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To name a few | 115 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Why do they care?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 01 2013 @ 08:34 AM EST
I'd like to see an Amicus in support of Google by Samba.org...
;)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

To name a few
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 01 2013 @ 09:02 AM EST
Wine, ReactOS, Mono, Samba, the package that implements
enough of the API to allow wireless NIC Windows drivers to
work on Linux. I'm sure there are more. Then a big area web
services, which is all about APIs and it's easy to replace a web
service just by reimplementing it's API which has to be
distributed in an easy manner so that clients can actually
connect to them.

The scary part of this argument is that it could be used to claim
ownership over programs written in those languages that by
necessity implement an interface declared in the API. An
interface is just the method declarations with no implementing
functionality.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

...but that's not all
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, March 01 2013 @ 10:09 AM EST

I see a conspiracy here between Microsoft and Oracle to put the boot to Google. Losing the right to employ Java's SSO in Android would be a staggering blow to Google. Both Microsoft and Oracle would do just about anything to destroy Android, whatever other benefits they may incur from a favourable ruling, which actually could be a mixed blessing to them.

There must be instances where Microsoft or Oracle themselves use somebody else's API. We need to identify those instances if we can and point out the hypocrisy.

Another issue obliquely related comes to mind. In the event of a ruling where the SSO is deemed copyrightable, a complication may arise when calling an Open Source DLL from a proprietary program. AFAIK, that is allowed under the GPL, with the condition that if you distribute the DLL along with your program, you must also distribute its source code. However, your proprietary software is necessarily going to employ the SSO of that DLL in order to interface with it. Hypothetically, could then the copyright holder of that interface stop you from using the GPL'd DLL in that manner, unless you also open the source for your proprietary code?

Now this may be out to lunch, but could such a potential be used in retaliation against Microsoft/Oracle? Could they be threatened by such a thing into dropping the appeal even? These two - Microsoft & Oracle - are not doing the world any favour by insisting the SSO of a program can be copyrighted. These companies need to know what they are attempting to accomplish is unacceptable behaviour!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Oracle opened Pandora's Box
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 03 2013 @ 03:46 AM EST
when they attempted a defense that raised the question whether or not
their API's structure sequence order were covered under copyright law.
They got their answer.

CAFE maybe the one force that can control the beast that Oracle let out of the box.
To reverse the federal court's decision they will have to determine API's are not functional
and can be protected by copyright. Can they then ignore a thorny problem?

How can a language be both open source but unusable if its API's structure, sequence and
order can be copyrighted? More unforeseen consequences when the box was opened.
But CAFE might breeze through that issue without scratch.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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