The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Obama administration for its views on an appeals court’s conclusion that Oracle’s Java application programming interfaces are protected by copyright.
The move (PDF) by the justices indicates that the high court is interested in the hotly contested intellectual property dispute. But whether the Supreme Court will enter the legal thicket won’t be announced until after the administration responds in the coming months.
Yes, this Oracle idiocy is still a thing.
Oracle started by doing what Sun wanted to do, but lacked the money.
http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/my_attitude_on_oracle_v
However. Oracle is now pushing this too far. But on the other hand, the Android team is pretty sure not to want anything else on Android but Java, as of Google IO 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3meJyiYWFw
Maybe in the end they will just settle, and the happy ones will be both layer firms.
Can’t Google replace JAVA with GO if they lose?
Only if they’re willing to write off the entire existing Android ecosystem…
They still can license Java for old apps and start using a new language for newer Android SDKs. Like Apple is trying to do dropping objective-C in favor of a new script-like language.
But if the APIs are copyrighted, it will be a huge problem, as any function that uses a similar signature to other one, would be succetible to be sued. You know, Oracle sues some guys, then old Unix owners could just sue half-world… Non ending problem.
Swift uses the Objective-C runtime. You can think of it as a kind of WinRT/COM/.NET for MacOS X.
Go has complete different semantics from Java and would require a full re-write from Android.
Oh, I didn’t knew swift runs atop of Objective-C, I tought it just used the lower APIs from OSX. Is the cocoa/carbon all written in objective-C also, or uses just C as its based on BSD on lower OS layers?
In any case, as Android actually runs some sort of intermediate code instead of native – in most cases, yes, there is the JNI/NDK – in theory it could be easier to get rid of Java in the longe road. But I think Google will prefer just to pay Oracle, if the price isn’t crazy.
Sorry but you are wrong on both fronts.
Using the Objective-C runtime doesn’t mean Swift runs on top of Objective-C. It just means it shares the same ABI and as such, Objective-C classes are visible on the Swift side and vice-versa.
Carbon is dead. And yes, Cocoa is written in Objective-C.
Java on Android is compiled to native code at installation time as of Android 5.0.
If Oracle actually wins this case, they’d be in an odd position, unless they decide to go after the big fish.
The cost of using Java would skyrocket and only those players that rely on it would keep using it.
I sure as heck wouldn’t use anything but open source and free to use languages if I had a small company. I don’t want to deal with anything Oracle.
In a perfect world, everyone would stop using Java, but that’s kind of hard when even the blu-ray movies use it.
In what way is it a “perfect world” if everyone stopped using java?
http://ws.apache.org/xmlrpc/apidocs/org/apache/xmlrpc/server/Reques…
Less of this can’t be bad
I spit milk after reading that javadoc.
Oh java patterns in patterns.
How about the branch that’s supposed to basically have veto powers over both the legislative and executive branches, and the power to make up it’s own mind — and who’s ENTIRE job is to test the constitutionality of any law or other court decision…
Getting down on it’s knees to exhale with velocity upon the proverbial equine of short stature by playing “Mother may I” with the executive branch?
Have they forgotten what their job is? The supreme court shouldn’t be asking the Odumba administration a blasted thing.
The ONLY way such rubbish makes the least bit of sense is as an EXCUSE to pass the buck to delay making any sort of decision on the subject; probably until the next administration rolls in… which means they can pass the buck to that administration and wait even longer.
Wonder where the money trail is in this one…
Edited 2015-01-14 03:13 UTC
What else would you expect from a US Supreme Court that decided a corporation is a person with more rights than an actual real person. The US Supreme Court that refuses to rule on same-sex marriage/marriage equality regardless of the fact the majority of Americans support it.
If it’s important to the people, you can be certain they can’t be bothered. If it’s important to politicians or corporate interest, they’re ready to work.