Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 27th Apr 2012 01:00 UTC
"Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz took the stand here today as a witness for the defense, and disputed Oracle's claim that Java APIs were proprietary code from Sun. Google's lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun. 'No,' Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software, 'These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people... We wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people as possible.'" Whoopsie for Oracle.
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RE[4]: The irony here...
by tanishaj on Sun 29th Apr 2012 03:10
in reply to "RE[3]: The irony here..."
Member since:2010-12-22
I fear that if Oracle wins, the repercussions will affect more than just Java.
It depends how Oracle wins.
1) The court decides APIs are copyrightable. This would be a disaster but there is a tonne of that precedent says this will not happen (look at the history of UNIX for example)
2) Patents. Terrible but nothing new (plus patents are basically out of the case now)
3) Other license/copyright issues - probably will not have much applicability outside of Java
Personally, I do not expect a very sizable settlement or much interesting precedent to emerge out of this case.
Member since:
2005-07-08
I fear that if Oracle wins, the repercussions will affect more than just Java.