[1] - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/white-house-sides...
[2] - http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/google...
To answer your question yes, in general, actions taken with direct authority or direction from high-level appointees of the President are described by the media as "White House" actions, with good reason.
[1] http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/app/briefs/fisher_appellee_...
It does not include law enforcement or intelligence agencies, nor cabinet-level departments. So "White House" does not mean FBI, DEA, Department of the Interior, etc. However, the term "Administration" or "<President's last name> Administration" does include these entities.
Only when people are being sloppy, either through ignorance, or, e.g, because its convenient for spin they'd look to put on something.
Less sloppily, referring to an entity rather than a building, it refers to either the White House Office within the Executive Office of the President, or the whole Executive Office of the President (both of which are headed by the White House Chief of Staff.)
This was to let the courts know how they felt on the matter, even though they aren't directly involved.
Of course you have the same view of software and/or system engineer, who build broken systems just to justify billing more maintenance :)
But there are definitely lobbies that exist to further the legal industry. The trial lawyers lobby is HUGE in the democratic party. Probably the most influential because they have money but also direct connections. They were sorta behind killing the patent reform act from 2013 because it had "fee shifting.
The more appropriate charge is that lawyers overvalue the law and litigation as a whole and it creates a bias. But the recent courts have given away a lot of power that they didn't' have to. Courts uphold arbitration terms in contracts, SCOTUS made it harder to sue in a series of civil procedure cases, they give deference to administrative agencies.
I work in the patent industry, mostly on the defense side, and a lot of my coworkers really really hate patent trolls. They see first hand how shitty these trolls behave. I recognize their behavior is paying off my student loans, so I don't get so angry. I'm sort of shocked how personally they take it.
But professionally they attack patent troll ferociously. Many big firms wrote amicus briefs supporting crack downs on the trolls even though they'd lose a lot of money if it actually works.
A lawyers job is to represent their client as best as they possibly can (within the rules of the law). The best outcome for Oracle here is copyright is valid for APIs, it's then the lawyers job to try to get that outcome. It is illegal (i.e. disbarred) for a lawyer (in New Zealand at least) to refuse instruction without a good enough reason.
It should be judges/the law which stops these silly verdicts from occurring.
"declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of
the API packages are entitled to copyright protection."
Someone needs to explain to them that that would be like being able to copyright how files are organised in a drawer, how books are organised on shelves in a Library, how a book is indexed, how departments in a company are named, how streets are numbered, how campus room numbers relate to floors and buildings, roads, flights, cashier tickets, ...
Probably not the best example to give, since the Dewey Decimal System is actually a copyrighted product(http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=11&ti=1,11...). Similar to how the AMA has copyrighted the ICD codes.
I do wonder if using identical function names, but different argument names, would be sufficient to escape infringement.
The entire thing is derived from this doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure,_sequence_and_organiz...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140509/10133727178/appea...
Mike's opinion today:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150526/16550931121/obama...
There are clearly things that combine function and expression. Essentially all computer programs do this. But if the expressive part can be copyrighted and the functional part can't then the combined thing has to be separated into what can be copyrighted and what cannot.
The thing about APIs is that by their nature they're purely functional. There is no expressive component that can be extracted and changed without changing the function itself. Even the name is functional because that string of characters is what the compiler uses to match invocations of the function with its definition.
Try a mirror image analogy. First, a popular lock manufacturer encodes the mechanical specification for its lock cylinder as music, and it turns out to have a pleasing sound. When the sound hits the top 40 they can have all the music royalties, but that doesn't mean they can copyright the lock itself as an expression of the music.
Second, a popular lock manufacturer starts selling locks which will only open if the key blanks are encoded with a particular sequence of musical notes composed by a human artist, and asserts that such key blanks are copyrighted. It doesn't matter how expressive the music is when you play it on a piano, or whether it would be copyrightable if it was reproduced as sheet music rather than key blanks. If you specify it as an interface then it can't be copyrighted in that context because the functional interface demands that specific expression.
I wouldn't think so. REST APIs are just called APIs, but they're really communication protocols. As those don't have a fixed description (i.e. you can describe the same protocol in different words) -- unlike APIs -- they are not copyrightable.
For good or bad, APIs aren't just a description of how to do something. They are fixed. If you write down how files should be organized in a drawer, then that specific text might be copyrightable; the method itself isn't. APIs (though not protocols) are both a description and a fixed text.
An API, by itself (By definition of being an interface), does nothing. It's just a description of how one would ask the system to perform some function. It may be written in a way such that it describes what the system will do to produce a result. But that's merely descriptive, not functional.
First, naming. The naming of things allows them to be used by programmers. You could replace every unique identifier with a random dictionary word and the API would still work, although nobody would want to use it.
Second, structure(/sequence/organization). The structure could be transformed arbitrarily with the constraint that the operational aspects continue to behave unchanged. The only possible impacts, then, are that one structure is easier to use than another, or performs better than another; those are functional (in the general sense, not in the programming sense) differences, therefore should not be copyrightable.
Not everything that is fixed is copyrightable. It has to have creative spark, and the creative spark cannot be in the service of functionality. (Arguably, if it's in the service of functionality it's not creative at all, even if it naïvely seems like it is, because such "creativity" is indistinguishable from advanced-enough soft-AI optimization methods, with either performance or A/B testing for usability as the metric)
A way of looking at REST APIs in the context of this Oracle case would be to imagine a Stripe clone appearing with an identical API to Stripe's, to the point of being interoperable with existing Stripe client code/libraries. Could Stripe claim copyright over the way their API is designed in this situation? If Oracle gets its way, then perhaps.
On the other hand, this would make it far easier to enforce copyleft licenses like the GPL.
I'm one of the people who provided text and examples filed in the EFF's amicus brief against, and on balance I'm not a fan of stricter copyright like this, but it's interesting to consider how this ruling could be used positively.
He's talking about distributing code that is not functional unless linked with a GPL library. Not about distributing code that replaces such GPL library.
Oracle is basically saying that you can not write a compatible implementation of Java.
Google's case is different. They didn't write Android so users can choose between a dummy libDoesNotRunAnything or wink, wink unlicensed Oracle JVM.
From reading that, you can be near certain that RMS would agree.
Also, killing FOSS reimplementations of proprietary APIs is exactly why Microsoft filed a briefing in favor of Oracle the last time Oracle won at the CAFC. That and also the fact that Microsoft hates Google much more than Google hates Microsoft behind the scenes, which is why it keeps extorting Android OEMs and wants Oracle to win in this case.
Unfortunately now the USA is goign to try to push this ruling all over the world with TIPP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investm...).
It's not enough that the USA destroys their own entrepreneurial spirit but everybody else as well.
I am not a copyright expert, but in my opinion APIs usually fall closer to the structured math half of programming.
ex. GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE to the following:
/users
/messages
/comments
/login
/logout
/signup
/payments
etc.
Who gets those copyrights?
But, there seems to be a balance, is the API of a single class copyrightable? No, probably not. Is the API of a large system like Java's copyrightable, I really do think so.
Having said that, I disagree with the protections an API suddenly gains once we say I have a monopoly on its use and license. E.g. This verdict likely just made every emulator an act of copyright infringement. Does intel own the API on the x86 instruction API and can lock out AMD?
Something like WINE would be in a whole mess of trouble not to mention that a decision of such magnitude would enrich the Lawyers and decimate the Software industry.
Obama's VP was one of the strongest supporters of all things copyright in Congress during his legislative career. Obama's administration has clearly been on the side of Hollywood etc as well. Given that fact, on any issue you can depend on this administration to come down on the side of the strongest and most expansive possible interpretation of what should be covered by copyright.
In this conflict, Oracle wants copyright to cover more things. Google wants it to only cover what it has historically covered. Therefore this administration will back Oracle.
This is incorrect. By most reasonable readings of copyright law, API's have always been covered by copyright, unless deny that API design holds any modicum of creative expression. So it's more Google that's trying to reduce the scope of what's protected rather than Oracle trying to expand it.
See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1323818 for some of the history about how this came about.
What about POST to /login who copyrights that one first?
Of course there is the right to parody. I wonder if we'll see parodies of APIs as a way to sidestep copyright.
Many open source implementations of Java already exist like Apache Harmony project, the OpenJDK or Red Hat's Iced Tea apart from Oracle's reference implementation.
Coming to the point of there being plenty of languages, I don't think there are any exact substitutes. Low level languages like C/C++ are a bit overkill for application development.
Python is good (I'm a big fan myself), but an interpreter is much slower than a JIT compiled language even on a quad-core. I think we should have python as an option, but that should not be the only language.
The only real replacement (and even a better one) in my opinion is C#. C# is a much evolved language than Java and is also open source (Microsoft has made it so through the MCP).
Java is free to develop with.
Java APIs can be copied and used, with one condition - all APIs from JDK should be used and nothing can be removed. Google failed to comply with this.
s/^\([a-zA-Z_]*\)(\(.*\))$/ggl_\1(\2)/ ??
Edit: my regexp joke is mangled by markup, but who cares ?
Edit: fixed regexp display (not that it affects joke).
*like this* screen_draw(int x, int y);
ggl_screen_draw(int x, int y);
From the start of this I interpreted situation this way - Java's goal was "run everywhere" (wherever it succeeded or not is for everyone to decide, but its irrelevant here). Java JDK follows this goal with main license requirement - you can implement your own SDK, but you should take all APIs, not part of it - all or nothing deal. Goal being that programs from main JDK should run on your new SDK.
This principle was violated by Google and I just don't see why anyone would support Google side from rational point of view (not talking about morality, innovation or whatever).
Fucking hell.
EDIT:
Thanks Obama!
"The Justice Department is weighing in on the hot-button intellectual property dispute between Google and Oracle, telling the Supreme Court that APIs are protected by copyright.
The Obama administration's position means it is siding with Oracle and a federal appeals court that said application programming interfaces are subject to copyright protections. The high court in January asked for the government's views on the closely watched case."
While I think it's now too late to file amicus briefs on the cert petition, if certiorari is granted (as Google hopes and the Solicitor General just argued against), anyone can file amicus briefs on the merits. Companies, trade associations, nonprofits, individual experts.
I don't know exactly whom people should write to in the government expressing their displeasure with the Solicitor General's position. (It's supposedly a completely nonpolitical decision, so it's unusual for people to openly lobby about it or express opinions about it to elected officials.) You can certainly write to Congress saying that you want to see legislative clarification that APIs are noncopyrightable.
Fuckers.
Publish the generated code on Github. Early on, you would need to test the generated code against publicly published APIs to ensure you didn't publish code infringing on existing APIs, however, over time you could "own" the remaining API naming space.
Does anyone think this is a good thing? If so, why?
The fact that the existing fair use exception language is not clearly and explicitly permitting Google's use of the API is a bad thing.
Oracle ... said the appellate court's decision was a
"win for the entire software industry that relies on
copyright protection to fuel innovation."
For this reason I really think it's a moot point.
The unfortunate aspect of this is every hour / day government employees continue to debate this is another hour / day those government employees could be doing something useful.
I don't think this is as bad as the headlines make it sound.
Here's a direct link to the brief in case you can't find it in the article (I couldn't):
http://computemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Google...
While the DoJ does fully agree with Oracle on the question of copyrightability, the brief goes into some length about its belief that interoperability issues would be appropriate and relevant to a fair use argument - fair use being the question that was never decided in the original trial due to a hung jury, and AFAIK would be subject to appeals regarding the legal standard anyway. For example, it states: "Interoperability and lock-in concerns like those raised by petitioner can appropriately be considered as part of fair-use analysis."
Now, if you're FOSS Patents, you take the one sentence where the DoJ uncritically repeats a claim about interoperability that's been made several times in the record and never really contested, as part of its restatement of the facts, and you extrapolate it into something "damning" for Google's entire fair use argument:
http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/05/us-dept-of-justice-finds-...
The claim is: "The Android platform uses the Java programming language, but petitioner purposely designed Android not to be compatible with the Java platform or interoperable with Java programs." I'll get to that in a bit.
Mr. Mueller argues that the discussion on the relevance of fair use is just window dressing and that "the U.S. government has also concluded that Google can't make a 'fair use' argument based on compatibility or interoperability because of the specifics of this case". Based, as far as I can tell, only on that sentence (and a repetition later), never mind that the brief also explicitly mentions that Google's argument about programmer fluency (i.e. even if Android isn't compatible with Java software, it avoids lock-in by letting programmers use their existing skills) is relevant to fair use... or the fact that the issue which is supposedly pivotal is only mentioned in passing... or that the appeals judgement which Google is trying to get overruled already states, and the brief quotes, that there are not yet "sufficient factual findings" regarding the questions involved in fair use - for the DoJ to actually be rejecting Google's fair use argument, it would have to be supposing that there are already sufficient findings, without actually saying so.
So much for that.
But let's get back to that statement, about Android not being compatible with Java programs. If you're like me, you found it absurd on its face when it first showed up in the appeals judgement, because while Android is not compatible with entire JME applications, it is compatible with many Java libraries and with non-UI code, which in reality is extremely important if you're trying to port your Java codebase to Android. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that Google can't really start an argument over it, because Oracle made these contentions at trial and Google did not contest them then. I fail to understand how Google's lawyers allowed such a misleading claim to reach a jury when it did - maybe, as non-programmers, they didn't fully understand the issue either. But in any case, if the Supreme Court rejects Google's case and there is a new trial on fair use, Google will have a chance to start fresh with the whole line of reasoning.
It will arguably be better for all of us if the Supreme Court accepts the case anyway and decides Oracle has indeed failed at the first hurdle - that Google has not copied something copyrightable in the first place - because the more uncertainty there is around clean room reimplementations in general, the more people will be discouraged from working on such projects, decreasing interoperability. Also, fair use is partially a question of fact (as opposed to law) and thus for a jury, and while I wouldn't trust judges these days to truly understand the facts and actual practices around software issues, as opposed to making analogies that act like a funhouse mirror... I trust randomly selected juries even less. But in reality, the applicability of copyrightability vs. fair use is a relatively arcane question that will be decided in part by however the statute happens to be worded, and Oracle getting to the next hurdle instead is not the end of the world.
Also, even if the lack of compatibility with entire applications is (implicitly or explicitly) found critical in such an argument, projects like Wine which are more principled about compatibility and do run entire existing applications will have some wiggle room. So don't despair...
Pro: I guess if you hate Google because you love Steve Jobs or something it looks like a win.
Or was it neither, and you just like using rhetorical devices to bolster your weak points?
Oracle makes a bunch of money from Android.
Cons:
Kills innovation for fear of lawsuits. Feeds the patent trolls.
(I am not saying the DoJ opinion is good in any regards whatsoever, to be clear)
It also means SQL, C, C++, POSIX, and more stuff that I can count are forbiden land for open source, and every company making products that include or derivate from them own a non-negotiable unknow amount to some party.
The US is no longer a country ruled by law. If anything the more ridiculous and barbaric the government becomes the better as it will only swell the ranks of those who realize the government is illegitimate.