nsomos
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Posts: 140
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Authored by nsomos on Mar 29, 2018 13:53:35 GMT
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swmech
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Authored by swmech on Mar 29, 2018 18:43:02 GMT
Sigh. And I was so hoping...
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Authored by wol on Mar 30, 2018 11:33:53 GMT
I just hope IBM takes Oracle's argument, quotes it verbatim with acknowledgements, and sues Oracle for violating the SQL API.
Cue fireworks and popcorn - the Nazgul will have a field day :-)
What a shame PJ isn't around to commentate on this mess ...
Cheers, Wol
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Authored by wol on Mar 31, 2018 13:09:55 GMT
The other nice ending to this bit of the mess would be for SCOTUS to rule that, absent any surviving patent issues, the CAFC should have recused themselves, vacate all their decisions, and kick it back to the District Court for the next round :-)
I'm not sure they can do that, sadly, seeing as the current situation clearly lends itself to gaming the system and forum shopping.
Cheers, Wol
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nsomos
Veteran Member
Posts: 140
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Authored by nsomos on Apr 2, 2018 18:48:36 GMT
Having IBM sue Oracle for SQL API use would be brilliant. I hope someone from IBM legal either thinks of that or reads it here.
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andre
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Authored by andre on Apr 2, 2018 19:07:24 GMT
As for IBM - Somewhat related issue but not identical. In any event, too late. Laches would apply now.
Really miss PJ. Oddly, Florian M. isn't blogging about it anymore. He put out something after the hearing and on Twitter he told someone today he had no plans to blog about the case again but believes Google can persuade the Supreme Ct. to hear the case this time around.
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nsomos
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Posts: 140
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Authored by nsomos on Apr 2, 2018 19:41:19 GMT
Even if it is too late for IBM to sue over SQL API use, Google can point out in their defense that Oracle has benefited from the same sort of behavior (using others pre-existing APIs) that they are trying to sue Google over.
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andre
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Authored by andre on Apr 5, 2018 18:41:57 GMT
Google must choose carefully which issues to raise in its cert petition. Then muster support from others. What if the Supreme Ct. asks the DOJ for its views again? Didn't end well for Google last time around...
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swmech
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Authored by swmech on Jan 22, 2019 20:22:47 GMT
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MSS2
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Authored by MSS2 on Jan 25, 2019 1:56:36 GMT
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Authored by tiger99 on Jan 25, 2019 18:11:21 GMT
Just spotted this on Zdnet, and it is very bad news indeed. One possible course of action is to find prior art which might invalidate the copyrights. However US copyright law is so far out of line with that of the rest of the world that it seems to allow anyone to claim copyright on anything they like that is not their own creation. As a small-scale example of which I have first-hand knowledge, example, someone in the US claims copyright on the well-known hymn "Amazing Grace" which was in fact written in the English village of Olney in the 19th century, and placed into the public domain, yet someone in the US claims copyright, so when a church in Olney sings it they have to be registered with CCLI, and a small portion of their annual fee finds its way to the alleged copyright owner in the US. The Unix API, for instance, was effectively in the public domain. Oracle will possibly now claim to own that, and that will be the end of almost all FOSS, including the BSDs. The law is in error, because an ignorant and ill-informed court who don't know or care what an API is, made a ridiculously incorrect judgement. (Recall that the original judge was also a programmer and was having none of that nonsense!) That has to be fixed. But in a country where senior judiciary are political appointees, itself a fundamental form of corruption, and the appointer is someone like Trump, "allegedly" put there by Putin, and both incompetent and nasty, there is not much hope of any sensible action from the legal system. But what I wonder is whether there was any copyright statement on the APIs when they were first released by Sun. That, and that alone, should define the current status. You can't allow someone to use something under licence and then tell them they can't. However, I saw a few days ago, and have forgotten where, that the GPL is under attack on the basis that it is a contract, and is not enforceable unless each party gave something to the other. Because the author(s) gave us the code, and we gave them nothing in return, there is apparently not a proper enforceable contract. But if each one of us was required to pay the developer the smallest coin inn our local currency, or even send him/her a postcard, as at least one shareware developer asks for, then it would be valid. I have about 3000 apps installed in Debian, which would be about £30, if I had to pay £0.01 for each. I personally would not mind if it resolved the problem. But you can't go back and change the GPL... Meanwhile Microsoft are probably in the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish cycle again. "Microsoft has announced two new Linux distributions for Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux (WSL), including the first paid-for Linux distro called WLinux. WLinux is a Debian-based distro available for $19.99 from Microsoft Store. The company also announced Ubuntu 18.04, which will be available through the Microsoft Store, as well." wccftech.com/microsoft-20-linux-based-distrowindows-10-1809/Clearly Canonical have let us down too. Not unexpected. And it gets worse. blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/04/16/using-intelligence-to-advance-security-from-the-edge-to-the-cloud/Azure Sphere extends their monopoly into microcontroller hardware. Somewhere else, which I can't find, they were talking about putting Azure onto small things like thermostats. That is like a regurgitation of the idiot Gates talking about WinCE. You don't need a microcontroller big enough to run a Linux kernel for tasks like that, not even bigger tasks like a washing machine. You don't even need a proprietary RTOS like VRTX, or a free one like FreeRTOS. You only need a smallish device and some "bare metal" (well, silicon) programming, although "modern" developers seem to know how to use 1000 lines of C++ where a dozen lines of assembler would do the job, better. We, meaning PJ if I remember correctly, and some of us, suspected years ago that SCO were merely a dress rehearsal for some much bigger attack on FOSS. I fear that it is now coming, from Oracle and Microsoft. I wish I had something better to say.
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Authored by wol on Jan 28, 2019 18:08:31 GMT
There's a whole bunch of problems here, not least the American modern belief that everything has to have an owner :-(
As far as "Amazing Grace" goes, the problem here with copyright law is that *minor* changes trigger a new copyright. So Amazing Grace - provided you sing Newton's version - is Public Domain. However, there's a whole bunch of editorial changes, that trigger editorial copyright, which is what this American bunch are probably relying on. If you applied Copyright Law strictly, you'd probably completely kill the music scene because - especially with multiple works by the same composer - each one is a derivative of his previous work, and as such an infringement on any copyright he may have sold.
That GPL attack has been going on for ages - it's been pretty well debunked - the problem is that there are too many people who are unable to understand logic. If that ever gets through it's going to destroy more than just the computer industry - it'll take out the underpinnings of contract law so I can't see a successful attack surviving very long before other cases gut it.
WSL I'm not too worried about provided it's not then used to attempt to stop linux running on bare metal ...
Cheers, Wol
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swmech
Veteran Member
Posts: 152
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Authored by swmech on Mar 19, 2019 19:17:05 GMT
Some sanity, perhaps? A bit of good (and fun) news here. TL;DR:
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