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4. Could Google have come up with different names and SSO yet still have provided the same funct | 451 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
4. Could Google have come up with different names and SSO yet still have provided the same funct
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 08:02 PM EDT
More than that, as a Java programmer that used Java in
different projects before, if I knew that the Java API was
not free (which for me entails Java is not free), I would
never have learned Java and would have chosen a different
language instead.

Otherwise I would forever dependent on the goodwill of Sun
to keep implementing the language (including API
implementations) to every future architecture. It's not a
safe position to be, as Oracle proven us.

Being a professional using Java, if Oracle wins and is
proven to have exclusive copyrights on implementation of the
APIs (any implementation of the API entails copying the
APIs), I feel immensely cheated of a few years of my life
that should have been invested in another platform.

I hope Java free is proven to entail Java APIs free as well.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

4. Could Google have come up with different names and SSO yet still have provided the same funct
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 08:19 PM EDT
Google could have used different names, but then the
users/developers could not easily reuse existing code. This
is exactly the EU case.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

It also begs the question of what was open-sourced by Sun in 2007
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 09:39 PM EDT
From wikipedia:

Sun released the complete source code of the Java Class Library under the GPL on
May 8, 2007, except for some limited parts that had been licensed to Sun by
third parties and Sun was unable to re-license under the GPL.

If Google cannot use the API signatures made available as part of open-sourcing
Java, then in what sense was Java made open and free to the world?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

4. Could Google have come up with different names and SSO yet still have provided the same funct
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 03 2012 @ 09:46 PM EDT
If Google used different names for methods, then they would
be providing an fragmented Java environment, ruining the
WORA paradigm that Sun worked so hard to develop. Android
programs wouldn't run on Java; Java programs wouldn't run on
Android; even when they used the "same but renamed" API.
That would have been a more heinous act (in Sun's eyes) than
what Google did do, and it wouldn't have taken a change to a
totally new management viewpoint for Sun to act against
Google for that.

John Macdonald

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

With focus on existing code the answer is a clear No
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 05:01 AM EDT
The very core function of any library is to save work. Any
library saves the software developer the work of
implementing the library's functionality.

If a library provides support for existing code, through API
compatibility with another library, it serves the same core
function of saving the work of rewriting the exiting code.

So, the answer to the question is a clear No. Android could
not provide the same functionality had it used different
names and SSO.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Minor adjustment
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 11:50 AM EDT
"I contend that without the names and SSO it would be no longer Java,
simple as that. Java is its libraries."

Change to -

"I contend that without the names and SSO it would be no longer Java
COMPATIBLE, simple as that."

The idea is to support JAVA apps, you don't need actual JAVA just the parts that
the apps expect to be there. Those provided just have to function as expected
in JAVA.

:)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

4. Could Google have come up with different names and SSO yet still have provided the same funct
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 05 2012 @ 05:51 AM EDT
Maybe a Mathematics schoolbook may give an appropriate example? Any given Maths teaching book should, of course, be protected by copyrights. It's table of contents deserves protection as part of the book. If someone else is to write a competing Maths teaching book, he will have to address the respective grade's curricula, the laws of Mathematics and so on. In order tone compatible to other books he may even have to use a similar SSO of the chapters in his book. Given that the content of the book, i.e. how he explains the maths to the students, is an original creation, who would doubt that this book as a whole is a protectable original work. Even if its table of contents looks very similar to the other Maths teaching books in the field. (please excuse my crude English)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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