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| Authored by: jbb on Thursday, April 26 2012 @ 05:52 PM EDT |
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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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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 01:42 AM EDT |
IANAL - but when judges rule on important issues with far
reaching implications they tend to do so in very limited,
narrow scoped ways. They don't like to be overturned and
they don't like to establish broad precedents that could
have unforeseen implications. Judge Alsup could (will
likely) rule on some aspect of structure, selection and
ordering (SSO), or an API as a compilation, or w.h.y., that
would effectively dismiss Oracles copyright claims without
broadly ruling that all APIs are unprotectable.
It's also possible that he avoids the question of
copyrightability of API, rather relying on estoppel. Oracle
has inherited Sun's legacy and also has its own legacy as a
member of the Java community to deal with. Sun not only
allowed Google to use the Java APIs without license, but
encouraged it. Google is making a strong case, based on
testimony, emails, blogs, that Sun/Oracle:
a) Knew that Google was using the Java API specification
without a license
b) Allowed others (Apache Harmony, OpenJDK, etc.) to
develop un-licensed implementations as long as they didn't
call them Java(tm).
c) Encouraged Google to launch the Harmony/Dalvik based
Android platform under a non-GPL compatible license and
without JCK compliance or license.
d) Initially supported Android with development tools.
e) Oracle contributed to and funded parts of Apache
Harmony.
It was reasonable for Google to assume that Sun/Oracle would
not assert a license requirement on Android so long as they
didn't call it a Java Phone.
Google is now being harmed by Sun/Oracle as a result of
relying on Sun/Oracle's previous "promise" not to enforce a
license requirement on Android.
This is a classic estoppel. A promise is made, the victim
reasonably relies on the promise and as a result suffers
harm (or legal detriment).
Judge Alsup could easily dismiss all of Oracles copyright
claims on the basis of estoppel without ever ruling on the
API copyright issue.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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