Oracle Smugly Sued Google. Worst Decision Of Their Life.

[@anustubhmishra]

you know its bad when even microsoft is siding with google

[@LogicallyAnswered]

For real hahaha, sworn enemies joining forces

[@cwfqayin]

Hahahahaha, I couldn't agree more.

[@deletevil]

hahahahhaha xD Microsoft might have remembered some early days of developing C# when they may be might have used those java API method names and signature and stuff. :D

[@nicholasdean3467]

You probably should learn about Microsoft's history of theft at the beginning. Of course, Microsoft would side with Google.

[@flaguser4196]

they also bullied the hell out of microsoft back then when they had a java language which led to C#. pretty disgusting given that languages borrow a lot from predecessors like C++.

[@WeAreMessi]

I worked for Oracle, that company is solely driven by a sales culture rather than innovation culture. The appointment of Mark Hurd as the president was the final nail in the coffin. Ellison consistently scoffed at the development of Cloud technology and later ended up buying a bunch of cloud tech companies to catch up.

[@chebrubin]

But it worked.

[@WeAreMessi]

@@chebrubin barely. They were the dominant player in on premise database and middlewares. They missed the cloud revolution. I recall how the company's culture slowly took a turn for the worse.

[@ebx100]

Mike Hurd? Wasn't he CEO for HP in a former life?

[@beaku3]

@@WeAreMessi I work for Oracle in OCI division. The current culture in OCI at least is very positive with a challenger mindset. Ellison is obviously still a narcissistic braggart but Oracle is making very good progress in catching upto (and even passing in some areas) cloud leaders like AWS and Azure. The technical side is sound. Now if only they can manage the sales and public image side just as decently, it could be a serious competitor in coming years

[@MrFerparedes]

I wouldn't call it a "sales culture", bad as that in itself would be. They are totally a milking culture: Squeeze every last penny out of trapped customers. Stab your colleagues in the back if you need to. Horrible. I also worked both with Oracle and at Oracle on 2 different occasions. Truly atrocious culture.

[@ghb323]

ah, the API lawsuit. It’s extremely bad if ruled for Oracle, that even Microsoft and Mozilla worried it will impact programming as a whole.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

For real haha

[@RossComputerGuy]

It would've killed many things like emulators, reverse engineering, modding, and making similar projects. Wine, VirtualBox, QEMU, and many others would've been killed.

[@jkacvbhijfn]

Wdym even Mozilla? Isn’t Mozilla pretty prosumer usually?

[@ghb323]

@@jkacvbhijfn maker of firefox, an open source browser

[@gogereaver349]

@@RossComputerGuy we still let these company's have infinity copyrights. even on dead stuff decades old. something we need to fix.

[@alexfrank5331]

I wish Google would take it 1 step further and counter-sue Oracle for damages from patent-trolling and create a precedence that patent-trolling IS an offense with CONSEQUENCES.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Hahaha

[@takingafatdump]

probably not a good chance of winning and potentially dangerous to set precedent the other way

[@Pat315]

Why do you wish that? What normal human being cares that much about mega-corps? Get a life.

[@Patmorgan235Us]

I don't think there's any judge that would go for that. Maybe they could try to get them under some vexations litigant rule but other wise you'd really need a statue to for a judge to have a good chance of doing anything.

[@mallk238]

too easy to exploit something like that. It's my experience that when someone makes a rule change specifically to stop people from exploiting a different rule it means that people who really need that original rule also get screwed over. Like how it's illegal in the us to not allow service dogs for most businesses; a lot of people then use that rule to bring their dogs into stores that say "Only service dogs allowed inside". If we made a new rule that says that people have to PROVE that they need a service dog it would be EVEN HARDER for the people who actually need them to go anywhere. So the trade off is that sometimes people are just going to fake a service dog vest for their dog (which is pretty shitty to do, but I'm not an expert on any of this so idk how that would be better solved) If google tried to get rid of patent trolls, I feel like the precedent would then become that if you sued a company for stealing your copyrighted material, they could counter-sue for damages if they found enough evidence that you were "patent-trolling" (and considering what mega corporations like google and disney can and have done to copyright laws already, it would guarantee that no small time copyright owner could ever enforce their rights ever again)

[@Epic_C]

In the business world, Oracle is now requiring paid licensing for Java and threatening to sue companies for not removing Java from machines where it was free to use before. They are despicable.

[@bassdewd]

Oracle made it free in 2021 and you can just use OpenJDK instead

[@Arterexius]

EDIT: Due to numerous people not reading replies and getting the full picture, I've added this edit to clarify that I have been corrected - repeatedly - that Java and JavaScript are completely separate entities. I am not a programmer by trade. I've merely used the languages as tools for web and client based hobby work and thus made the correlation based entirely on the name itself. With that out of the way, here's my original comment: They are only doing so for all new releases of Java, because they decided to stop Java from being Open Source, although all older releases of Java from before this decision, will still be open source, simply because it cannot be removed legally. However, their decision to make Java for business into a paid licensing, is going to stop people entirely from using Java and by extension, JavaScript as well. This case have impacted programming to such a degree that a lot of the website animations that JavaScript would previously do, have been replaced with more simple HTML & CSS code structures, that request these animations in the browser, rather than directly creating it. The difference between HTML4 and HTML5 shows this clearly and it's expected that even more will follow with HTML6

[@pmoohkt]

​@@Arterexius Hmmm as far as I know, Javascript has nothing to do with Java and even less with Oracle 😀 Javascript was created in 10 days by an outstanding Netscape programmer (Brendan Eich) in 1995. Now it's an ECMA standard and mainly maintained by Mozilla fundation.

[@carlorielmendez6505]

@@Arterexius Why include Javascript? They're far from being the same other than the javascript maker using the name to hitchhike on the popularity of Java though, unless I'm missing some important details here.

[@bassdewd]

JavaScript has only seen growth in the last years, it's the most used programming language worldwide. Oracle doesn't own JavaScript, only the name, but it was not initially meant to cover the programming language.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

I was waiting for Oracle to win so IBM could sue them into oblivion for copying SQL.

[@xxxkingxl]

u are a ginius

[@TSERJI]

🤣

[@exoticbutters2781]

I hate both of those companies, but I am on the side of free and open source development. Oracle deserved all of the losses it got from trying to patent troll because that went against the spirit of what open source was all about. Even if they had won the case, I'm sure that all of the companies and developers on Java or thinking about adopting it would've eventually migrated to something else. So moral of the story, you do stupid shit and you win stupid prizes.

[@cyclopsvision6370]

Sun already started the open source process for Java before Oracle bought out Sun.

[@yungifez]

If oracle goes bankrupt Mysql users are screwed 🤣🤣

[@sommyaruproy8405]

Java is already open source fool

[@somerandomdude3651]

​@@yungifeznot really. Those who still use MySQL for some reason should be able to switch to MariaDB quite easily.

[@yungifez]

@@somerandomdude3651 true true

[@bandito241]

I was happy Google won, it was a ridiculous lawsuit. I think it was one of the reason Kotlin was invented, so that Android didn't have to depend on another programming language that belonged to somebody else.

[@marufbepary100]

To be fair, Kotlin wasn't created by Google, it was created by JetBrains.

[@dungeonmir]

@@marufbepary100 and it is made by Russians

[@deletevil]

@@marufbepary100 LOL and who were the masterminds who funded JetBrains to do that project?

[@khalidhamid7448]

Kotlin transpiles to Java so it's not totally new from ground up

[@deletevil]

@@khalidhamid7448 I think that would be wrong to say. It's not that Kotlin was inherently designed to transpiles to Java before the final execution. It's that both Java and Kotlin's compilers compile to a specific intermediate instructions. And those instructions have to be compliant with JVM specification. And obviously when two languages compile to same JVM bytecode format, it means it is possible for both of them to be transpiled to each other. Because by your logic Python isn't a completely new language because it can transpile to C (Cython), right!?

[@survivalist2607]

oracle basically united all of the tech world, absolutely amazing.

[@uwakdion5510]

Just like sauron

[@ambinintsoahasina]

What in the world did Oracle think? I mean so many companies and even Fortune 500s are using Java. After Google, who they will gonna sue? the whole world?

[@blakem2902]

time to harvest those over 3 billion devices that run java

[@TysonJensen]

Yup, that was indeed the plan. Microsoft has in fact been doing basically that. But Microsoft is smarter. They carefully sue companies that will immediately fold -- as a result, Microsoft has made more money on Android than Google (not counting "network effects" of people who use a "Google" device being more likely to use other Google services). The way the legal system works, Google can't defend those companies directly. This is a big part of why Google keeps making kinda crappy Pixel devices. Microsoft won't sue Google, they know Google would fight the patent trolling. Microsoft's argument is that their software patents cover software that is completely different, written by people who never read those patents which is the very definition of patent trolling. The point of a patent is that we give you this monopoly in exchange for you teaching the world how to do something new. If there's no evidence that you actually taught anyone anything, the Supreme Court will strike your patent, but only if the lawsuit gets that far. The lower courts uphold everything, even monumentally stupid patents like "a bra, but with 3 hooks instead of 2."

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@TysonJensen Damn! Sheesh!!!

[@Fiercesoulking]

@@TysonJensen Do you mean smartphone patents or what ?

[@TysonJensen]

@@Fiercesoulking Microsoft isn't really a hardware company -- we're talking software patents. The kind of thing that is explicitly not supposed to be allowed, Congress never really authorized, but the Supreme Court just magic-wand-waved into existence. To my knowledge, the Supreme Court has never actually upheld a single software patent that's actually gotten there, but every time they always say "but software should be patentable mumble mumble."

[@Burnlit1337]

I remember my Comp Sci professors, one in my Data Structures class and another my Intro Java class, having negative views about Java as well as Oracle. They know that Java is on their way out but have to teach it nevertheless. They said that the only reason why they require Java as part of the college's associate degree is because of Oracle. The partnership the community college had with Oracle is decades long and required as part of the degree. Of course, they said this in a bit of a rant, but it felt like they were speaking from experience. Oracle screwed them over somehow.

[@BTrain-is8ch]

Java isn't going anywhere for a long time...

[@Pat315]

Unfortunately Java is hanging around. 😪

[@douggale5962]

Java is very C like and is almost the same as many languages, so it is worth learning Java, regardless of whether you even use it once in industry.

[@wardibald]

The reason Java is losing popularity probably has something to do with this lawsuit, but there seems to be a broader (and largely unfounded) sentiment against Java; it's being seen as complex, verbose and rigid. Especially that last part is incorrect, and the others are there for a reason. As a Java dev, I can definitely say it remains a very innovative language and I expect many businesses who move toward the more hyped languages, to move back to the type safety, automatic memory management, and open sourced, widely available and rich ecosystem of frameworks Java has to offer. The required complexity of most business applications cause many road blocks to appear when programming in languages that seem simpler at first glance. This is in no way a defense of Oracle's business behavior.

[@FlabbyTabby]

Java is actually pretty nice tbh. And Kotlin is even better.

[@Burneth_]

So basically... Oracle wasnt the clown, they were the entire circus.

[@Just.a.person59]

Attorney: Hello boss, what are we doing today? Oracle: we are suing Google. Attorney: It’s your money…

[@scottcampbell2707]

Actually Oracles money was about to become the Attorney's money no matter which way it turned out.

[@mechajay3358]

Even people who don't like Google would be on their side with this lawsuit. What Oracle was doing was going to hurt developers in the long rung.

[@RondellKB]

It would have hurt the entire Software industry. Never in my life have I seen a more ridiculous tech lawsuit.

[@username7763]

Most criticisms of lawyers are wrong. But I really think the lawyers were a large part of the problem here. A good lawyer can make a bad argument sound convincing. But if it is a bad argument, what are you doing arguing it? This is one of those things where ethical responsibilities mean you have to refuse.

[@wumwum42]

This is probably the biggest bullet dodged by the industry, it's more like a meteorite. Being able to sue anyone for using an open source programming language is the worst thing that could have happend. It's the Bases of Billions if not Trillions of Projects that would be threatened if Oracle won!

[@mbauer0xff]

Maybe you warnt to google ‚SCO vs IBM‘.

[@andrewkandasamy]

I just don't see a world in which Oracle wins that from a legal standpoint though. The GPLv2 + CPE license that the open source versions of Java were released under specifically allow for the creation of modified and derivative works so long as those works continue to use the same GPL license, a condition known as "copyleft". The CPE part specifically means that the libraries included in Java can be included in a larger work that uses them without that work being subject to the copyleft clause requiring them to be released under the same license. Essentially, none of the licensing actually allows Oracle to dictate the manner in which the end user uses the open source versions of Java, commercial or otherwise as long as they meet the terms in the GPLv2 + CPE license agreement. Basically, this wasn't a dodged meteorite but rather observing a passing comet that would never have hit the earth in the first place.

[@mostm8589]

I hate all big corps in general, but my most burning hatred has to be reserved for those scum of the Earth who use the retarded copyright and patent laws to chase after creators and innovators. I just want to add a correction at 6:40, the word API can mean different things in Software Development and one of the things it means is indeed the kind of APIs offered by Twitter and similar companies, but this is not the kind of API that Google copied when they made their Java. API can more generally mean any interface or protocol between 2 interacting pieces of code. For example, Java comes with a "Standard Library" of ready-made code that can do a wide variety of things such as (for example) printing a bunch of text to the screen or open a file and read its content. The names of those pieces of code as well as their "arguments and return types" (the information they exchange with any program that calls them) constitute an API, and its this API which the subhumans at Oracle was suing Google over.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Ah ok, thank you for clarification! I was only familiar with the other kind.

[@anywhereroam9698]

Most m is correct. What they described is all the same. Twitter API, or two pieces of code in Java api. It’s all the same, API. You got confused with client/server type APIs, which is just one type of API. Vs APIs in general which is broader and doesn’t have to be client/server. It’s like saying slicing fruit doesn’t just mean slicing bananas it’s also slicing a fruit into multiple pieces like slicing an apple. How is that different to the first case of a banana? Code using a Twitter api is code using other code, via its api. Code printing a string via swing is code using other code, via its api. There’s not two cases. Just the same case.

[@stephenspackman5573]

Specifically, it's just an abbreviation for Application Program Interface. If it's an interface used by an application program, it's an API. This makes it clear how ridiculous the entire case was. It's as if Oracle started suing people for not having paid them for use of their trademarked word ‘Oracle’ in the address when sending them mail.

[@herbie_the_hillbillie_goat]

Why do you hate big corps?

[@alanmckinnon6791]

Wasn't it considered in the early days a total defense that the APIs Oracle were bitching about could only be written one way? And even variable names are often standardized, like x and myInt have pretty much always been ints and Integers?

[@MrDudeThinking]

Oracle’s reputation is trending downward for good reason. They want to make money out of being trolls. It’s not attractive to the market, it’s a death wish as far as developers are concerned, and it leads to the best and brightest leaving Oracle to instead join companies that want to achieve things.

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

I remember is clearly. I was super angry with Oracle for doing this and felt great when they lost the case. Then, unfortunately I worked for Oracle for two years, during which I realized why they did what they did. Oracle acts exactly like what it would be if Kim Jong Un ran a company. I now moved to rust btw. No copyright issues anymore.

[@Zulonix]

Larry Ellison of Oracle looks and acts a lot like Jafar from Alladin. ;-)

[@JoeMemes]

oracle is a disgusting corporation

[@twenty-fifth420]

Well, this comment aged poorly.

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

@@twenty-fifth420 I don't think that the Rust Foundation will actually go ahead with anything that the community does not like.

[@carldrogo9492]

@@twenty-fifth420what made it age poorly?

[@TZeroZeroOne]

APIs in general should not be copyrightable because it is a convention, and the idea of a convention is that it is exact and not ambiguous or vague, otherwise it will cease to be (useful as a) convention. As such there is only one way to express the idea. Either a convention is an idea and ideas are not copyrightable, or a convention is the only way to express the idea behind it and hence not copyrightable either. Too bad lawyers of both sides are unwilling to enter this unchartered area of basic IP principles.

[@KANJICODER]

For real. Hey everybody, I already patented thingy.run() , thingy.walk() , thingy.jog() , you'll have to use something else. But hey, it's Java, we all know methods in Java must exhibit lego naming. thingy.locamoteAtAdvancedRateOfSpeed()

[@twenty-fifth420]

Huh, as a writer and aspiring dev, this makes sense. (and I am not a fan of the institution of copyright) Copyright is the licensing of style and creation, not usage nor ideas. If it were the latter, it would be untenable, as copyright infringement lawsuits would happen left and right. It is the idea that copyright was invented to be a legsl protection to protect creatives and intellectuals from having their work stolen and/or improperly used. But you could also say, write your own work that is ‘based’ of another and it should pass a court sniff test. Mostly because inspiration can be protected under parody or pastiche clauses or more plainly through a license if you want to be a stickler. It is the legal idea that no one creative can own an idea or the use of said idea but instead protect the style and individual creation of ones own unique ideas. APIs by definition then would not fit, since it is stylistic or even an idea, but an exact implementation . Almost closer a blueprint or kind of a patent, in a way. If you said used a convention that had a standard query any data with a declarative API, then the expression is the convention itself and thus not copyrightable in the same way you can’t ‘copy’ the ‘fantasy’ genre of fiction. Or at least those are my unique two cents. Tldr: Even if Oracle won, they still would have lost because then no software would be open, just a closed convention of considerations and machivellian calculations…

[@KANJICODER]

@@twenty-fifth420 If you think about it.... "+" "/" "*" and other mathematical operators are old-school API. Imagine if Isaac Newton was all like "Sigma for summations? Yeah, that's mine, go find your own symbol." The "genre" has just moved from "math" to "computation".

[@ArturoGarzaID]

Gotta love Larry Ellison, dude’s awesome. He literally broke off the front of his yacht and paid millions to make it longer when he found out Paul Allen’s yacht was longer than his. 😂

[@LogicallyAnswered]

What a guy

[@deepaksanaka]

"Let's see Paul Allen's yacht"

[@bananya6020]

He's a character for sure.

[@elvingearmasterirma7241]

Wow. He has the self esteem of a wet bedraggled 13 year old.

[@ArturoGarzaID]

@@elvingearmasterirma7241 Larry is fun...

[@TatharNuar]

I'm team "APIs aren't copyrightable because they're purely functional." Even writing the code a different way will affect the time it takes to produce an output, which is also functional.

[@fredrickdenga7552]

Java is definitely a waning giant, currently it's being used to maintain legacy systems...new kids on the block e.g. Kotlin and Scala are yet to take over from java

[@TheSiriusEnigma]

There is something worse than a patent troll: Patent Assertion Entities. They don’t even own the patents. They are made in such a way that countersuing them is pointless. Also it allows to bypass contractual agreements. A has a contract with B. But A “rents” its patents to C which has no agreement with B and therefore can ignore them.

[@erkinalp]

Oh, patent meta-trolling...

[@eamonskelly1274]

Its the same with databases. Oracle's licensing and Customer management seems to be solely focused on extracting every last penny they can in fees. We can't move to SQL fast enough.

[@holden5478]

Oracle is such a pain in the ass as a db solution. Immutability should not be a feature.

[@spudd86]

A point on the API copyrightability. Prior to Oracle making the argument the APIs in question were under copyright the entire industry assumed that APIs would be considered facts and not have a copyright. This was *important* it allowed interoperability and certain kinds of reverse engineering, also to my knowledge no other major company has tried that argument, like WINE the program that lets you run unmodified Windows programs on Linux can only exist because APIs don't have a copyright. Not even Microsoft is willing to try that argument.

[@StCreed]

Yeah. The problem is that if you win, it may well backfire. I bet even Oracle hasn't realized how badly they would be f*cked if their Cloud offering that runs on a lot of OS software, suddenly needs coins in the meter to keep running.

[@doxologist]

Every old-school Developer I know has serious hate towards Java, purely because it's owned by Oracle 😂

[@StCreed]

And then we have the neckbeards who love Java because the alternative is Microsoft and Microsoft is EVIL. Yeah, Oracle is a bunch of choir boys. Not. I've had a few dealings with the licensing department of Oracle, just as my colleagues. If there is one lesson I learnt it was "never deal with Oracle if you can avoid it". They are cutthroat doublecrossing mercenaries and you need to get everything on paper, signed in blood, because you can't trust them. They just milk the customer for all its worth, but they only provide outdated tech that is being used as a cashcow. When was the last time Oracle was innovative? I bet it was around the 90's. Microsoft has killed their database offering. And their cloud offering sucks compared to Microsoft as well. And if you have a license from Microsoft, you can actually use it without getting sued. Heck, even IBM is nicer than Oracle and that is saying something.

[@everyhandletaken]

Is that the only reason they could find? 😂

[@SuperNovaRider]

In the German tech and IT world, people are actually trying their very best not to use Oracle products whenever possible. Even various lawyers of German tech companies where famously quoted for warning not to use Oracle Java if at all possible, because the contracts are in the realm of "dark magic" and they can basically mean anything Oracle wants them to. And if that wasn't enough, the newer versions of Oracle Java, which regularly becomes necessary for security reasons, more often than not contains changes to the legal contracts as well. With the newer version resulting in use of Oracle Java turning into a risky legal gamble, since you simply didn't know if it was still free to use. So in short: Stay the hell away from Oracle Java, whenever at all possible, when writing commercial code. Among software devs in Germany, this is basically considered "common knowledge". So yeah, Oracle f*d themselves really hard. I don't know a single professional software dev, that doesn't look down on Oracle nowadays, while also trying to stay clear of their products.

[@Crum24]

I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that SAP is German. In the US there is not really much reason to opt for an Oracle system, let alone Germany

[@willi1978]

SAP works with similar tactics as Oracle, but sap is almost everywhere

[@NeoVault_]

Oracle committed the age-old lesson, "never slay your golden goose." You might get a lot of profit in the short term, but long term it's unsustainable as it doesn't produce more profit thereafter. On top of now putting yourself in bad faith with other companies.

[@revravenli]

Why am I not surprised that Clarence Thomas sided with Oracle. At this point, this guy is a cartoon villain.

[@Errr717]

I attended a developer camp back in the 90's at resort in Utah that was sponsored by Sun Microsystems. Larry Ellison was there making a big pitch how Sun and Oracle were working together. Sun was making money out of their hardware and services but I never dreamed that Sun would go down the tubes and then have Oracle buy them out a decade later. Suing Google was definitely not a good decision.

[@9SMTM6]

To be fair, Javas loosing marketshare isn't just a (direct) result of Oracle being... Problematic. After they acquired Sun Java didn't evolve with the same speed as it's competitors. The Java you can write today is lacking in comparison with others, even though Oracle seems to have upped development. But they still lack a decent bit of features (eg null safety) and crucially, much of their ecosystem still seems to be stuck in the past, using old versions of Java that lack these features.

[@Dev-Siri]

And most versions of Java are forgotten quickly. The only ones I can remember right now are 8 => 17 => 19 And every Java framework agrees has a meme selection of versions. (Skipping like 5 versions ahead)

[@itznukeey]

@@Dev-Siri yeah and 90% of the companies use java 8 anyway.

[@silentprotagonist3786]

Java 17 seriously improved performance though and 21 introduced Virtual Threads which are very good. The new 6 month release cadence was very necessary to make Java catch up to rest of the programming languages.

[@ThorsMartell]

That makes me seriously reconsider using Java any longer. Also, I will campaign that my university teaches C++ instead of Java in Semester 1 + 2.

[@LordOOTFD]

Modern C can even be written in an object oriented style, which just shows that Java's days are numbered.

[@opulenceluxury8548]

C#

[@drishalballaney]

Man our college switched from c++ to Java in the previous semester 🥲

[@opulenceluxury8548]

@@drishalballaney Java is syntactically very similar to C# so don't worry but switch as soon as you get out of education. Java is finished Microsoft is the dominant technology culture again, don't ride the wrong train too long (software company CEO)

[@drishalballaney]

@@opulenceluxury8548 ah Tbh my aim is to get into cybersecurity after college so ig app development or say, DSA related subjects might not be revelent in the future apart from some maybe very specific scenarios

[@jamesodell3064]

My oldest son is a software developer, a couple of years ago I asked he what he thought about Oracle's software. He told me that Oracle had a great marketing department and laughed.

[@PermanaJayanta]

Watching this because I was shocked I need to pay to program in Java now. Java is my first programming language back in 2006. I haven't touched it for a decade due to working in another language.

[@systemchris]

Amazon spent years making their own implementation of java and databases because oracle tried to screw them on licensing

[@liteguy7267]

Very interesting video! I didn't know about this lawsuit so I enjoyed watching it!

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Really appreciate it man!

[@marufbepary100]

I think Oracle wanted to harvest those "3 billion" devices.

[@verumignis4778]

The moment I heard the word "copyright" I laughed out loud.

[@wolcek]

API is not code. API is an interface description. Think - a tax form is an API to the IRS. A credit card application form is an API to your bank. API does not execute anything, it is only a description how to make some other part of the system do something for you, and what the result would be. What google did was re-implementing the code that has the same API. They left the form the same, and changed the inner workings. Think - Canada tax form looking the same as US tax form. Credit card application form looking the same regardless of the bank. Please, don't muddle definitions and don't confuse others.

[@minimalist_zero]

This is one of the best channels i'm subscribed to. Keep up the amazing work!

[@LogicallyAnswered]

Thank you so much man!

[@tomislavjolic]

Google in this case. Something is rotten in the state of patent law! 🤔

[@TysonJensen]

This was copyright, which is still mostly sane. Although software copyright is still fairly unsettled. It was only relatively recently that the Library of Congress decided that abandonware is not coverable under copyright (which is when / why a bunch of old games started popping up in purchasable form). And that's not settled -- what the Library of Congress says is only law if it goes unchallenged in the Courts. It has this power because most of its decisions are uncontroversial minor points of fair use and because the Courts tend to defer to them when a case comes up. But for software it's very reasonable to wonder if the Courts might wander off and rule a completely different way.

[@repatch43]

It's hard to be on Google's side, but hot damn was the precedent that Oracle was attempting to set the stuff of nightmares. The effect on the whole industry would have been catastrophic.

[@HrBDev]

You didn't mention about other Java builds that exist as a result of the lawsuit which effectively mitigates any sort of similar lawsuits and takes control of Java away from Oracle.

[@SoIveForUs]

Makes sense why Python is now one of the most in demand skills as surveyed by employers. Back to the 100 days of Python course grind.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

I really wish that we would stop using the term “patent troll” as a synonym for copyright abuser because patents and copyrights are entirely different things.

[@skataskatata9236]

same battle. different arm.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

@@skataskatata9236 Slightly different battle, different arm. The copyright abuser is actually substantially worse because they go after ordinary folks, while patent trolls almost exclusively go after major corporations. In addition, copyright abusers have a longer period of time during which they can successfully go after you because patents last, at most, two decades while copyright can last nearly a century. I own several copyrights and I freely let anyone use my copyrighted material for no fee (even if they make money off of it) so long as they credit me as the copyright owner of the original material. It is only when someone decides to blatantly try to argue that my works are in the public domain that I get upset with them but this only happens with a few places that traffic in downloading complete works of copyrighted materials and they don’t do any transformative use anyway so they have no right to the material under fair use. However, it really isn’t like it does much good because those sites don’t respect anyone’s copyright anyway. That is why I never understood why people abuse copyright to go after people by giving copyright strikes when the creators clearly are engaged in fair use since their fair use will frequently end up creating sales for me as well once someone links back to me and provides credit. Nothing wrong with everyone making money and let’s face it, they deserve credit for transforming my work as well.

[@thygrrr]

I'm team "public domain". All of you should be.

[@Samstercraft77]

They tried to sue google for using OPEN SOURCE software?!? LMAO

[@grimgoreironhide9985]

Sounds like some corporate lawyers managed to BS the Oracle leadership into spending for legal fees.

[@DsiakMondala]

And it took 11 years for lawmakers to come to a decision. God only knows how much money went to their pockets too.

[@grimgoreironhide9985]

@@DsiakMondala I think it's intentional. They are trying to milk the corporation and public for as long a possible per case. Legal system is ultimately a business and pay to win.

[@DsiakMondala]

@@weqqq-y4r Yes, you gotta be careful not to be sued by holders of a non-profitable open source code. Their deep pockets are dangerous.

[@Eliotime3000]

Before the Google's Lawsuit: Oracle's Java is the recommended version. OpenJDK sucks. After the Google's Lawsuit: *Proceeds to install their favorite OpenJDK compilation to see how well performs Minecraft on Windows*

[@RonaldoTalison]

Programming languages are tools, use a flathead or a hammer wherever it fits better

[@___gg421]

Even setting aside the fact it was open source, 11k lines of code, especially in something as big as android is nothing.

[@rmikel14789]

Exactly, it’s to the point now where corporations have to be very careful about how they use Java. Certainly Java should be avoided as an application or platform development for business use, As Oracle is the patent troll under the Java bridge. The repetitional damage to Oracle is incalculable. I would not want to be an Oracle stock holder.

[@justinminer1354]

This was a bad look for Java, dev language preferences aside.

[@LogicallyAnswered]

No doubt

[@iamsurajgiri]

Here's what chatGPT thinks - Oracle's copyright claim over Java could have been seen as good for progress and innovation in the tech industry by protecting intellectual property rights and incentivizing innovation to create new programming languages and technologies that avoid infringing on Oracle's copyright. Asserting control over the use of its technology could have ensured higher quality products and services, while protecting its investment in Java. Winning the lawsuit would have provided legal certainty and stability, encouraging innovation and investment in related technologies. However, the negative implications, such as limiting interoperability, stifling creativity and innovation, and limiting competition, would have likely outweighed any potential benefits.

[@FacuA0]

So, it incentivizes innovation while stifling innovation? What a good logic...

[@PaulThomsen1E]

Oracle's innovation vs. the industry's innovation. Technically both are true, but the way it's worded, that's not clear. chatGPT is good, but clearly needs work (a lot of work)

[@intuitivme]

I'm happy with the final ruling. But I'm also positively surprised by such a ruling in a country known for "Money rules" . I can't stand companies pf any size and people in general that are so F*** greedy and obsessed with money instead of creating value. Google has made a lot of money over the years, but it has primarily given us a lot of value.

[@wecare838]

Google had backers in high places. Glad it proved beneficial for the larger community though.

[@Arterexius]

The ruling definitely also makes sense with the sentiment that "money rules". Silicon Valley is one of the greatest industries in America, so losing a vital piece of infrastructure in that business, would effectively mean hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, both short term and long term. It simply wasn't worth to sacrifice the nations GDP to increase the padding of a singular entity.

[@massgunner4152]

Believe or not capitalist countries don't like monolithic profit holes that stagnate the market.

[@vaffangool9196]

Yeah well don't forget those piles of shit Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued dissents.

[@joelcarson4602]

Oracle doesn't have customers, Oracle has hostages.

[@nixboox]

I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about HP trying to avoid Sun/Oracle by cloning the entire Java language.

[@carldrogo9492]

Cloning it and then what?

[@guym6093]

It wasn't only the oracle API lawsuit that caused javas down fall. It was all the zero day exploits... Which was caused by oracles's lack of development and chasing off the developers.

[@Zenefor]

"I can sell you the instructions to make a round wheel, but I cant sell you the rights to start using the instructions to make the wheel"

[@boblangill6209]

I think jpeg involves almost as much patent trolling as Oracle's case. The J in JPEG is short for Joint, ie a co-operative effort. The company that took the lead for its development was bought out by an IP miner, but, apparently, they were more skilled at monetizing without alarming their clients. I had heard that PNG was developed as a response. PNG is a recognized alternative but not close to replacing jpeg (jpg).

[@boblangill6209]

I was mistaken about the company being more skilled at not alarming their clients. Though some companies paid, the others banded together and spent the money to have the patent invalidated. That's why you're not currently being assessed royalties for downloading or displaying jpg files

[@Ozzianman]

Nowadays .webp is replacing jpeg as it's the best of all worlds. Enhanced compression, transparency and animation support. I do find myself still using .png compressed using pngoo for graphics with limited amount of colour.

[@bananya6020]

@@Ozzianman jpeg2000 is pretty good

[@dabbinghitlersmemes1762]

@@Ozzianman Fuck webp. Webp is horrible. Doesn't work with half the software, isn't consistently lossy or lossless, and it's made by google.

[@TrevorMal]

Started hating Oracle soon after the conclusion of the deal to buy Sun Microsystems, java was never the same very little innovation came to the language on base SDK and also closed behind oracle paywall for latest… Am in the same boat of developer actively moving away from Java

[@1DwtEaUn]

Oracle also horked ZFS pretty hard.

[@RkoRohan]

I knew Google and Microsoft were somewhat evil but Oracle was on a different level 🤢

[@The_Prizessin_der_Verurteilung]

To be fair, people say Microsoft is evil for "stealing from Steve Jobs, but the software wasn't Jobs' in the first place. It belonged to Xerox who licensed it to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The GUI is what Jobs said Gates stole, and then also sued Android for using the touch interface he "invented" 5 years after Nintendo did it with the DS. Gates wasn't bad for that, Jobs just couldn't handle competition.

[@whatthepick]

Alito had a point if you look at the end result. However, innovation requires investment and Google needed to win because the precedent that it would set would have far more dangerous ramifications.

[@eddymison3527]

Linus Torvalds' take on ZFS file system "...and honestly, there is no way I can merge any of the ZFS efforts until I get an official letter from Oracle that is signed by their main legal counsel or preferably by Larry Ellison himself that says that yes, it’s ok to do so and treat the end result as GPL’d.". He's a smart man.

[@bobdinitto]

When Larry Ellison bought SUN I immediately dropped Java as a programing platform. It was obvious where they were going with it.

[@leanngugi]

Team Google yesterday. Oracle is terrible and java is a pain in the hindquarters.

[@TheEvertw]

Suing your largest user is ALWAYS a bad idea. I had my doubts on the future of Java when it was taken-over by Oracle, but was still OK using it. However, this law suit changed that. I will not recommend the use of Java for any project. And I often work as SW Architect and get to decide the language to use... Instead, I LOVE and often recommend Python, C# is OK-ish and sees a lot more progress, but of late I have started getting into Rust.

[@Fozzedout]

As a DBA, I was horrified at the oracle method of DB upgrades. Back up the data, trash the server, roll in the new version and then restore. Not been a fan of oracle since finding that out the hard way years ago.

[@rannieller7690]

I've never heard of Oracle before and now at the 6:10 mark I get an ad about taking care of Oracle cloud. Very relevant ads Google, wp.

[@steakikan]

I used to stuck with Java 6 which still has the old Sun Micro system Clause and Licensing, but being old it is not as feature rich compared to many other language nowadays. I think since Java 8 SE the commercial use clause is quite brutal. It used to be mostly Java that cross platform, but now there are a variety of language to choose from for that plus most are going web frame anyway. edit: I think one of the runtime generator that dies due to the new clause is Excelsior Jet, as the licensing contradict the use of self compiled JVM.

[@silentprotagonist3786]

OpenJDK is totally open source and is subject to free use regarding whatever you want with it. As long as you don't use Oracle's JDK you are fine.

[@steakikan]

@@silentprotagonist3786 You are right, currently using Adoptioum with TemerinFX as alternative. It's just that the one from Excelcior JET can't be used anymore

[@crinklecut3790]

Whenever I hear the name Oracle, it’s usually in relation to a lawsuit.

[@borisborcic]

As I recall it Sun Microsystems had not made Java free to use on smartphones and intended to monetize Java on that platform and went south partly because of Google's Dalvik technology on Android that bypassed SUN's IP over using Java on smartphones -- because Google thus "stole" the prize of third party developer mindshare that SUN had won to Java. The difference between SUN and Oracle is that the former weren't as arrogant as the latter on owning minds. SUN conceded that the Dalvik technology amounted to scare quotes around "stolen", where Oracle's Ellison wouldn't.

[@posteroonie]

The interface between two machines, such as a server and a device, is a protocol. An API is the interface within a single program that an expression uses to call a method, or in the non-OO world a function or procedure, This distinction gets a little blurry with remote method invocation, which is a method call from machine to machine. Oracle's lawsuit was regarding API's as I've just described them, not server-device communication.

[@MaxenceAbela]

Ah, the real oracle video now! :D

[@william_8844]

I wish you had also talked about Kotlin, a Google developed Java alternative language. Google is pushing the language on mobile

[@edgarhilbert4797]

JetBrains* not Google.

[@shambhav9534]

Kotlin is made by JetBrains, and that's why it's still being developed till now.

[@carldrogo9492]

Google developed Dart. However, they strongly encourage Android developers to use Kotlin.

[@tribopower]

This explains a lot why in this past years it was so hard to use web based java applications, Oracle really took a massive L here, and Java is losing its importance in all honesty, so many languages nowadays can do what Java does but better

[@jamescobban857]

Sun and then Oracle's insistence on control of the "open" Java language and its APIs was also why Microsoft was forced to create C#. Sun would not permit Microsoft to make changes to the language that were arguably improvements, so Microsoft had to create a new language that was 95% identical.

[@psdaengr911]

JAVA was a derivative work. That's part of why it was published as an open development platform. While there are some things I don't like about Google, it has made a serious and consistent effort to make and keep Android and Chrome open, separate its proprietary features and packages and give clear credit to open software and licenped software that it incorporates in its distributions -inside those packages.

[@georgeh6856]

"Open source" does not mean one can do whatever they want with the code. Most open source software does have license requirements, e.g. GPL v2, GPL v3, or CDDL. That being said, Oracle was clearly wrong. APIs are the public-facing interface of Java. If someone else can implement Java libraries in a different way or even better than you, then so be it. It was surprising to me that some of the lower courts got this wrong.

[@CyanOgilvie]

A vital freedom for something to be "Open source" is the freedom to fork, which is essentially what Google did in the most minimal way possible (a clean room reimplementation). Without that freedom it isn't any sort of "Open source"

[@tabletopjam4894]

As a ex-Java developer I hate the idea of making anything in Java just because of this lawsuit, C++ FTW

[@tribopower]

I can't even begin to imagine the stress and trouble to explain a boomer jury (this was early 2000's mind you ) what an API is and how coding works: " Yes your honor we understand that having 11k lines of code copied looks bad, but we changed the function of that code, how it was used and its derivatives applications, this is fair use"

[@sanskaarkulkarni1036]

Really wished to mentioned the law firms too! Keker Van Nest & Peters made really good arguments for google and they have sections of their website explaining the knitty gritty legal things.

[@omrozh]

If Android itself wasn't open-source I would say Oracle had at least a bit of legal base here but Android itself is also open-source so it is 100% under fair use.

[@ThePirateParrot]

Oracle is literally the worst tech company. Sun microsystems pioneered so much tech and oracle is just a leach that sits on top of that legacy.

[@informitas0117]

Corporate greed shooting themselves in the foot!? Well now I've seen it all.

[@Dan-uf2vh]

Google: "Don't be evil!" .. Maybe not entirely true. Oracle: "Screw it. BE EVIL !!"

[@user-pr6ed3ri2k]

I just saw this video, and I never heard of this before, but is oracle the company that made vbox? It's the only mention of the company name I remember lol

[@mayankhb]

US seriously needs to reconsider their laws. Everyone is suing everyone there.

[@wimpymcsteel4458]

As an anaogy, This is the software equivalent of Britian suing America for using the English language in their official documents. "Hey, you are using parts of the Magna Carta in your Constitution, old chap! We put a Copywrite on that last week. You owe us compensation."

[@dorbie]

That case was a winding road, they looked like they might win at one point which would have been a disaster for tech.

[@adambickford8720]

Feels like there should have been a mention of the Java ME trainwreck that likely cost sun their existence.

[@LordMondegrene]

This could have been settled more quickly and easily by Larry Ellison fighting a steel cage death match with a 15' Great White shark. But that would be animal cruelty.

[@RondellKB]

I remember this lawsuit and it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[@mikeloeven]

I am of the opinion that Copyright should be fully reformed and act more like patents with a fixed term that expire within a period of time no greater than 20 years long enough to make a profit but ensuring things actually move to public domain in a timely manner. I also want to take it further you know the three strikes for violating copyright. We should also have a strikes system against companies that file too many copyright lawsuits where they will be stripped of said copyright if they abuse the court system. I see loosing the copyright as the only deterrent powerful enough to curb abusive copyright lawsuits that are not based around enforcing copyright but extracting monetary value

[@yungifez]

8:23 is precedence for copying software features As long as internal implementation is different If that is the case if company A lets say Samsung creates dark mode can company B copy dark mode as long as the implementation is different? What if said darkmode is patenred, can it still be copied?

[@xavhow]

So if you name an api DoSomething, I can’t use that name, even though the implementation is completely different?

[@Arktys]

You respond to so many comments omg. Love the videos btw, very informative and high effort.

[@Arktys]

Also want to complement your logo lmao

[@gammalgris2497]

The best analogy is sports. During a game you get tackled and fouled. In business you send out the lawyers. At least it binds ressouces. It's like using lots of small needles to annoy the competition.

[@AaronJOlson]

This was a great summary!

[@PhilipMurphy8Extra]

A great Friday night is a Logically Answered video for sure.

[@Dev-Siri]

"Kotlin is the preferred language for android development over Java" - _Google_ 2019

[@timseguine2]

As a programmer with a lot of experience with software licensing, I don't think it makes sense for APIs to even be copyrightable. Another example of laws affecting technology that were written without technology in mind. The basis of IP law as it applies to digital innovation is in my opinion a lot like applying guidelines for the care of horses to zebras. Yeah, some of it could be similar. But I don't think I would recommend putting a saddle on a zebra if you value your life.