Google (Potentially) Blows the Door Off Oracle's Copyright Claims
groklaw.net
groklaw.net
Imagine if:
Google looses the right to use the Java API in Android.
Google makes a conversion tool to convert the Android API to another API / VM format. (maybe based on Parrot???)
"" releases an ANSI / ISO spec for an improved high level language (not just a C++ replacement like Go), and makes the spec open to encourage "safe" adoption.
"" provides reference implementations for mobile (Android) and server (GAE) type uses.
"" creates a subsidiary to sell and support the SDK to encourage corporate adoption. I'm not exactly sure how this last step supports their core business, other than making sure there is a talent pool available. But as long as I'm dreaming...
THAT is a result I'd like to see. Send Java off to the old programming languages retirement home, where it can sit and trade war stories with Visual BASIC and dBASE.
OpenJDK is the default for Linux and soon to be OSX and most development projects are still targeting Java 6. The innovation happening on the Java platform is not going to come from Oracle.
The Developers
It's not a question of whether one particular language is better, or more "hip", than another; or whether Google could simply run-off and create it's own new language or repurpose someother language instead of Java.
It's the developers Google is after, since it's the developers that will create the value (apps) for their marketplace and give them the competitive advantage over other smartphones & platforms.
There are a ton of Java (and its variants like AS3) developers out there, and Google wanted to launch and gain traction in its new platform with as little friction as possible.
If Google had launched Android as a Golang SDK, do you really think the uptick in new developers coding for Android would have been that great?
Edit: Yep, AS3 isn't Java.
Of course, it's easier for them not to have to, but I'm imagining a possible nice future, even if it's far from the most likely.
But, indulging the leap :), why would you want it to be a new language? Phones are getting fast - why not python or ruby? (Or Scala, Dart, ...)
However, I don't think Java is a bad language for many programs--and doubt it's headed to a retirement home anytime soon. (I'm frankly thrilled with Java for moving some many developers to a "safe" language/environment rather than C/C++ and its buffer overflows :)
(Now, before anyone starts a big project in C# remember you are going to get punished all the way from start to finish. License for OS, for dev environment, no choice of dev environment, when you have bought VS you'll have to add resharper. Then you hopefully come to deployment where once again you have no real choice, Azure or self-hosting on, guess what, MS servers which again has to be licensed. )
If you are a start-up, the right way to do it would by joining the BizSpark [1] program. .Net does provide an excellent development and scaleable environment. This program grants you access to all of its products, including Office, SQL server, Visual Studio and a multitude of other applications/tools. There was a recent post on HN [2] that spoke more to this.
I'm still not sure why Google went with Java over C++, other than thinking "phones are fast enough."
If it doesn't matter because you can use C or C++ for critical parts... well you can do that from Objective-C too, and it's trivial. It's far simpler than working through a JNI bridge.
I'm still puzzled by the decision, given the horror of J2ME and the failure of Java on the desktop. Why not C++?
I agree with you on the garbage collector, though. It really slows down things by thrashing on multilevel caches, despite generational GC. I would really like to perhaps see something that gave you a choice of either reference counting + destructors, or, garbage collection. I can't see how you could make mixing libraries written for one or the other style work with an arbitrary ref-cnt / GC selection, though.
I'd probably miss exception handling in any event, as well.
Damn trade offs. I want it all, and I don't want to pay for it!
While it was painful to move from a nice ISAM product to SQL syntax, it was good to get away from a product that provided all the data integrity features of circa 1999 MySQL (i.e. - "none").
Anyway, it's not dead, but it's definitely looking at a stay in the old programming language home. :-)
The majority of the world's enterprise web apps run on Java. There is ZERO chance that Java is going to be retired anytime soon if you look around at the languages available today. There just simply isn't anything available that can compete with the breadth of libraries or developer base.
The fact is that if Android no longer runs Java it is going to be a big blow no matter which way you spin it.
The scenario was meant to be a bit "over the rainbow". While it's unlikely, people do sometimes switch platforms given motivation. How many people really were itching to learn Objective C before Apple starting pushing it? (you few "NextStep" old timers in back, I'm not talking about you)
Given a way to do user I/O and data persistance on a sane platform, people are pretty good at making do on just about any platform without the "gift" of a billion lines of other code.
Honestly the days of writing a billion lines of Java code were over a while ago. Platforms like Play, Grails etc which are quite light are becoming more common.
Realistically there is that only one other platform exists that they could switch to: Javascript.
Given sufficient motivation, I suspect a team of 20 part time volunteers could create an amazing application framework for a new language (or, newly popular language) in about a year, if the platform was enjoyable and perceived to be something that would actually be used for several years and several possible employers / business opportunities. As an example, the early versions of RoR seemed to come out of nowhere. (not saying we should run Ruby on phones, it seems kind of piggish, just as an example of a few people scratching an itch)
Wasn't the Apple switch from Pascal to Objective C for OSX exactly that kind of "we'll make it worth your while" change-over?
Not to mention that Google's V8 would make a great foundation.
Many so-called Enterprise Java apps often don't work at all unless you've installed the /exact/ JRE version that the particular app supports (Looking at you, Citrix). The fact is, that it was a dying language before Android. Hopefully it will resume dying, and Google will either release something better, or embrace an existing Open Source community like JavaScript, Ruby, or Python. (Edit: Now that I think about it, Google's own V8 JavaScript engine would be well suited for this. It already supports ARM Linux.)
Personally, I was forced to take 2 Java classes in college. The examples in our labs never worked. I had to Google everything in the book to make Java code that actually ran. Swing looks the same as it did in 1996. Everyone at the local JUG was considerably older, and spent most of the time complaining about what a pain SVN was. (A clue: You're doing it wrong.)
Despite all of this, I was still learning to program, and actually sortof enjoyed it. But then Sun got acquired by Oracle, inventors of the only database system that makes me want to kill myself. After that, I started seriously considering other languages. But the real nail in the coffin was when Oracle decided to cockblock Apache Harmony, and Apache stepped down from the Java Committee. For shame, Oracle. After all nice things Apache made for the Java Community. How fitting, that Google used Harmony code to create Dalvik, the Android VM.
Those facts don't make COBOL something you'd want to write apps in. I hear there's a new COBOL DI framework so you can write XML instead of COBOL.
You don't get truth by merely reading opposing viewpoints and taking the average, you get it from synthesis. In this case synthesis might involve discounting the opposing viewpoint in the end, on the merits.
Yes, Groklaw is a vociferous advocate of FOSS in this sphere. Learn to tease apart the fact from the opinion. But that's just ad hominem until you catch a flaw in their fabulous coverage.
Having read both regularly I don't find this to be accurate. Groklaw makes actual predictions rarely and consequently has a cleaner track record. FM makes a lot of predictions and is, as you would expect, both wrong and right more because of it. He also covers a lot more cases.
As regards this case the big ticket item has been the Lindholm email and FM seems to have been right that it would stay in. And while I don't recall Groklaw definitively saying it wouldn't, their coverage certainly skewed heavily towards "remember that email from SCO that was just like this".
http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-and-google-comment...
So Groklaw makes predictions when they think they're right and keeps their mouth shut otherwise whereas Mueller just shoots his mouth off and is wrong much of the time. You make a good case here why people should read Groklaw and ignore FOSS patents.
But really, unless you have a major investment in the outcome, it doesn't matter where you get your news. For me, and I suspect for many, following the day-to-day updates in a case like this is sort of like watching a professional sports game. We'll find out the definite, official, outcome at some later time, but for now we're just watching (more or less) for the entertainment value.
It's quite common in professional sports for an announcer or analyst to have well-known loyalties or preferences. Many are even employed by the teams themselves. The partisanship of the announcer or analyst (provided the commentary isn't completely crazy) really doesn't impact most of us because, unless we're placing bets (legally or otherwise), we're just there to have a good time and enjoy an impressive spectacle.
PJ could easily be just a pseudonym used by a panel IBM/Google lawyers to astroturf for all we know, but even talking about her identity is considered off base and taboo and whoever does that is viciously attacked and vilified.
That's been tried. Nobody has ever offered any evidence that any such thing is the case. Several public figures have stated that they've met a singular female PJ. IBM has denied in open court being behind PJ.
For you to bring this up here is pathetically disengenuous.
Furthermore, most Groklaw articles these days are authored by Mark Webbink, a lawyer and law professor with a well-documented past. He's been in general agreement with PJ on this case, though he's offered less in the way of commentary.
Perusing the comments at Groklaw where everyone is so confident this is the smoking gun that will end Oracle's case reminds me of this bit from Jonathan Chait about people who get their news from hyperpartisan sources:
"It must be like being following the state-controlled media in a totalitarian country. First you read that our brave troops are marching toward the enemy capital and will soon complete a glorious victory. Then, after a while, there's no glorious victory, but you start reading about how our brave troops are inflicting heavy losses on the enemy as they courageously defend the motherland."
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/fred-barnes-again-see...
So they're going to be in a difficult position trying to salvage their copyright claims. They might manage to do something, but they've got a pretty weak hand here. They wanted to rush this trial and all they did was to trip themselves up.
Did you read Oracle's reply[1] or just the caricature at the original link?
"Google argues that the entire Java platform is necessarily the “work as a whole” because that is what was registered with the Copyright Office. Courts have soundly rejected that argument.. As explained in Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic, supra:
Defendants contend that plaintiffs' “work” is the entire daily newspaper because their copyright registration covers the paper as a whole rather than any particular article. Thus, they assert, copying an individual article constitutes reproduction of only a small portion of the entire work. This proposition is not supported by the case law. See Texaco, supra, 60 F.3d at 925-26 (copying an entire article from a journal where the copyright registration covered the journal as a whole constituted a copying of the entire work); Hustler Magazine, supra, 796 F.2d at 1155 (finding that “[a] creative work does not deserve less copyright protection just because it is part of a composite work” and holding that the copying of a one-page parody from a 154-page magazine constituted a copying of the entire work); Netcom On-Line II, supra, 923 F.Supp. at 1247 (“although many of Hubbard's lectures, policy statements, and course packets are collected into larger volumes, and registered as a whole, they may still constitute separate works for the purposes of this factor”); Lerma, supra, 1996 WL 633131 at *9 (“we find that the Works at issue in this case are combined in ‘collections' and that each subpart must be considered a ‘single work’ for the purposes of fair use analysis”)."
Like so.And that precedent probably won't do them much good, because the copying here isn't the same as copying whole articles, however much Oracle's lawyers have tried to say otherwise.
So yeah, Oracle's case might be salvageable, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Like someone else mentioned, Groklaw has had strong track record when it comes to predicting the outcome of these types of lawsuits.
After all, if they have not only a generally strong track record in predicting these kinds of cases but also a very good record related to this particular case, I'm inclined to put a lot of stock in what they have to say.
Do you know how PJ makes money or how Groklaw gets funding to run? If questioning FM's money sources is fair game, why not do the same for PJ? Just because "she"'s batting for your team?
If Florian did the same thing as PJ and hid behind an anonymous blog, we wouldn't even know any sources of his funding.
I'm sure her personal finances have been put under heavy scrutiny (SCO certainly did), feel free to do so yourself.
> Interestingly, the judge was able to come to this easy conclusion despite the insistence of self-described patent expert, Florian Mueller, that the court would certainly allow Oracle to break its word.
Many bloggers are paid for by large companies without necessarily 'shilling' for them. It seems to be de rigeur in fact.
That's the immature part. You can report facts and do fantastic analysis without trying to take shots at your competition.
There are few or no organizations that have better trial room journalism chops when it comes to the IT scene than groklaw.
This bred a mentality that it's ok to be an open source cheerleader in all future cases but frankly that hasn't worked out as well.
In the case of this article we get a one sided headline, some interesting and good analysis, a straw man caricature of Oracle's argument that amounts to "Derp! I guess we lose" and at the very end an offhanded link to Oracle's actual response (which reads pretty strongly) but no analysis.
I'd love for Groklaw to live up to the "expert legal analysis of the IT scene" side of it's heritage as opposed to being another "legal propaganda arm of the FSF" but that's up to them.
There is no such thing. I don't know what your beef is with groklaw but you're now to the point of fabricating sophistry to say...something. I don't even know what your point is here other than to bash groklaw.
"legal propaganda arm of the FSF"
Really? Groklaw is a part of the FSF now? Are they also based in Roswell or was that area 51?
Let's be absolutely clear: I love Groklaw and have valued them and visited regularly for just about a decade now. That doesn't mean Groklaw is above criticism or without faults, a jump emotionally invested commenters seem to want to take. Please take the time to read through things before you jump to hurl invective.
I'm hardly the only one here expressing the same sentiments about Groklaw's pro-open source bias, which again PJ freely admits.
Did you even read what I wrote? I never said they were above criticism. There is a difference between criticism and bashing. And your comments in the aggregate amount to the latter. Claiming they are "breeding a mentality of cheer leading" anything is just ridiculous sophistry and that is what I was pointing out so why the attempted misdirection?
"I'm hardly the only one here expressing the same sentiments about Groklaw"
And there are more people saying the opposite. For any point you can bring up, you can find as many lay people as you have time to look for to agree with it which proves absolutely nothing.
Florian bleating on about how he's concerned as a Samsung phone owner(!?) and strong opponent of overreaching IP but gosh I think Google's really in trouble here is the very definition of disingenuous.
Or neither. However if you had to mix one of them in your daily feed mix, Groklaw actually seems to be based in the here and now, while FOSS Patents is just generally horseshit (we could go through the history of both that would quite amply prove this out. FOSS Patents is the worst sort of garbage the net produces)
If you stay away from his cheerleading there's a lot of good analysis and useful information.
I read both Groklaw and FOSS if not daily every other day and I wouldn't say one is significantly less biased or useful then the other. As I've said recently[1] I wish there were a good daily source that isn't overrun with bias but I haven't seen one yet.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/03/googles-android-faces-ser...
How'd that story turn out for you? Still read the guy's complete horseshit?
He's literally paid by Oracle which he disingenuously hid while commenting on the Oracle v Google case up until a last week. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103
That's ok, "both" sides of a story are important, right? Even when one is from someone who is a habitual disingenuous exaggerator.
And don't pretend Groklaw's never been wrong in their cheerleading either. They've been expecting the judge to issue summary judgment and tar and feather Oracle's council for the last year.
"He's literally paid by Oracle"
If you'd clicked on my link above you'd see I pointed this out last week.
"That's ok, "both" sides of a story are important, right? "
Quit arguing with straw men. Like I said, I'd prefer an unbiased source.
Very well.
How about if Mueller references his own 13 month old horseshit this very day? http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/former-sun-chief-about-go... as though it is still a valid theory?
Does it count as an up to date impeachment of your favorite bullshit peddler? Especially because he knows nothing came of his the-sky-is-falling claims regarding the Linux, GPL and Android? And that Linus himself said the claims were crap?
His current article also references another year old prediction he made which turned out to come to nothing as well
http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/03/more-evidence-of-googles-...
It's almost like he spews forth shitty predictions with a specific agenda in mind and doesn't care when his bullshit doesn't pan out because he makes good money by running his mouth.
Then there's this snipe at Jonathan Schwartz: "In yesterday's testimony, Jonathan Schwartz tried to do as much damage to Oracle's case as he could."
that or Schwartz told the truth which just happens to not be in Mueller's employer's favor.
It's not a straw man. The guy you so plainly think is a legit source for information is literally paid by one of the litigants. May as well be recommending people read Oracle's press releases for some good information.
[1] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120426122828498
The other important piece of the analysis is as follows: copyright protection applies automatically as a work is created and takes a tangible means of expression; however, you cannot sue for infringement of a copyright work unless it is registered as a federal copyright with the Copyright Office.
The Google motion contends that Oracle registered the entire work (Java) and not any subset of that work. Oracle claims it was registered as a "collective work" and that this gives it the right to sue on a component part of the work only. In its motion, Google says that the work was not registered as a collective work and that Oracle therefore can't - as a matter of law - sue over a component piece only.
The motion turns on technical issues but they are ones that would seem to be verifiable one way or the other and thereafter tested under the legal standards just summarized. If the Java registration fails to meet the test, the Oracle loses on its copyright claims as a matter of law (meaning the judge tosses it and it doesn't even go to the jury).
This is truly a bombshell and appears to have caught the Oracle attorneys completely off stride. We will see what happens.
Say you write an short story. And you file a copyright for it with the copyright office.
Now, an anthology editor reads your story and wishes to include it in a collection of short stories that he is preparing. It contains, say 20 other short stories as well. This anthology is a "collective work". The anthology editor did not have copyright over the individual stories - he probably only has certain royalty arrangement with each individual author. But the editor can certainly copyright the layout of the anthology. Maybe he put together a brief intro for each story, maybe he ordered them in some artistic fashion based on progression of ideas in the stories etc. This would be a "collective work" copyright. Under a collective work copyright, the editor could sue another editor for producing a substantially duplicate anthology for copyright infringement. But if another magazine published just one of the stories by itself, the editor could not claim copyright infringement.
So in the case of oracle, oracle could have copyright the design of each API individally, and then also copyrighted the entire collection of APIs, thus copyrighting the "collective work" representing the entire language API. But they didn't. They only copyrighted the entire collection as a single work. Thus they (supposedly) cannot claim copyright infrigement when only a small part of it might have been copied by google. (I am not quite certain here).
What oracle is claiming instead - is that they copyrighted Java as a "collective work". which would allow them to claim copyright over the design of the entire API design, rather than just the source code of API implementation. They claim that this design is their creative input. But in this case, then they would also have needed to copyright individual APIs if they wanted to sue for infringement in those individual APIs. Otherwise they could only sue if someone someone copied the entire (or a very substantial part of) the design. They did not copyright those individual pieces.
Back to the analogy:
According to groklaw, Oracle actually copyrighted the entire anthology as an original single work. Oracle claims it copyrighted the anthology as a "collective work" - this is under question. Also, if it DID actually copyright the anthology as a collective work, it seems they did not file copyrights for the individual stories. As a collective work, thus, they can sue for infringement if another anthology is published with substantially the same layout, copying the creativity that went into putting the anthology together. But, if someone copied just one of the stories, they might not be able to sue for infringement as that would not duplicate the creative work of the anthology itself.
On the other hand, if they claim to have copyright the entire anthology as a single work, then if someone copies just the titles of each story and publishes another anthology with different content but same titles for each story, it might not count as infringement.
At least thats my understanding.
My understanding is that Oracle cannot sue Google over the small portions without either having registered copyrights for the individual APIs, or proving that those APIs originate with Oracle and were not contributed under license. Oracle apparently didn't do the former, and has not yet done the latter.
To that end, you could go ahead and copy pieces of the copyrighted work, but you would still be subject to lawsuits by the people that wrote the original individual piece. You just wouldn't be subject to lawsuits by Oracle. It's still infringement, but Oracle isn't the infringed party.
Back in the Java5 days some APIs provided by Java were simply javax.something wrapped around org.apache code.
If anyone is tempted to start spinning the English meaning of the term "collected" to point out how in some sense a song is often a collection of a lot of other elements that may be further copyrighted, stop. The English meaning is not the relevant one, the legal meaning is. A single song is not, legally, a collected work, it is a single work.
If anyone is tempted to construct some exceptional song-like thing that is also a collected work, yes, very good, you've got your thesis topic for your copyright class all laid out, but it is an exception, not the rule.
Also, for the record, that wasn't the question I was trying to forestall with my last paragraph. I was more after someone doing something bizarre like creating a multi-hour "song" where each "instrument" is a full other song loaded as one big sample or something. Generally speaking the answer to this sort of trickery is "You're a programmer, and you're using thought processes designed to slip things past computers. Judges are human." There are certainly ways to "slip things past" a human judge as well, but they are very different. Human judges generally react poorly to outright sophistry, where computers don't mind it one bit.
If copying individual elements (all the chapter titles) of a work is fine, how is it that it is unacceptable to make an original song that contains a 5 second sample of a single instrument from another song? Both are copying a very small excerpt from a larger work.
The list of songs on CD isn't copyrightable -- it's a fact, not a creative expression. Taking a 5 second sample is most likely to be considered fair use.
I don't think any of this is too far off from common sense.
From my point of view, your question is odd because you've made up both parts of the if clause from whole cloth. Copying "individual elements" may or may not be fine, and five second samples are just plain irrelevant to the discussion being had.
Again, "collective work" is an important term here. It is not clear to me that you understand what that means, and generally trying to answer questions based on deep misconceptions gets nowhere fast. If you really care you're going to have to go pick up some basics from not-an-HN-comment.
What constitutes a single work is basically what a person on the street would answer is a single thing. What constitutes a collective work is basically what a person on the street would call a collective work, after they answer the first question. (That is, if you start here they might say an album is one work, but if you get them to agree that a song is one thing once they probably won't say that.) What constitutes copying is basically what a person on the street would agree is copying. That certainly isn't good enough advice to go off of if you're going to try to build a business off of it or something, and edge cases abound, but the core concepts aren't anywhere near as screwed up as you might think. The problem isn't conceptual with copyright, it is how the concepts are used and abused.
To the point below assuming a mashup is made by licensing samples from other works (avoiding fair use issues for a second) the Mashup would be a copyrightable work. But the authors of the individual samples still retain their own copyright.
I'm having a hard time understanding what it means to have automatic copyright when a work is created... but you can't sue for infringement. What kind of implicit protection does your work have if you can't take such action?
Therefore, once you create a qualifying work, you have a fully perfected copyright immediately. You just can't sue on that interest for infringement until you have taken the additional step of registering the copyright. You can, however, register at any time prior to filing an infringement action, even if that is many years after the copyright was created. For enforcement purposes, then, it is basically a 2-step process.
Oracle's problem is that it is at the tail end of a trial and has no ability at this point to do anything about registration. If Google is right concerning the motion, Oracle will be out of options on its copyright claims.
However U.S. copyright law does have a statutory limit on how retroactive registrations can be. If you file a registration within 90 days of first publication, the registration is retroactive to the date of publication; but if you file more than 90 days from publication, registration is only effective from the date of registration.
Fwiw, even with unregistered works you have some options available to you, just not damages. For example, you can file a DMCA takedown notice.
An exception is foreign works, whose owners can file a suit without first registering, since treaty obligations don't allow the U.S. to subject foreign holders to "formalities". However foreign holders are limited to recovering "actual damages" in such suits, and need to register to be eligible for per-copy statutory damages.
In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration. Among these advantages are the following:
• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
• If made before or within five years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• If registration is made within three months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U.S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at www.cbp.gov/.
Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired.
>However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection.
>Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
1) You can't claim ownership of the idea (the APIs) rather than the creative writing (the implementation).
2) The API declarations are not copyrightable for the same reason that you can't copyright a short phrase, like "Mary shears sheep." Furthermore, Google needed to be precise in copying the signatures, since changing would lead to incompatibility (with both the programmer's assumptions and their existing Java code).
3) The stuff that Google copied verbatim (or close to verbatim) was negligible. The ONLY thing that Google copied that was actually distributed on a phone was a 9-line function called rangeCheck() that any novice could write. It was only included because Josh Bloch used it when writing an alternative sorting method that he thought would eventually be merged into the Arrays class (where it would have direct access to the original method). Everything else is test classes and a couple of comments.
As part of this argument, Google tries to argue that the infringements are negligible with regards to the "work as a whole," which they argue is all of J2SE 5 (as that is how Oracle registered the copyright). I don't think this argument stands up. Oracle cites plenty of previous copyright cases where the judge has considered less than the overarching work as the "work as a whole" (for example, a defendant tried to argue that the article they had copied verbatim from a magazine was a small piece of the work as a whole (the magazine itself), but the judge considered the article itself to be a work. In this case it was still determined that the article was used under fair use provisions however).
4) Google's documentation of the APIs doesn't infringe. First, they are similar in substance because they are talking about the same idea. Programmers have common terminology and ways of talking about ideas (in this case, what a method/class does) that become more similar when you consider the fact they are trying to be succinct and unambiguous. Second, they are similar in organization because they use the Javadoc tool, which automatically generates docs from comments attached to the API declarations themselves. In other words, if the APIs are not seen as infringing, then neither can the Javadoc structure. They should not be considered a separate act of infringement.
5 and 6 were less interesting to me and were more about Google trying to get off on a technicality, so I don't summarize them here.
An API is hardly just a bunch of short phrases that all programmers use as common parlance. That's That's why Software Architects as a sub-profession exist. Because it requires skill and talent to construct a cohesive, consistent yet technically implementable API.
People that actually work against APIs every day know this.
My particular focus is on API design too, and I know the art that comes into it. But I would say that some APIs DO fall into this. Calling the equals method "equals" and having it take one argument and return a boolean is comparable to a "short phrase". There aren't many other ways to express the concept. When you start to look at a library or component as a whole though, it starts to take on a lot more value and uniqueness. You only have to start comparing mocking or assertion libraries in Java to realize that a huge portion of the differentiation between the libraries (and why people choose one over another) is the way it reads and its expressiveness, not its implementation details. And I think some teams at Google recognize this too, if you look at Guava and Guice.
FTA: "The determination of this issue in favor of Google will either (a) result in the dismissal of the copyright claims or (b) provide the support for Google's de minimis and fair use copying defenses."
TL;DR Oracle shot themselves in the foot. Their claims of copyright infringement are dead or dying.
Moreover, all userspace programs that use this information (by linking against glibc) would be considered derivative of the Linux kernel. All userspace programs that link against Windows' C/C++ runtime would be derivative works of the NT kernel. And so on.
Linus himself has asserted that the copying of such APIs is considered "normal use" and that such programs are not considered derivative works [2].
[1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/03/googles-android-faces-ser...
[2] http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110322014831...
Google's case is different: They have created a platform that uses APIs from a different vendor's plaform (Sun) and while Sun would have been perfectly happy to grant their own users permission to use the APIs, of course they have no interest in Google's customers being given that permission.
The whole basis of assuming that anyone can use an API that you write is that "anyone" is "all people who you have permission to use your software in the first place". Of course it limits adoption of your platform if you restrict who is allowed to use it, but so does charging money for it. Some people choose to charge money for their work, some people give it away.
Logically I can't see why an API should get copyright protections. By its definition it is a interface, and the moment you start allowing restrictions on implementing an interface your killing competition. It seems that in almost ever other field fair use has decided that whatever is required for compatibility is not copyrightable.
That said my beliefs and the law can at times be completely different things...
And your argument about Wintel machines is actually backwards. Because if APIs were copyrightable there would be MORE competition in that circumstance. Due to less standards.
I am actually in favour of having standards organisations take a greater role in pushing real standards rather than de-facto ones.