> Does anyone believe Google will not be doing the exact same thing with its (moribund) technologies in, say, 5-10 years?

I expect that they won't, if they win at the Supreme Court in this case, since there will be unambiguous controlling precedent that they can't.

This is a super important point. Just look at the direction backend software is moving. Think about how many Postgres compatible databases there are. For virtually every major open source project that exists today, there are companies reimplementing pieces of backend to sell performance upgrades to their customers. If Google was able to copyright Tensorflow's or Kubernetes API, it could make it so GCP would be the only ones able to offer an improved runtime for that system, and would absolutely be something that they would very quickly take advantage of.

> Does anyone believe Google will not be doing the exact same thing with its (moribund) technologies in, say, 5-10 years?

I believe it, what about Google has shown otherwise? In many situations where they could have been offensively litigious they have not and I value them for that. Much more than many other tech companies that do use their legal department as an offensive weapon.

I expect (and hope) Google to behave better than Oracle. Oracle is infamous for this shit.

All the examples listed to the parent comment here are talking about the Google of today (2019). But all businesses come to an end, and some of these later stages look highly litigious (see: Oracle). So in the year 20xx when Google ends up in that phase (owned mainly by activist investors, etc.) how will it act in that circumstance?