Thanks for your response. I don't want to take sides yet because I don't yet fully understand the case. If Google copied copyrighted code in violation of the licence they have a problem. For the GPL IANAL but the licence permits copying the code provided that the copyright is maintained thus though not explicit it is clear to me any GPLed APL can be copied. Kern
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 -------- Original message -------- From: thufir <[email protected]> Date:18/10/2014 02:10 (GMT-03:00) To: [email protected] Cc: Subject: Re: Oracle vs Google: APIs are copyright; appeal decision On 14-10-17 04:10 AM, Kern Sibbald wrote: > I am not taking any side, but could you be more specific on your > comment "the result this would have on the GPL"? > > Thanks, > Kern Please do take a side at some point, or take both sides, or your own side The key phrase from Alsup, the trial judge, is that he writes "it does not hold": ''Though the trial court did add the caveat that it “does not hold that the structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be stolen,” Copyrightability Decision, 872 F. Supp. 2d at 1002, it is hard to see how its method of operation analysis could lead to any other conclusion.' well, why not? Why doesn't it hold that the wider implication is that the SSO of all programs may be stolen? It's notable that the trial judge doesn't write "infringed" or "copied", he goes right to the word "stolen," which is so often mistakenly used in copyright. Now, when joe public downloads a DVD, Hollywood wants to call that "stealing," but it's not -- and I have no doubt that Alsup is quite aware of the distinction. Which makes his language choice, let's say, interesting. When he writes "it does not hold" my take is that this is a slip. He arrived at his conclusion, and then considered the wider consequences were his decision to be applied elsewhere, and then, realizing what the potential result would be, wrote "it does not hold" exactly because of the potential implication. Speculation on my part, but I put another negation on his negation -- it does hold. Now, this is just one trial, but let's consider the wider implications. If the SCOTUS says, sure, go ahead and copy the SSO of any computer program, (not that they would phrase it like that), what are the implications? In this case we're talking about OpenJDK. OpenJDK is under the GPL. Well, now anyone can come along, copy the SSO and distribute without consideration of the GPL. Wow, that's huge. Even bigger than that, there's no copyright at all, or nothing enforceable, on SSO. Please correct my reading of the appeals court decision. I'm literally asking how others parse that excerpt from the appeals decision. -Thufir
