Application Programming Interfaces are like forms - you fill one out and hand it to something to get work done. Then someone hands you back a response. If the Java APIs can be copyrighted then so can the layout of forms. Except US law says forms cannot be copyright (says Wikipedia):

This is just another example of adding "on a computer" and claiming it is something new.

Regards,
-Jeremy

This is not arguing that the language is copyright, but the standard library API. Thankfully the C standard library API is an ISO/IEEE standard, and so is C++, but many, many other libraries are not. Be prepared to have lots of old, failing tech companies come out of the woodwork looking for money... For example, XMLHttpRequest(): is it properly standardized? Not really. Could Microsoft sue? Why do you think they are supporting Oracle... Is it critical to the Web? Yes.

Regards,
    -Jeremy

Microsoft Pane, obviously...

So, you have a FHT server farm, right in the exchange, because if you are across the street someone will take your lunch money (well technically your chance to steal someone else's lunch money). But because of the antiquated nature of the markets, they close down for two thirds of the day... Can't use those same servers to game the Nikkei - you have to be right on top of that too. So now you have a world wide set of servers which are 60% idle... Maybe you could sell that time.

But you're someone who thinks FHT is a good idea, so you posit selling your spare cycles like a stock.

I think I know where this idea came from...
-Jeremy

Wouldn't it be cheaper to move the people and the money? 90% of the time the people involved don't even have to be near the machine, with this newfangled internet thing that some people invented...

Hopefully there will be some way to enable silverlight automatically without clicking, otherwise Netflix on a PC is going to suck even worse...

Regards,
-Jeremy

This is exactly the type of clause that Sun put in the Java SDK and Oracle tried to argue gave them copyright on the Java APIs. Now they are trying to prevent someone else doing exactly what they did to Sun... It will look great in court when your primary defense is quotes from the offense's previous case. i.e. Ignore these terms - they have already been found to be unenforceable.

Regards
-Jeremy

I think the US should declare robots a munition subject to export control and extreme secrecy. With the increase in robotic soldiers, it will become important, and as the US learns to make better robots for the military, they will make better industrial robots. At some point the robots will be more cost effective than slaves in China... If they cannot be exported then manufacturing will return to the US. At least for a while Americans will be able to get high skill jobs building and fixing robots...

And "going forward". i.e. Apple don't want to pay for all of the phones they have already sold.

    -Jeremy

Real mechanical pencils should only come in sizes 0.5mm, 0.35mm, 0.25mm, 0.18mm and 0.13mm...

Yes, the internet is a modern day microphone. But the network is not the microphone, it is the wire. The microphone is the content. Their argument supports exactly the opposite conclusion: Net netrality is required to protect the free speech rights of the people using the network.

-Jeremy

Found the same thing with my kids, although they've never really had much broadcast TV exposure. They just get irritated by this stuff interrupting what they were watching... Thankfully they'll live in a streaming world, because they find it difficult to understand that they can't chose the show, but have to watch whatever is on.

However, don't be scared to teach your kids the truth about ads. There are two kinds of ads: Those that try to sell you something you don't need, and those that are offering you a good deal on something you might have been thinking of getting. For the first kind, label them truthfully - if they are advertising it means you don't need what they are selling (which is even more true for targeted ads). Purposefully eschew anything you saw in an ad. For the second type, teach them to comparison shop and never pay full price for anything. Teach them to read the $/oz numbers instead of the price tag...

I wish someone would craft a carefully worded Proposition for California which would make any unskipable content on media which is sold or rented unconstitional... Something about not being allowed to accuse people of crimes without evidence that they are at least thinking of committing the crime.

It would make for such a fun round of election ads - the more the studios argue that it is a good thing the more the population would be reminded just how irritating these warnings are.

Regards,
-Jeremy

You're mixing the licenses of the GPL OpenJDK (the GPL does not allow "field of use" restictions), Oracle's binary JDK, and Oracle's Java specification.

No, the OpenJDK and binary licenses have never been part of the actual case. The Java SE 1.4 and Java SE 5 versions of the license I quoted are the only licenses Oracle has entered into evidence (although I've not read all 1000+ documents).

Did we red the same piece of text?

includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification

means exactly that you can develop all applications you want using the Java APIs, how do you interpret that as "they could advance a case against any Java developer"?

Well, OK, anyone that has used Java externally, or has commercialized their use. This is a classic industry license which lets you look, but if you want to play you have to pay. You are allowed to determine if Java is right for you. Sure, Sun always interpreted this as meaning "Java is free for use" (and Oracle still claim that), but Oracle are showing that they can come up with some very interesting interpretations of the law. So, maybe Java is safe, maybe Oracle will need more cash and change their tune...

No, Google
1) did NOT use the GPL OpenJDK, and therefore they're not covered by the GPL license; and they expressly chose not to use the OpenJDK because they dislike the GPL, as Google said explicitly in their published emails;
2) violated this part, of the license, that you omitted to quote:

2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Oracle also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under any applicable copyrights or, subject to the provisions of subsection 4 below, patent rights it may have covering the Specification to create and/or distribute an Independent Implementation of the Specification that: (a) fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality; (b) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the Licensor Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields or methods within the Licensor Name Space other than those required/authorized by the Specification or Specifications being implemented; and (c) passes the Technology Compatibility Kit (including satisfying the requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for such Specification ("Compliant Implementation").

In other words, Oracle claim that Google created a Java-based platform that is not compatible with Java, and called it Java. Which is what Microsoft did in the 90s (and has nothing to do with the developers of Java applications). A judge will decide if this is the case, but saying that every Java user could be sued for writing Java applications is frankly not true.

This part of the license is irrelevant. Google do not claim to implement Java or a compliant implementation. They are therefore not entitled to patent protection (which is why they are being sued for patent infringement). This is why the case is split into two portions: a copyright portion, because Oracle claim Google have violated the first part of the license, by copying the APIs (and a bit of code). Google's defense is three part:

1. That this license is invalid because the APIs are not subject to copyright (this is what the judge will decide),
2. That even if they are subject to copyright, their use is fair (clause (ii) and (iii) of the Java SE 7 license I quoted are not in the older ones, but appear to be trying to define "fair use") and
3. Even if the use was not fair, it was de minimus (minimal) and so they should be allowed to get away with it. (and the copied bits of code were copied but minimal).

Using the OpenJDK might have saved them some grief, but it was never a real issue. Oracle only raised because they were desperate for quotes to show Google knew they needed a license.

The patent portion is because they clearly did not meet part 2 of the license.

Regards,
-Jeremy

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy