And thank you for all the wonderful reporting. I know it must be a great deal
of work. I hope you see how valuable it is to the rest of us. If you feel like
indulging me a little further, perhaps you can allay my fears. When the judge
asked Schmidt:
how he can reconcile needing a clean room but not
needing a license
doesn't this imply that you usually need a
license to do a clean room implementation? Earlier in the day (or maybe on the
previous day) before the jury came in, Oracle had some document or something
(maybe just words?) and said that you need a license to do a clean room
implementation. The understanding in the industry is that this is simply not
true. It's the equivalent of saying that APIs can be copyrighted. From what
was reported on The Verge, it seemed like the judge believed Oracle on this
point but he might not have understood that it is the equivalent of saying APIs
can be protected by copyright.
ISTM that Oracle led the judge off into
never-never land.
It seems like you have a vastly different interpretation
of what happened.
The central issue in this case is whether APIs can be
copyrighted or not. The way I see it (perhaps worst case scenario) is that the
judge just told the jury that of course APIs can be copyrighted. This is
because the only license you would need to do a clean room implementation is a
license for the APIs. I'm worried that the camel's nose has crept back into
the tent.
Even if you don't feel like responding to this post, I'm deeply
grateful for your previous response. Your feelings and impressions are often so
much more informative than a transcript of what was said. A lot of important
information gets tossed away when we reduce human interactions to just the words
that were said. Again, I thank you.
--- Our job is to remind
ourselves that there are more contexts than the one we’re in now — the one that
we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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