In this post I suggested that people look at the early coverage
of this case. Everyone was talking about patents and nobody was saying much
about APIs even though it was obvious that the APIs were copied.
I think that's
because the entire tech industry agrees with us that APIs cannot be protected by
copyright. Nonetheless, what matters now is what the judge and jury think. I'm
not concerned that Oracle might be right, I'm concerned that they might win even
though they are wrong.
This leads back to my initial post in this thread.
From what I gathered, John Mitchell was going to hem and haw even if Google
asked him if the sky was blue or if water was wet. Since Google's court time
is extremely valuable, it makes sense for them to avoid wasting it on a gamble
that is likely not to pay off.
The way I see it, if witnesses were always
perfectly honest and forthcoming then we wouldn't need juries. I'm not trying
to suggest that Mitchel would lie. I'm saying that he could probably
outmaneuver Google's lawyers on this particular issue, wasting their time while
avoiding any "aha!" moment. IOW, it would be better to impeach him with his
pay than try to win an intellectual battle on his home turf.
--- Our
job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts than the one we’re in
now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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