[kwlug-disc] This sounds scary? no more GPL?

[Bob Jonkman]

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Oh, look who agrees with me:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/googles-fair-use-victory-is-good-for-open-source/

> [...] the public positions that Sun Microsystems took for years,
> which endorsed -- as Jonathan Schwartz, its former CEO testified at
> trial -- free reuse of APIs in independently written code.

- --Bob.


On 2016-06-09 01:04 PM, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> I finally read the article Joe linked to:
>> On 05/27/2016 07:34 PM, Joe Wennechuk wrote:
>>> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-free-software-how-google-killed-gpl-annette-hurst
>
>>>
>>> 
> The
>>> 
> author, Annette Hurst @divaesq is very obviously not a software 
> developer.
> 
> There are two different use cases for using an API: 1) I write 
> software that uses your services, so my software contains calls to
>  your software using your API; 2) I write software that emulates
> your software, so my software contains implementations of your API
> so that others can replace your software with my software.  I'm not
> sure which use case Oracle objected to.
> 
> We've seen objections to both use cases -- in the first, companies
>  like Open Whisper Systems will not allow third-party Signal-like 
> clients to use the API calls on their server; in the second case I 
> can only think of Google replicating Oracle's Java engine in
> Android (I'm sure there are others).
> 
> The first case is ludicrous. Any company that publishes an API 
> should expect others to write third-party software to use the API. 
> Why else publish the API? If you don't want people to use it,
> don't publish it.
> 
> The second case is a little more subtle, but also contrary to
> common sense. It's entirely possible Oracle objects to Sun having
> made the Java source code freely available, but once that cat is
> out of the bag you can't put it back in. So here they are trying to
> say "Yes, you can implement a Java engine, but you can't copy the
> API", effectively making that code non-free again. It is certainly
> not what the original Sun developers intended by making the source
> available.
> 
> It is likely this kind of behaviour is already prohibited by GPL
> v3, since it is like "tivoization" -- not only does the source code
> need to be available, it needs to be practical to implement.
> Oracle's attempt to copyright APIs is like Tivo's attempt to
> restrict use of their source code with DRM. If API copyright isn't
> already covered under tivoization then I'm sure a future version of
> the GPL will address this.
> 
> The GPL isn't dead yet.
> 
> --Bob.
> 
> 
> On 2016-05-29 01:28 AM, Chris Irwin wrote:
>> On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 07:52:21PM -0400, Digimer wrote:
>>> Sounds like FUD.
>>> 
>>> APIs can't be copyrighted. That's it. Doesn't effect the use of
>>>  source code.
> 
>> Not true.
> 
>> The first case ended with the ruling that the "Structure, 
>> sequence, and organization" ("SSO") of the Java API was not 
>> copyrightable (it also covered some other issues, but the
>> API-use ruling is the only one we really care about here).
>> However, Oracle appealed that. The appeals court ruled that the
>> "SSO" of APIs are indeed copyrightable. Google petitioned the US
>> Supreme Court, who denied a hearing. So there you go. APIs are
>> not copyritable.
> 
>> The case was then sent back to the original court to determine if
>>  Google's use was "Fair Use". That was the ruling last week: The
>>  jury decided that copying the "Structure, sequence, and 
>> organization" of an API is fair use.
> 
>> I'm rather happy with the "quick" techdirt summary of the recent
>>  ruling:
> 
>> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160526/13584834558/big-win-fair-use-jury-says-googles-use-java-apis-was-fair-use-to-appeal.shtml
>
>>
>> 
The wikipedia article gets the overall points right without
>> editorializing:
> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc.
>
>>  So the final result is that, for the moment, nothing really 
>> changes.
> 
>> APIs are now considered to be protected by copyrite, but 
>> reimplenting them is fair use. That said, I haven't read through
>>  the ruling to determine if this is specifically published APIs,
>> or if this will have any adverse impact on reverse engineering,
>> or unpublished APIs (questions that matter for Wine and ReactOS 
>> folks, for example).
> 
>> Moving on...
> 
>> The op-ed from Oracle's lawyer that Ars Technica ran was pretty 
>> funny (original here for those without a linked-in account):
> 
>> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/op-ed-oracle-attorney-says-googles-court-victory-might-kill-the-gpl/
>
>>
>> 
Her interpretation of the ruling (which is obviously skewed by
>> who signs her paycheck) was "if you offer your software on an
>> open and free basis, any use is fair use". That doesn't seem to
>> be how I interperet it (obligatory IANAL), or how any of the
>> dozens of rather skilled and knowledgeable people I've been
>> reading this week have interepreted it.
> 
>> To my understanding, this isn't about code or software. Actually
>>  copying code would still be a big no-no. License violations and
>>  copyright infrigement of software (whether GPL, commercial, etc)
>>  are not affected. The GPL sky-is-falling message is just FUD.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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