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| Authored by: xtifr on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 02:25 PM EDT |
Yeah, that definitely made me giggle too.
Although, it's worth noting that the Linux kernel does have something similar to
what the judge had in mind. Various kernel APIs can be marked GPL or non-GPL.
Proprietary drivers (like those from NVidia) can only use the non-GPL'd APIs.
Of course, the marking only applies to the implementation behind the APIs--if
NVidia were to write their own implementation of Linux, from scratch, and
provide the same APIs, the restrictions would no longer apply.
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Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes them soggy and hard to
light.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: rsi on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 02:37 PM EDT |
It would have been better if the Judge was forced to take a course in Java
programming, C++, or some other language BEFORE he presided over this case! ;^)
I also don't envy the jurists trying to get their heads around all of this not
having CS backgrounds.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 02:49 PM EDT |
Judging from other things this judge said in this case, he seems to have a
really good sense of humor and is basically mocking the case itself here. I
don't think that he got the "public" wrong, instead he is poking fun
in a very intelligent way, twisting meanings around on purpose.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 02:55 PM EDT |
I think the judge was asking the question on behalf of the jury so that the
jurors would recognize the term "private" as a technical software
engineering term and NOT construe it in the way it would normally
be used in the Real World.
Otherwise, they might notice it being used in whatever code snippets that they
might see as part of the (hardcopy) evidence when they deliberate, and get the
wrong idea.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: ais523 on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 03:36 PM EDT |
There's actually a really important point hidden here, I think. The reason he
marked the main method as public is so that it was part of the API of his class,
and so could be accessed from outside (your Java application launcher on a
desktop, or whatever the equivalent program is on Android). If it had been
marked as private, then there wouldn't be an API implementation there, and the
program couldn't be run at all.
(At least with public versus private, the part-of-the-API versus
not-part-of-the-API distinction is clear. There are complications involved to do
with object-oriented programming and "protected" visibility, but
luckily I don't think they're relevant in this case, even if they caused
something of an argument over wording in the GPL…)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 03:42 PM EDT |
At least the judge is asking questions that a lay Jury would want to ask and
getting 'Expert' answers.
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Beware of him who would deny you access to information for in his heart he
considers himself your master.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 04:02 PM EDT |
Ah, what a way to describe the entire case.
If only the java spec would allow to define Oracle's 'main'
as 'null and void'... [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 04:10 PM EDT |
If you're going to compile it, "String" needs to be capitalized. If
you're going to run it, "main" needs to be all lower case.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- LOL - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 04:47 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 05:01 PM EDT |
Public & private have special meanings in Java. They relate to what other
code outside of that class can look at. Public stuff is stuff other code is
allowed to call. Private stuff is code you reserve for yourself to use.
This is related to the whole "black box" concept. The private parts
allow you to make sure that the box is really black, so that people can't see
all the parts inside. This keeps them from abusing their knowledge of how you
work and making something that only works with a particular implementation,
rather than something that works for any specification-conforming
implementation.
In other words, the private stuff is inside the black box that remains hidden,
and the public stuff is how you put stuff into and get stuff out of the black
box.
The keywords have a purely technical meaning and they have nothing to do with
how the software is licensed. While it's an interesting idea to make
legally-relevant keywords in a programming language, I don't believe there are
any languages that do anything like that. Certainly not any well-known ones.
Legal licensing information goes into source code comments or separate files
describing the license granted.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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