Foundation.

• by tomcam on 12/15/15, 6:08 AM

  Well reasoned. I still cannot understand how the court chose to ignore the unusually clear precedent of Lotus v. Borland. That took some contortions.