And thus, it ends. Despite a never-ending stream of doom and gloom from Oracle/Microsoft-funded 'pundits' regarding Google and Android (six hundred billion trillion gazillion eurodollars in damages!!1!), judge Alsup has just squashed all of Oracle's chances with a ruling that is good news for those of us who truly care about this wonderful industry: APIs are not copyrightable. Alsup: "To accept Oracle's claim would be to allow anyone to copyright one version of code to carry out a system of commands and thereby bar all others from writing their own different versions to carry out all or part of the same commands. No holding has ever endorsed such a sweeping proposition." Supreme Court, Ellison?
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Member since:2005-07-11
Except that Java *itself* is fragmented, and is not interoperable with itself. Afterall, the APIs available to a J2ME developer are not the same APIs available to a J2SE developer, which are not the same APIs available to a J2EE developer. And that is all Oracle's (originally Sun's) doing!
The problem with Oracle's entire case against Google/Android is that they keep changing their demands/arguments. They don't actually have a case, which is why they keep changing their demands/arguments.
Reading through the Groklaw coverage of the case, it's amazing it even made it to court, let alone made it through the complete trial. There was never any possibility of Oracle winning. Their lawyers and arguments were specious at best, and downright wrong most of the time.
Member since:2009-05-19
Member since:2008-09-21
I think Oracle is not right on that. If people write an Android application they write an Android application using the Android API's which are not available in Oracle JVM nor outside of Android. As such such applications are 100% Android and 0% Oracle Java.
The language is irrelevant. It could have been C++, Javascript or C#. It's irrelevant cause both languages are *NOT* compatible cause of the different API's and packages. You just cannot run an Android application with Oracle Java.
Member since:2011-01-28
cdude,
"As such such applications are 100% Android and 0% Oracle Java."
"The language is irrelevant. It could have been C++, Javascript or C#. It's irrelevant cause both languages are *NOT* compatible cause of the different API's and packages."
The thing is, android does use the Java language plus it's APIs, even though they reimplemented everything in the back end. Oracle's case was about how android derives from Java's APIs, which is true, but the court ruled that it doesn't matter.
Edit: You raised the issue that google's Java implementation bytecode isn't compatible with Java's official bytecode. That may be true (although the existence of a bytecode translator makes it somewhat less true), but I don't think it's relevant. Consider a C++ program that uses the STL APIs, this program can be compiled for Linux (PPC/ARM/x86/x86-64), windows, SunOS, etc. Now would you admit that these all share the same API even though they're not binary compatible?
This was the right ruling, in my opinion. If we're not permitted to re-implement APIs, then 3rd party software implementations could be prohibited from being compatible with defacto proprietary standards (Mono, Wine, ReactOS, Samba, etc). The ruling in this case was very narrow, but it did set the right precedent.
Edited 2012-06-02 01:25 UTC
Member since:2008-09-21
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2011-01-28
I think Oracle are absolutely right in claiming that android's API fork has caused java platform fragmentation. However I think this fragmentation argument shows just how desperate Oracle are here. API's are not copyrightable, and yet a clone of the APIs are in violation of copyright law because they fragment the market? Seriously?
I'd like to try that one myself: Your honour, the defended have not violated our copyrights per say, but their clone has fragmented our market you see? Here we have some charts to prove it too. Here we have a laptop running defrag to demonstrate just how bad fragmentation is...