Office by Alex Penny
My name is Bill, I am a recent graduate in Information Sciences and Technology from Penn State University and this is a place for me to post or give my 2 cents on the fascinating world of technology. I am now working for a pretty big technology related company whose name I will leave out just to avoid any possible complications, however far-fetched them happening may be. Music gets included from time to time as well.
Reposted from http://bit.ly/XDyfuv on February 11, 2013 at 12:39PMIn July 2012, Jonathan Dharmaraj and his girlfriend of almost a year broke up. After spending every second together — working in the same hospital and living two minutes from each other — they both went off to different…
If this actually works I believe you have met somebody special.
A federal judge in San Francisco has handed Oracle another setback in its case against Google. Oracle Corp. had accused Google Inc. of stealing Oracle’s Java programming language to build Google‘s Android software for mobile devices.
See below for similar articles.
It’s amazing how much the jury actually got. The entire time we were worried that these people were sitting there befuddled by jargon, but they actually did an excellent job interpreting the legal reasons behind the laws they were debating and applying them to the case. That they ultimately made the decision based on what’s good for the public really blows my mind, you’ll never find that reasoning in a Texas jury. It’s annoying that the judge’s instructions for them to think of API’s as copyrightable made them feel like their deciding power was limited. This part of the case I feel was the most mishandled and definitely worthy of Google’s call for a mistrial. Still, can’t be upset to see a group of Americans come together and make a thoughtful, rational decision after amicable debating.
How the jury decided that android infringed on copyright but not patents is beyond me. While I can’t say I disagree with the outcome, this entire trial was incredibly strange. Of course we still have to see what the judge decides about whether API’s are covered by copyright or not but I don’t see there being any chance of Oracle coming away from this happy.
“Given this, says Ronald Abramson, a ruling on the Java APIs could be relevant to almost any other common way of sending data. ‘These are a pretty typical APIs. They’re a definition of how you talk to something,’ he says. ‘This would be a strong precedent and it would be pretty difficult to distinguish them from other APIs…I would be concerned that [the ruling] would have broad ramifications for other APIs and beyond APIs. If you can copyright the structure, sequence, and organization of data, that changes the landscape.’”
It’s ridiculous this is even up for debate. Copyrights are explicitly meant for creative works, patents are meant for processes. Even if this wasn’t the case, saying you could copyright an API in Java is like saying you can copyright the instruments on a recording.
—
Well, this should make those of us that actually care about the outcome of this case sleep better.(Source: Washington Post)
Second part of the case begins, this is the one I was less confident on for Google. A patent is much more defined, they basically will have to prove it should never have earned a patent. Part of this will depend on how literally the “machine” aspect of virtual machine is taken.
“Treating APIs as copyrightable would have a profound negative impact on interoperability, and, therefore, innovation. APIs are ubiquitous and fundamental to all kinds of program development … Allowing a party to assert control over APIs means that a party can determine who can make compatible and interoperable software, an idea that is anathema to those who create the software we rely on everyday. Put clearly, the developer of a platform should not be able to control add-on software development for that platform”
-Julie Samuels, EFF
