We need Professor Farnsworth's 'what if' machine...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| mrider Dec 05, 2013 4:51 PM EDT |
[EDIT] OOPS! Didn't notice the title got truncated. We need Professor Farnsworth's "what if" machine... Because giving an API copyright is a horrible idea with huge implications. It will literally be breaking copyright terms to develop software that uses the API, unless licensed. The Oracle folks should be flogged. |
| number6x Dec 05, 2013 6:29 PM EDT |
No. Oracle should be sued by the copyright holder of every API that Oracle has ever implemented in its entire history so that it goes bankrupt and the stock holders lose all their money. It would serve them right for being such copyright trolls. |
| mrider Dec 05, 2013 6:48 PM EDT |
Agreed! |
| BernardSwiss Dec 05, 2013 9:00 PM EDT |
This is the notoriously patent-friendly IP ideologues of the CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) -- they usually hear patent cases but this one has landed in their lap. Fortunately, The original decision by Judge Alsup was very well reasoned and argued (and meticulous -- he apparently even did some personal experimentation with writing Java code, to better appreciate the issues). Also, the Supreme Court has found it necessary to overturn this court on occasion (and the CAFD has established a record of ignoring SCOTUS direction), so Alsup took extra pains to properly cross his 't's' and dot all his 'i's', so it should be harder for CAFC to over-turn -- and if the CAFC does overturn his decision, there may be a better than usual chance that the SCOTUS will agree to hear that appealed, in turn... |
| CFWhitman Dec 06, 2013 9:49 AM EDT |
If you understand the true implications of an API copyright, I don't see how anyone (Oracle included) could really want it to happen. What it would really do is make it so that you could not legally write software for any operating system that you did not have explicit permission to write software for. In other words it would make all software written for a specific operating system a derived work of that operating system. It really wouldn't make any sense at all. |
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