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Yes, you're all wet. | 287 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
aren't "CPU instruction sets treated that way? - Don't think so
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 05:45 PM EDT
Nope. The ones know about are freely available in various publications and on
the web. Anybody know of any, common CPUs, whose instruction sets are not
available?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

No
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 06:17 PM EDT

If the CPU instruction set was copy protected, it would be almost impossible to distribute software. The industry would grind to a halt. Everyone would need a license from Intel to distribute software for Intel CPUs. The resulting licensing and auditing regime would be a nightmare.

Also, it would ban competition amongst different CPU hardware manufacturers making instruction set compatible hardware. The Zilog Z80 (8080 compatible) would not exist, Rabbit Semiconductor (Z80/8080 compatible) would not exist, and AMD (Intel Compatible) would not exist either.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • No - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 02 2012 @ 11:51 AM EDT
Yes, you're all wet.
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 06:21 PM EDT
As a programmer, I own my program.

Let's say after investing a lot of time and energy in some language, I get tired
of the license fees, so I want to move my programs to another language. I have
lots of programs, so I build a tool (another program) to facilitate the move.

Guess what? I have just written code that understands the language, thereby (by
Oracle's theory) violating someone's copyright.

But they won't know, until I decide to be generous and give my tool to other
programmers to let them escape the language as well.

Then I will be sued, because I have written something that exists on the
"wrong" side of the API.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

About programming language as IP
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 01 2012 @ 06:40 PM EDT
CPU instruction set is protected with patents linked with associated hardware.
Most CPU design companies prolong their monopoly on the instruction set by
adding more instruction set along with newer hardware designs used to implement
said instruction set and patenting them. Though given how modern processors are
manufactured, I do wonder how much protection can a patent really give to the
instruction set. If someone were to try and challenge such a patent, I wonder
how much of it would be left. Alternatively, I've seen companies try to use
trademark to "protect" the instruction set by naming it and preventing
others from using the same name. As for copyrights, at best they could copyright
the circuit designs, but for copyright to cover the instruction set, it would
bump into the same problem as copyrighting APIs.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

This story is about corporate responsibility, but, since you raised APIs!
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, May 02 2012 @ 04:44 AM EDT
I need to seek legal advice from any Java programmers out there. I don't want my
general feeling of outrage about copyrighting APIs to colour your legal opinion,
so keep calm.

As I understand it, those class library files dangle under each package SSO like
baubles on a Christmas tree.

Package.group.sub-group.library-function

That is an expression of the SSO in the API package. Oracle make the Java
language really free, but the APIs are all about the functionality of the
platform, and are closed.

Surmising a program that invokes functions from all 166 packages and from around
the base of the SSO tree, each invocation requires the expression of large parts
of the SSO in the form I give, above.

I think (please comment) that it is an explicit copy rather than the implicit
copy as found in the compilable Harmony code used by Google. If the Google
compilable code is infringing then programmers are, if anything, more infringing
with their explicit use of the SSO.

Please follow the jury instructions to evaluate the questions. The judge will
decide on the overarching question of law and I am looking at levels of
infringement.

It seems to me that a small program using just a few packages will be de minimis
because it expresses just a small part of the SSO in the whole work of 166
packages. Would a large program only using part of the SSO of 166 packages be de
minimis?

What about the SSO called by the implementation code (let's assume that the JDK
is being used and not any Android or other alternative)? With the max()
declaration we saw how three other methods were called in other packages. In
other words, is the implicit and hidden infringement caused by the infringement
that is explicit in the actual program, a further part of the overall
infringement?

What if it were a 'core' program just using the 37 packages? Does it matter how
many methods are used from each package and do the indirectly invoked methods
count in the assessment?

Do programmers programming with the JDK for the SE platform have an implicit or
an explicit licence to use the API SSO? Would that licence encompass the use of
third-party API implementation SSO? Would that licence encompass using the JDK
and the API SSO to write and compile the programmer's own non-Specification APIs
outside of the core? What about the non-Java Specification Android APIs?

Since the third party implementers typically use the Java language and the Java
SE APIs to program the implementations, does the mere programming of the
third-party implementation infringe the SE APIs or do they have the same licence
as all other Java SE programmers?

Since the infringement by programmers is explicit rather than implicit
(presumably, Google are doing non-literal infringing) it seems to me that
programmers for the Java SE platform are at even more risk than Google. They
need to make sure that any licence they have from Oracle gives them explicit
permission to program using the API SSO. Assuming that Oracle have got the law
right.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

ISTR an exception for "compatibility"?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 02 2012 @ 08:40 AM EDT
Is there not some kind of allowance in software copyright for copying to be
compatible with a protected program? It's fuzzy in my memory, but I thought
there was a provision for copying parts that allowed you to interface or be
compatible with another program or OS...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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