> > The reader is left with the impression that Google duplicated Java - > Oracle conveniently ignores the fact that the Apache Harmony project > did much of the work before Android was available even as an emulator > to developers. Harmony is still available even if it was retired in > November, so where is Oracle's copyright infringement action against > Harmony? >
You are right, when it comes to the API, Google uses Harmony - made famous exactly due to it's inability to call itself Java! Can somebody comment on US copyright law - are APIs able to be > protected by copyright? If an API can be considered the same as a protocol (seems reasonable, it's an interface/contract, just at a different abstraction level) then you can not copyright it. AFAIK that's the reason why companies usually go proprietary or require NDA's for this kind of stuff. Java and it's API (Java is fairly unique in that it does not differentiate language and common runtime API, what we know as JME/JSE and JEE) has been public available on thousands of public sites through JavaDoc, over the last 15 years. > Slide 83 says that the community has been harmed. I personally don't > think the Java community has been harmed - if anything, the reverse is > true because Android has kept Java alive and well on mobile, and given > it a relevance that will persist for a decade or two at least. Sun > weren't about to address the mess that is J2ME and Oracle would have > come to the party too late - quite aside from the debate around if > they would have done anything at all because of the long lead time, > cost and risks involved with developing a new ME platform when it was > never going to make it into iOS or Windows Phone. > Totally agree, Java as a trademark and toolchain would be at a worse state had it not been for Android. These days, client Java as a desktop technology is under heavy attack and I think it's unlikely it will be considered normal to have a JSE runtime readily available in two years from now. > I'm sure that Oracle has taken the best quotes they can find that, in > isolation, paint the worst picture (I would if I were in their > position) but presented in this way it does make for uncomfortable > reading, page 52 included... That's what I was thinking too. I'll be interesting to see how Google responds. It doesn't look like Oracle has much of a case here, but in a US court anything is possible. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/javaposse/-/h1Aauh0fgXcJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
