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| Authored by: hardmath on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 09:42 AM EDT |
There seems to be conflation of specification licenses, TCK licenses, and
one-off IP licenses with Sun/Oracle. What "license" is needed to get
an independent, clean room implementation?
Arguably if a specification license is needed, you get one by signing off on the
JSPA (Java Specification Process Agreement), which as far as I know both ASF
(Apache Software Foundation) and Google must have done as EC members of the JCP
(Java Community Process).
From what I've read at the time of the dispute over allowing a TCK for Harmony,
the right to make an independent implementation of the Core Java specification
was explicitly granted by the JSPA. Apache had done that much and no one
questioned the legitimacy of it, nor has Oracle clearly done so to this day.
Instead they conflate the lack of the grant of TCK on terms compatible with the
Apache permissive license with some lack of a license grant generally,
presumably including rights to use the API as specified.
Yet every Java programmer uses the APIs as specified from an invocation side,
whether they sign the JSPA or not. So Oracle is really muddying up the waters
here in trying to assert copyright control over the Core APIs, including the
accused 37 in Android. The only principled distinction to be made is between
calling the APIs and implementing them independently. How such a distinction is
supported by the copyright protection would be a matter for lawyers to address,
not me. Perhaps the implementation entails more copying of SSO than mere
invocation of it does, but as far as I know, typical Java language programs will
incorporate declarations for the Core APIs, and there you have the SSO being
copied.
regards, hm
---
"Prolog is an efficient programming language because it is a very stupid theorem
prover." -- Richard O'Keefe[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: rcsteiner on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 12:53 PM EDT |
ARDI implemented the Executor classic MacOS emulator for DOS in a clean room
with full knowledge of Apple, but they had no license at all from Apple in order
to do so.
As far as I know, Apple couldn't do anything at all about it even though
Executor faithfully reproduced many of the critical elements of the MacOS
including APIs, ABIs, etc.
Isn't the same general idea behind the various IBM mainframe clones we used to
see from Amdahl and others?
And isn't it the same general reason that OpenOffice is allowed to read/write
.DOC and .DOCX documents?
---
-Rich Steiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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