* Posts by Dave87600

2 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Mar 2019

Oracle asks Supremes to snub Google's Java API copyright protest – and have a nice cuppa tea, instead

Dave87600

Thank you. I fully agree.

Dave87600

Google didn't actually copy any code at all. In fact in all the code compared, they found only nine lines of code which were the same. Google implemented the interfaces for the Java API to remain compatible with the java infrastructure. Oracle never claimed Google copied the code. Oracle's issue was that the organization and interfaces were subject to copyright and that is what the court finally decided.

Oracles's claim is not without merit but it breaks commonly accepted rules about software development which have always allowed people to "stand on the shoulders" of others and develop new technologies. Even Java itself uses a lot of C-derived interfaces. And that's the problem I have with Oracle's side: you can't have it both ways. Java was built on the ideas from others (byte code, programming interfaces, etc) so to then prevent others from doing the same is hypocritical and very dangerous. If I write a routine to print a PDF with the name "printPDF" with a PDF file as a parameter and the interface matches something Oracle claims it owns then they can sue me. So yeah, this will completely stifle software development.