Well, even though I don't like Oracle's standpoint here, I still feel that often the design of an API is much more work than the implementation of it. Implementing something is often just doing "the logical thing", whereas designing an API requires a lot of trial and error, and planning. An API describes in a way the greater design of the system (how things connect together), whereas an implementation is just filling in of the details.

It might be hard but is it creative enough to warrant a copyright ?

That said, Google should have licensed Java when the good guys were around. Now they are dealing with bloodsuckers :)

I agree that API documents (say, interface code and it's documentation) are works that fall under copyright.

This case is more about fair use. Is Google's usage of the Java APIs fair use, or a copyright infringement?

This is a very common misunderstanding of fair use. Fair use is copyright infringement. It's just a legal defence when you are being sued. This is one of the big problems with fair use in the US. If you intend to use a fair use defence, you will almost certainly go to court. You will not get a summary judgement of "Oh that's obviously fair use, so we don't have to have a trial". This means you will have to pay a lot of money for a lawyer.

Having said that, IANAL and I could easily be wrong. This is not legal advice.

The real question (which seems already to have been answered) is are APIs a copywritable work, and if so is an implementation that follows the API a derived work? So is it an infringement if I simply implement the API? The original court decision said it is not an infringement, the appeal said it is and the supreme court decided not to hear a further appeal. That's why we are left with a fair use defence.

This is quite spectacularly bad for the industry IMHO, but there is not much we can do about it now other than to have US citizens lobby congress to pass a new copyright law (which seems pretty unlikely). If it turns out to be fair use, that will make it slightly less bad. However, expect rent-seekers to start coming out of the woodwork to sue for implementations of specifications anyway. They know that they can simply sue you for less money than it will cost to defend yourself with a fair use defence. Expect this to be the new patent troll.

Wouldn't an Oracle win be good for Free Software? Google isn't the good guy here, they wanted to create derivative work without GPL'ing it. Which they considered a "virus" and "infectious". I see companies like Google trying to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone wants to lean on someone elses work but not use GPL or license their own as such.

It's only bad for the industry as it exists today. Tomorrow hopefully when Oracle wins this as it appears to be a slam dunk, libre software becomes the norm rather than the Frankenstein's monster that Android is. I would either do it all in-house as Apple did with iOS or if you want to create a derivative work, use GPL'd code. Google didn't want to do the hard, time consuming work of API design. If it was the easy part, why didn't they do it?

Open and shut case in favor of Oracle. And after a rough adjustment period, I think it will promote Free Software to new heights industry-wide when they win.

Not in my opinion. The GPL is a license that depends on accepting the license -- or not. It is always acceptable not to accept the license and write your own. That's part of software freedom. In fact this judgement puts GNU Classpath in a very tenuous position because their code is also not based on the the GPLed version of Java (having been written before Java was GPLed).

Even GNU is now in jeopardy because who the heck owns the copyright for POSIX??? Is there any license language in the specification saying that you can implement it? I have been too scared to look up until now. This is incredibly important because all of the GNU tools and the Linux kernel have been implemented independently and are not derivations of things like BSD.

No. This is a nightmare for free software because it means that every single RFC in existence now needs a license thanks to copyright lasting for the life of the author plus 95 years. It means that we can never interoperate with services that choose not to grant a license to their API. Even if you reverse engineer it, expect a lawsuit having to defend yourself using a fair use defence.

And if you live in most of the world that doesn't have fair use. Well, you are just screwed.

The only thing this means is that free software will be marginalized. We'll be set back 20 years.

We disagree overall. In sum, I think it's a distinct possibility free software wins with an Oracle victory. Your position is that everything is fine and dandy today. I disagree because otherwise this wouldn't be in court. There are legitimate issues that need resolved, neither Google or Oracle are good guys. Google created their own problem trying to cut corners/save money and it backfired. They admitted in their emails it was a risk and they went for it.

But I did want to clarify one thing you said because I found it confusing.

> The GPL is a license that depends on accepting the license -- or not. It is always acceptable not to accept the license and write your own.

If you do use GPL code you have to also license it as GPL. Any derivative work you create containing even a smallest portion of the previously GPL licensed software must also be licensed under the GPL license. That's what Google meant when they called it infectious and viral. Unfortunately for these large corporations, it was also the solution (other than doing the heavy lifting in-house as Apple did).

When you don't accept GPL'd code, you write your own code and license (or adopt another).

Agreed in this particular case the API was much more valuable than the implementation. You can't mean all APIs require more work than implementations though? Implement the class AI with this API: start, stop.

I wonder if Oracle devs had any influence when they created the API.

Well, not Oracle devs, since that was long before Oracle bought Sun.

This also means that Wine, GNUstep, FreeDOS, etc., are illegal, right?

I am far from an expert in these matters, but as I understand it there are fair use exemptions when the purpose of the implementation is for interoperability and compatibility. Given WINE's purpose, they would seem to be on safer ground.

I believe this was one of Google's initial arguments, but as the DoJ stated when they weighed in:

>"The Android platform uses the Java programming language, but [Google] purposely designed Android not to be compatible with the Java platform or interoperable with Java programs." [1]

[1] http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/05/us-dept-of-justice-finds-...

A strange notion of 'not compatible'. I wrote a Java library in 1996 that's been used unchanged in Android apps. (Yes, the app author has to compile it to Dalvik.) [Added: it was always my understanding that this ability to use Java code was the whole point of using the Java API.]

What cases codify interoperability as a fair use exception? Wouldn't perfect interoperability have a bigger impact on the commercial value of existing products by making it easier for customers to switch to the drop-in replacement?

I think Apple would have a tough time arguing GNUstep was illegal given the wording of the OpenStep standard document NeXT and Sun produced in 1994. It was meant to be a standard.

Yes, it would seem logical to me.

What about Oracle Linux and Bash on Windows?

It is clearly not ludicrous, as this fight has been going on for 6 years now. Oracle believes in it, and of course their well-compensated lawyers believe in it.

What I don't understand is WHY Oracle wants to go through with long legal battle. They make good revenue on their database ecosystem as well as some other products of dubious value (has anyone ever enjoyed Oracle EBS?). They've secured their interests in Java on the serverside, android is not a threat there.

Is this REALLY all about monetizing their purchase of Sun Microsystems? Seems like a round-about way to make money and it certainly carries a lot of risk.

Doesn't this action also warn other companies away from using Java (or any other Oracle technology) for anything ever again? It would if I were running a company or had purchasing power.

I'm guessing that Oracle is looking at the short term gains and ignoring the long term impacts. Business as usual in the corporate world. :/

You won't like this, but....

Sun's documentation specified that the APIs were copyright, and in an email on March 24, 2006, Andy Rubin wrote that: "Java.lang apis are copyrighted ... Sun owns the brand and ip [and} Sun gets to say who they license the tck to" (edited for clarity).

That was before Sun went open source.

By 2007, Google was making serious efforts to "scrub" its code for references to Java. In 2010, it said the "bad words" were "Java, License and Patent".

On April 9, 2008 Google's Alan Donovan wrote an internal email to [email protected] explaining how to turn off "Sun proprietary API" warnings issued by the Java compiler.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful...

It's pretty clear that (a) Google knew it was using copyright materials and (b) trying to conceal the fact, rather than taking out a license.

On May 9, 2014, the Federal Circuit court ruled that the Java APIs are copyrightable.

https://www.eff.org/files/2014/11/10/oracle_v_google_13-1021...

Arguing that bad laws are bad does not stop them from being laws....

Would this also apply to projects like OpenJDK, that are alternative JVM implementations? If so, why did Oracle never go after them?

OpenJDK is code released by Sun.

Better analogies would be Harmony (what Android used) or GNU Classpath.

They did not go after those, one presumes, because those projects don't have billions of dollars to be sued for.

OpenJDK is the official reference implementation of the JVM, so that would be a little silly...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenJDK

http://openjdk.java.net/faq/

OpenJDK isn't a good example, as Oracle owns copyright on it.