it's going to be a tough fight, I think moreso because Google is prepared to defend nearly every aspect of Android because they're battle-hardened from the fight with Oracle.
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I don't think there's much that's relevant from the fight with Oracle. That case has been about whether the software industry as a whole will be able to continue in the US based on whether APIs can be copyrighted and whether reimplementing them is fair use. Not really connected.
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right. but you're thinking too technically :) I mean in the sense that their legal team has looked Android up down and sideways and thought through arguments and counterarguments for any scenarios they will likely face in regard to Android. Over the course of years.
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Doesn't mean they will win. It's not looking good for them or the rest of the US software industry (Oracle included) based on how that Supreme Court case seems to be going.
Seems the software industry as a whole has made bad assumptions about how copyright law will be applied.
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The software industry as a whole has assumed that APIs are not copyrightable and that you can implement software with a compatible API. Oracle themselves heavily relies upon being able to do this. Doesn't seem like legal teams at these companies really know what they're doing.
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that's not my reading at all. In my view, these companies exist in a state of "mutually assured destruction" in regard to these IP constructs (see: software patents and overlapping portfolios). They're external levers of control that the companies regularly ignored internally. 1/
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Oracle violated a sacred trust, so to speak, by challenging a mechanism of control (APIs) the industry "big dogs" rely upon. Who knows what occurs after the fallout, but I expect new & lucrative API licensing to funnel money upward to Big Tech and hurt FOSS, small devs, users 2/2
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Could easily hurt them a lot more than smaller developers.
There are so many major examples of reimplementing APIs and those big tech companies depend on them.
Google started from an existing open source Java standard library implementation (Apache Harmony) too.
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My tacit assumption is that a new state of MAD will take place with a new set of legal norms/licensing framework. The "big dogs" (GAFAM+Oracle+IPO unicorns) are not going to eat each other alive and have money to burn on licensing deals. They hang out in the same clubhouses.
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There are a lot more SCOs. Oracle is ending up with a copyright / patent trolling business model themselves. They go after their own customers. Their business is entirely based on vendor lock-in and lawsuits at this point.
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A few big companies don't own all the important IP. Copyright lasts a lot longer than patents and IP carried over from dead companies in the 80s / 90s is quite relevant.
right. for ex. this is one reason I believe Windows source will never be untangled and released as FOSS. Good luck even finding the relevant agreements. However, powerful players do things like make covenants not to sue etc. etc. But yes, "API trolls" could become a thing.
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