The Supreme Court is taking on Google and Oracle one last time

[Martin Iturbide]

And it came to this...
- Article source.

I personally want Oracle to loose.  Not because I like Google or not, and not because any feelings I may have against Oracle, both are just companies that wants money. It is because if Oracle wins it will create a dangerous precedent (In the US). Oracle is not fighting for the Java Trademark or the Java copyright of his source code. It is fighting to copyright the API specification, which means how do you call a functions and what it response.

If Oracle wins, it may mean that a lot of Emulators will became illegal, a lot of custom developed software to connect to old hardware and old software will also became illegal. Maybe Linux will became illegal too, since it took some of the specifications of Unix. And the crazy dream of creating a open source clone of the OS/2 API will be "not dream-able" too.

Regards

[Martin Iturbide]

Ouch, the update got worst.

- Oracle and Google’s Supreme Court showdown was a battle of metaphors / Oct 9, 2020

Over the course of two hours, justices and attorneys compared Java — the coding language that Oracle acquired in 2010 — to a restaurant menu, a hit song, a football team, an accounting system, the instructions for finding a blend of spices in a grocery store, a safecracking manual, and the QWERTY keyboard layout.

Still both sides thinks they are winning.

Regards

[Joop]

Its far better for Oracle that they do not win, if they win they will face millions of lawsuits for there own code, a database is a database, why change code every version? In other words, they go down hard. Furthermore they can't force writing code in a certain way, Microsoft did tried that before and lost. Its against progression and inventing new code without a rewrite of a whole OS. If it will go on, then we can setup a lawsuit to all those firms which stopped with goods which needs a driver, an os etc. Say Psion as an example. Or Wacom for drivers not up to W10 and the tablet is still working. And there are a lot more examples. But that is my view and opinion.

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

Just a final update. The trial ended on April 5 2021.

"In April 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–2 decision that Google's use of the Java APIs fell within the four factors of fair use, bypassing the question on the copyrightability of the APIs. The decision reversed the Federal Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further review. "

At the end it seems it is a good news. Now cloning an API is for sure legal.

Ref: Google v Oracle: Supreme Court declares Google's code copying fair
Ref: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf

Regards