Few anti-Google posts have any attempts at objectivity...
Most of my anti-whatever posts are geared towards the iPhanboys who, no matter what, see Apple as rosie...period...and that anything that merely competes with Apple, even if barely, is automatically wrong and must be destroyed, bought out, deleted, absorbed, etc...
...Anywho...no one here thinks like that though (it seems) all they see is XX v. Apple? WELL FUCK XX!!!!!!
No real thought, no real reason why they side with Apple...the entire position is rather irrational...
Apple is always right...except maybe someone doesn't like an icon in an app update...but anything beyond that Apple is always right.
This is not an accurate summary of any of the posts on this topic I have seen. The issue is not "XX v. Apple." No one here goes on rants about Blackberry, Nokia, or other Apple competitors. And until very recently, both had higher market share than the iPhone. The issue with Android is: 1. What seems to be pervasive lack of respect for IP on Google's part - and not just Apple's. 2. The hypocritical and false claim to being "open," as reason to buy their products over "closed" Apple, and justification for #1. See Rubin's "the definition of open" tweet for exhibit A of this hypocrisy.
We have very different definitions of evil I guess...evil to me are the diamond brokers and oil executives purposefully polluting, harrassing and terrorizing locals to get at their land.
Nothing that Apple, Google, etc has done would ever fall under "Evil" in my eyes. Ever...at least not yet.
so if somebody steals my car and lies about it, saying they are a reputable member of society, I'm bad for suing them because in your mind, the thief isn't doing anything wrong because there are people who commit mass murder, and from that perspective the theft of my car isn't that big of a deal.
Bravo, troll. You have unlocked the ability to minimize anything anyone could possibly do wrong while at the same time finding ways to vilify their victims. A true master liar. You should enter politics or religion and control vast numbers of people with your brilliant efforts to turn the truth upside down.
Like I say...Apple...a great friend to innovation, an enemy of progress. (which is easily debatable I know)
Your concluding argument sums up your position nicely. You are a IP communist. You imagine a world where the masses can seize the works of others and use them any way they like, and any laws to hinder the outright theft of other people's work is considered an affront to "progress."
The only real difference between IP Communists and old style Communists of 100 years ago is that you want to make all IP public domain and don't believe you have to obey intellectual property laws, while the old Communists wanted to make real estate public domain and didn't believe in real estate property law.
"Oracle’s Opposition concedes that, with the exception of portions of 12 out of several thousand files, it has no evidence of any copying by Google of any Oracle source code. Aside from those 12 files, Oracle’s copyright claim is premised on “non-literal” infringement and the incorrect notion that the Java language APIs—separate and apart from their implementations, which Google did not copy—are copyrightable."
So it appears there's 12 files at issue, not either 100 or 37 as two of us thought we recalled. The Oracle/Google claims seem to change nearly every week, so there's no certainty that it's still 12. I know the number of patent claims has been severely trimmed due to both the court and patent re-exams indicating they weren't valid to begin with..
The number of files and or APIs isn't critical in determining if Google illegally took Oracle's IP. What is in question is whether Google took any IP, and whether it used this to a) illegally benefit and b) to deprive Oracle of its rightful revenues.
It's clear Google has benefitted tremendously and will continued to benefit from the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It's also clear that Oracle's Java business has been irreparably harmed by the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It doesn't matter if it was just one file, or two files, or some small percent of the overall code one could find within a phone running Android.
Your attempts at minimizing Google's wrongdoing by saying it was some small number of files is irrelevant. What matters is the money involved. Google saved a lot of money by slapping Android together from sources that already existed, ranging from (as Apple claims) OS IP and high level UI IP from Apple and (as Oracle claims) JVM IP from Sun.
You can argue that Google's work isn't infringing and/or isn't infringing in a way that the courts can or will address, but it's a waste of your typing to tell us that it only amounted to some certain percentage of all the files that might actually appear on an Android phone.
And if that's central to your argument as a Google apologist, it doesn't bode well for Google.
and being that I am anti-software patent nothing can change that stance unless it can be explained to me why an idea, I mean an "implementation of a method" can be patented without code and how a vastly different code that results in something that looks different and acts different except for maybe a small area where some patented "and/or" was infringed (or "stolen" on this board) can be banned indefinitely.
I am no enemy of Apple...never was...I just do not agree with their patent blitzkrieg. I do not see it as being anything but bad for the future of tech.
Like I say...Apple...a great friend to innovation, an enemy of progress. (which is easily debatable I know)
I've heard this argument before, that software patents are evil, and that copyright is sufficient. Regardless of what you call it, ideas should be somewhat protected if they are sufficiently unique, whether it's a patent or a copyright or a whatever.
We accept this in other mediums. In literature, for instance, it's not okay to wholesale steal ideas without permission, even if the words, sentence structure, names, etc. are different.
I can't write a book today about a kid growing up in a village on an alien world who fights against an evil government and battles his father using a mystical power, can I?
I can't write a play about concert hall, where a disfigured woman haunts the musicians and falls into an obsessive love with a young violinist and battles his childhood sweetheart for his affections, right?
If you subscribe to the notion that only code itself should be protected, then by the same token only specific sentences, words, paragraphs, character names, etc. should be the only things protected, and I can write a knockoff of Star Wars or Phantom of the Opera, as long as I change some things up. Would that benefit literature? You might argue that it wouldn't hurt, but I'd say this: what truly drives ANY industry in a capitalistic society is money; why would I spend time writing a piece of literature if someone can simply change some things around and essentially release the same thing, depriving me of potential money I could have made? The motivation behind progress would be hampered.
I understand the logic of believing that the world would be better if information would be shared freely; communism sounds great on paper, too. Trouble is, the world is not motivated by love; on the contrary, humans are base creatures who are motivated by greed and lust, and thinking otherwise involves a utopian vision that won't succeed unless humans are changed at their core. From my position, companies like Google abuse the idealistic open source community by praising its virtues and garnering its respect with one hand while raking in profits with the other. They don't care about idealism or a world where information is shared freely; they care about making money plain and simple. At least Apple is more upfront about it.
The number of files and or APIs isn't critical in determining if Google illegally took Oracle's IP. What is in question is whether Google took any IP, and whether it used this to a) illegally benefit and b) to deprive Oracle of its rightful revenues.
It's clear Google has benefitted tremendously and will continued to benefit from the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It's also clear that Oracle's Java business has been irreparably harmed by the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It doesn't matter if it was just one file, or two files, or some small percent of the overall code one could find within a phone running Android.
Your attempts at minimizing Google's wrongdoing by saying it was some small number of files is irrelevant. What matters is the money involved. Google saved a lot of money by slapping Android together from sources that already existed, ranging from (as Apple claims) OS IP and high level UI IP from Apple and (as Oracle claims) JVM IP from Sun.
You can argue that Google's work isn't infringing and/or isn't infringing in a way that the courts can or will address, but it's a waste of your typing to tell us that it only amounted to some certain percentage of all the files that might actually appear on an Android phone.
And if that's central to your argument as a Google apologist, it doesn't bode well for Google.
It's not central to anything I'm arguing. It's simply facts as opposed to opinions or misinformation. If Google is found to have infringed some Oracle IP they should be required to pay for the rights or remove it. Simple.
With that said it won't ever get that far IMO. Just as Apple chose to settle with Nokia rather than take chances in court, Google will do the same with Oracle if they feel they're obviously at a disadvantage. With the money they have, none of these major players like Apple, Google, MS will take a take a chance and roll the dice if the chances are fairly good they'll lose, and Google may lose this one.
It's not central to anything I'm arguing. It's simply facts as opposed to opinions or misinformation. If Google is found to have infringed some Oracle IP they should be required to pay for the rights or remove it. Simple.
With that said it won't ever get that far IMO. Just as Apple chose to settle with Nokia rather than take chances in court, Google will do the same with Oracle if they feel they're obviously at a disadvantage. With the money they have, none of these major players like Apple, Google, MS will take a take a chance and roll the dice if the chances are fairly good they'll lose, and Google may lose this one.
Larry Ellison is out for blood, and is similar to the late Steve Jobs in that respect. People say business isn't personal, but for some people it clearly is.
Google... Risk Analysis = Steal others idea / patent (check), Get massive market share (check), Phone makers will absorb initial attack & lose most (check), Google, to the idea / patent holder (check mate).... Too much market share to shout down.
I've heard this argument before, that software patents are evil, and that copyright is sufficient. Regardless of what you call it, ideas should be somewhat protected if they are sufficiently unique, whether it's a patent or a copyright or a whatever.
We accept this in other mediums. In literature, for instance, it's not okay to wholesale steal ideas without permission, even if the words, sentence structure, names, etc. are different.
I can't write a book today about a kid growing up in a village on an alien world who fights against an evil government and battles his father using a mystical power, can I?
I can't write a play about concert hall, where a disfigured woman haunts the musicians and falls into an obsessive love with a young violinist and battles his childhood sweetheart for his affections, right?
If you subscribe to the notion that only code itself should be protected, then by the same token only specific sentences, words, paragraphs, character names, etc. should be the only things protected, and I can write a knockoff of Star Wars or Phantom of the Opera, as long as I change some things up. Would that benefit literature? You might argue that it wouldn't hurt, but I'd say this: what truly drives ANY industry in a capitalistic society is money; why would I spend time writing a piece of literature if someone can simply change some things around and essentially release the same thing, depriving me of potential money I could have made? The motivation behind progress would be hampered.
I understand the logic of believing that the world would be better if information would be shared freely; communism sounds great on paper, too. Trouble is, the world is not motivated by love; on the contrary, humans are base creatures who are motivated by greed and lust, and thinking otherwise involves a utopian vision that won't succeed unless humans are changed at their core. From my position, companies like Google abuse the idealistic open source community by praising its virtues and garnering its respect with one hand while raking in profits with the other. They don't care about idealism or a world where information is shared freely; they care about making money plain and simple. At least Apple is more upfront about it.
Ideas should never be patented (and allegedly can't be)
And literature is protected by copyright. What isn't patented is "story arc in which main protagonist starts off in a low place then after some turmoil and or sorrowful event in the middle followed by a meeting with an intriguing character and or object grows in spirit and or confidence and wins the day and or accepts his fate"
Your concluding argument sums up your position nicely. You are a IP communist. You imagine a world where the masses can seize the works of others and use them any way they like, and any laws to hinder the outright theft of other people's work is considered an affront to "progress."
The only real difference between IP Communists and old style Communists of 100 years ago is that you want to make all IP public domain and don't believe you have to obey intellectual property laws, while the old Communists wanted to make real estate public domain and didn't believe in real estate property law.
so if somebody steals my car and lies about it, saying they are a reputable member of society, I'm bad for suing them because in your mind, the thief isn't doing anything wrong because there are people who commit mass murder, and from that perspective the theft of my car isn't that big of a deal.
Bravo, troll. You have unlocked the ability to minimize anything anyone could possibly do wrong while at the same time finding ways to vilify their victims. A true master liar. You should enter politics or religion and control vast numbers of people with your brilliant efforts to turn the truth upside down.
What?
Seriously. What are you going on about here?
I'm saying evil is thrown around far too loosely. You can say bad, despicable, etc. But evil?
You may be aware of only a select part of what this is all about going by your comments. The Oracle copyright claims are far from solid, widely disputed in the open-source community, and questioned by a number of software engineers. There's places that good discussion of the points both Google and Oracle are trying to make are discussed. If you're really interested in what's going on and not simply spinning the parts you like, you should take the time to visit these if you haven't already, paying particular attention to the comments:
I would agree the copyright claims are a circus sideshow to the far more weighty patent licensing issues that Google has with the Dalvik JVM.
Google will have a really hard time getting around having used Harmony project code directly despite the fact Harmony did not convey any commercial mobile IP licenses, and Google apparently knew that. That's all in the patent part of the case where the big money is at risk.
I'm saying evil is thrown around far too loosely. You can say bad, despicable, etc. But evil?
That's just hyperbolic nonsense.
Well the reason we use the term "evil" in regard to Google is that Google itself used it to describe what it is not. If that slogan had any meaning at all, then Google's hypocritical actions since it began using the term is reason to ask whether google is in fact being exactly what it said it would not be.
Don't piss yourself that we're using the same term as Google did to critique Google's conduct.
Ideas should never be patented (and allegedly can't be)
And literature is protected by copyright. What isn't patented is "story arc in which main protagonist starts off in a low place then after some turmoil and or sorrowful event in the middle followed by a meeting with an intriguing character and or object grows in spirit and or confidence and wins the day and or accepts his fate"
You can be charged with plagiarism if you steer too close to what someone else wrote, even if the words, etc. are changed around.
In my post, I equated words, etc. with code. We accept that you can't plagiarize someone else's story, so why shouldn't the same principle apply here?
You can be charged with plagiarism if you steer too close to what someone else wrote, even if the words, etc. are changed around.
In my post, I equated words, etc. with code. We accept that you can't plagiarize someone else's story, so why shouldn't the same principle apply here?
because the stories aren't the same...the themes may be but the characters are different, and the settings, and the climax, and pretty much everything else beyond "boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl, boy loses self, boy finds self, boy reunites with girl, boy and girl live happily ever after."
Interesting comments today from the AI story's source, Florian Mueller at FOSSPatents. He says he doesn't agree with the "rockstar judge" Posner's opinion on this patent claim.
"Motorola claimed that the term "heuristics" is broad and vague (in fact, some of the inventors of the patent admitted in their depositions that "heuristics" is "sort of a vague word") that it renders the patent indefinite. If this term was considered indefinite, the patent would be invalid.
Judge Posner, however, says that "defining a word is often more difficult than grasping its meaning in a specific context". He considers Apple's proposal that this word be understood as "one or more rules to be applied to data to assist in drawing inferences from that data" an "adequate definition".
From a policy point of view, I agree with Motorola: this patent is far too broad for my taste. It monopolizes an entire category of problem-solving strategies. That concern of mine isn't alleviated at all by Judge Posner's and Apple's definition, which is more verbose but just as broad from a technical/practical point of view the way I see it."
Oracle's third attempt to forge a damages report (aka Cockburn Report) added four Oracle "experts" to the list of those contributing to it. Guess what? One of Oracles own engineers and contributing expert witness for them has written this, now removed of course as soon as Oracle got wind of it.
"For the other commenter who thinks Android is "based on Java", you are incorrect. While it is true that the programming language for Android is the Java programming language, the Android platform itself uses the Dalvik virtual machine and processes Dalvik bytecode, not Java bytecode, so the Android platform is NOT based specifically on Java ME technology.
Huh? Isn't that part of the basis for the suit, that Google is using Java ME without permission?
Toss that one in with the Lindholm report from Google, as another document that one of the combatants wishes wasn't ever seen. This time it's Oracle. To add injury to embarassment, the Judge in the case has already ruled that Google can depose that engineer.
Oracle's third attempt to forge a damages report (aka Cockburn Report) added four Oracle "experts" to the list of those contributing to it. Guess what? One of Oracles own engineers and contributing expert witness for them has written this, now removed of course as soon as Oracle got wind of it.
"For the other commenter who thinks Android is "based on Java", you are incorrect. While it is true that the programming language for Android is the Java programming language, the Android platform itself uses the Dalvik virtual machine and processes Dalvik bytecode, not Java bytecode, so the Android platform is NOT based specifically on Java ME technology.
Huh? Isn't that part of the basis for the suit, that Google is using Java ME without permission?
Toss that one in with the Lindholm report from Google, as another document that one of the combatants wishes wasn't ever seen. This time it's Oracle. To add injury to embarassment, the Judge in the case has already ruled that Google can depose that engineer.
Wow, if you and Google think this can be capitalized upon there is little hope for Google. The single out of context quote looks damning. But when you read the rest of the engineers post you can see what he was talking about -- why Android is not listed on Oracles official Java ME page!
The post had nothing to say engineering-wise on whether the Dalvik engine infringes on Java ME IP, which is what Oracle claims. Oracle has not claimed Dalvik and the ME-JVM put out the same bytecode, if they had then this would have been huge. But Oracle IS saying that Dalvik technology violates Oracle IP because the Java license was open sourced to desktop uses only and explicitly left as payware for the mobile arena. And that Google used open sourced desktop code anyway by repurposing for the Dalvik virtual machine.
Comments
Few anti-Google posts have any attempts at objectivity...
Most of my anti-whatever posts are geared towards the iPhanboys who, no matter what, see Apple as rosie...period...and that anything that merely competes with Apple, even if barely, is automatically wrong and must be destroyed, bought out, deleted, absorbed, etc...
...Anywho...no one here thinks like that though (it seems) all they see is XX v. Apple? WELL FUCK XX!!!!!!
No real thought, no real reason why they side with Apple...the entire position is rather irrational...
Apple is always right...except maybe someone doesn't like an icon in an app update...but anything beyond that Apple is always right.
This is not an accurate summary of any of the posts on this topic I have seen. The issue is not "XX v. Apple." No one here goes on rants about Blackberry, Nokia, or other Apple competitors. And until very recently, both had higher market share than the iPhone. The issue with Android is: 1. What seems to be pervasive lack of respect for IP on Google's part - and not just Apple's. 2. The hypocritical and false claim to being "open," as reason to buy their products over "closed" Apple, and justification for #1. See Rubin's "the definition of open" tweet for exhibit A of this hypocrisy.
We have very different definitions of evil I guess...evil to me are the diamond brokers and oil executives purposefully polluting, harrassing and terrorizing locals to get at their land.
Nothing that Apple, Google, etc has done would ever fall under "Evil" in my eyes. Ever...at least not yet.
so if somebody steals my car and lies about it, saying they are a reputable member of society, I'm bad for suing them because in your mind, the thief isn't doing anything wrong because there are people who commit mass murder, and from that perspective the theft of my car isn't that big of a deal.
Bravo, troll. You have unlocked the ability to minimize anything anyone could possibly do wrong while at the same time finding ways to vilify their victims. A true master liar. You should enter politics or religion and control vast numbers of people with your brilliant efforts to turn the truth upside down.
Like I say...Apple...a great friend to innovation, an enemy of progress. (which is easily debatable I know)
Your concluding argument sums up your position nicely. You are a IP communist. You imagine a world where the masses can seize the works of others and use them any way they like, and any laws to hinder the outright theft of other people's work is considered an affront to "progress."
The only real difference between IP Communists and old style Communists of 100 years ago is that you want to make all IP public domain and don't believe you have to obey intellectual property laws, while the old Communists wanted to make real estate public domain and didn't believe in real estate property law.
Which I appreciated. . .
EDIT: Here we go, from the actual court docs:
"Oracle’s Opposition concedes that, with the exception of portions of 12 out of several thousand files, it has no evidence of any copying by Google of any Oracle source code. Aside from those 12 files, Oracle’s copyright claim is premised on “non-literal” infringement and the incorrect notion that the Java language APIs—separate and apart from their implementations, which Google did not copy—are copyrightable."
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic....10902071933374
So it appears there's 12 files at issue, not either 100 or 37 as two of us thought we recalled. The Oracle/Google claims seem to change nearly every week, so there's no certainty that it's still 12. I know the number of patent claims has been severely trimmed due to both the court and patent re-exams indicating they weren't valid to begin with..
The number of files and or APIs isn't critical in determining if Google illegally took Oracle's IP. What is in question is whether Google took any IP, and whether it used this to a) illegally benefit and b) to deprive Oracle of its rightful revenues.
It's clear Google has benefitted tremendously and will continued to benefit from the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It's also clear that Oracle's Java business has been irreparably harmed by the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It doesn't matter if it was just one file, or two files, or some small percent of the overall code one could find within a phone running Android.
Your attempts at minimizing Google's wrongdoing by saying it was some small number of files is irrelevant. What matters is the money involved. Google saved a lot of money by slapping Android together from sources that already existed, ranging from (as Apple claims) OS IP and high level UI IP from Apple and (as Oracle claims) JVM IP from Sun.
You can argue that Google's work isn't infringing and/or isn't infringing in a way that the courts can or will address, but it's a waste of your typing to tell us that it only amounted to some certain percentage of all the files that might actually appear on an Android phone.
And if that's central to your argument as a Google apologist, it doesn't bode well for Google.
and being that I am anti-software patent nothing can change that stance unless it can be explained to me why an idea, I mean an "implementation of a method" can be patented without code and how a vastly different code that results in something that looks different and acts different except for maybe a small area where some patented "and/or" was infringed (or "stolen" on this board) can be banned indefinitely.
I am no enemy of Apple...never was...I just do not agree with their patent blitzkrieg. I do not see it as being anything but bad for the future of tech.
Like I say...Apple...a great friend to innovation, an enemy of progress. (which is easily debatable I know)
I've heard this argument before, that software patents are evil, and that copyright is sufficient. Regardless of what you call it, ideas should be somewhat protected if they are sufficiently unique, whether it's a patent or a copyright or a whatever.
We accept this in other mediums. In literature, for instance, it's not okay to wholesale steal ideas without permission, even if the words, sentence structure, names, etc. are different.
I can't write a book today about a kid growing up in a village on an alien world who fights against an evil government and battles his father using a mystical power, can I?
I can't write a play about concert hall, where a disfigured woman haunts the musicians and falls into an obsessive love with a young violinist and battles his childhood sweetheart for his affections, right?
If you subscribe to the notion that only code itself should be protected, then by the same token only specific sentences, words, paragraphs, character names, etc. should be the only things protected, and I can write a knockoff of Star Wars or Phantom of the Opera, as long as I change some things up. Would that benefit literature? You might argue that it wouldn't hurt, but I'd say this: what truly drives ANY industry in a capitalistic society is money; why would I spend time writing a piece of literature if someone can simply change some things around and essentially release the same thing, depriving me of potential money I could have made? The motivation behind progress would be hampered.
I understand the logic of believing that the world would be better if information would be shared freely; communism sounds great on paper, too. Trouble is, the world is not motivated by love; on the contrary, humans are base creatures who are motivated by greed and lust, and thinking otherwise involves a utopian vision that won't succeed unless humans are changed at their core. From my position, companies like Google abuse the idealistic open source community by praising its virtues and garnering its respect with one hand while raking in profits with the other. They don't care about idealism or a world where information is shared freely; they care about making money plain and simple. At least Apple is more upfront about it.
The number of files and or APIs isn't critical in determining if Google illegally took Oracle's IP. What is in question is whether Google took any IP, and whether it used this to a) illegally benefit and b) to deprive Oracle of its rightful revenues.
It's clear Google has benefitted tremendously and will continued to benefit from the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It's also clear that Oracle's Java business has been irreparably harmed by the work Oracle claims as illegally derived from its own.
It doesn't matter if it was just one file, or two files, or some small percent of the overall code one could find within a phone running Android.
Your attempts at minimizing Google's wrongdoing by saying it was some small number of files is irrelevant. What matters is the money involved. Google saved a lot of money by slapping Android together from sources that already existed, ranging from (as Apple claims) OS IP and high level UI IP from Apple and (as Oracle claims) JVM IP from Sun.
You can argue that Google's work isn't infringing and/or isn't infringing in a way that the courts can or will address, but it's a waste of your typing to tell us that it only amounted to some certain percentage of all the files that might actually appear on an Android phone.
And if that's central to your argument as a Google apologist, it doesn't bode well for Google.
It's not central to anything I'm arguing. It's simply facts as opposed to opinions or misinformation. If Google is found to have infringed some Oracle IP they should be required to pay for the rights or remove it. Simple.
With that said it won't ever get that far IMO. Just as Apple chose to settle with Nokia rather than take chances in court, Google will do the same with Oracle if they feel they're obviously at a disadvantage. With the money they have, none of these major players like Apple, Google, MS will take a take a chance and roll the dice if the chances are fairly good they'll lose, and Google may lose this one.
It's not central to anything I'm arguing. It's simply facts as opposed to opinions or misinformation. If Google is found to have infringed some Oracle IP they should be required to pay for the rights or remove it. Simple.
With that said it won't ever get that far IMO. Just as Apple chose to settle with Nokia rather than take chances in court, Google will do the same with Oracle if they feel they're obviously at a disadvantage. With the money they have, none of these major players like Apple, Google, MS will take a take a chance and roll the dice if the chances are fairly good they'll lose, and Google may lose this one.
Larry Ellison is out for blood, and is similar to the late Steve Jobs in that respect. People say business isn't personal, but for some people it clearly is.
I've heard this argument before, that software patents are evil, and that copyright is sufficient. Regardless of what you call it, ideas should be somewhat protected if they are sufficiently unique, whether it's a patent or a copyright or a whatever.
We accept this in other mediums. In literature, for instance, it's not okay to wholesale steal ideas without permission, even if the words, sentence structure, names, etc. are different.
I can't write a book today about a kid growing up in a village on an alien world who fights against an evil government and battles his father using a mystical power, can I?
I can't write a play about concert hall, where a disfigured woman haunts the musicians and falls into an obsessive love with a young violinist and battles his childhood sweetheart for his affections, right?
If you subscribe to the notion that only code itself should be protected, then by the same token only specific sentences, words, paragraphs, character names, etc. should be the only things protected, and I can write a knockoff of Star Wars or Phantom of the Opera, as long as I change some things up. Would that benefit literature? You might argue that it wouldn't hurt, but I'd say this: what truly drives ANY industry in a capitalistic society is money; why would I spend time writing a piece of literature if someone can simply change some things around and essentially release the same thing, depriving me of potential money I could have made? The motivation behind progress would be hampered.
I understand the logic of believing that the world would be better if information would be shared freely; communism sounds great on paper, too. Trouble is, the world is not motivated by love; on the contrary, humans are base creatures who are motivated by greed and lust, and thinking otherwise involves a utopian vision that won't succeed unless humans are changed at their core. From my position, companies like Google abuse the idealistic open source community by praising its virtues and garnering its respect with one hand while raking in profits with the other. They don't care about idealism or a world where information is shared freely; they care about making money plain and simple. At least Apple is more upfront about it.
Ideas should never be patented (and allegedly can't be)
And literature is protected by copyright. What isn't patented is "story arc in which main protagonist starts off in a low place then after some turmoil and or sorrowful event in the middle followed by a meeting with an intriguing character and or object grows in spirit and or confidence and wins the day and or accepts his fate"
Your concluding argument sums up your position nicely. You are a IP communist. You imagine a world where the masses can seize the works of others and use them any way they like, and any laws to hinder the outright theft of other people's work is considered an affront to "progress."
The only real difference between IP Communists and old style Communists of 100 years ago is that you want to make all IP public domain and don't believe you have to obey intellectual property laws, while the old Communists wanted to make real estate public domain and didn't believe in real estate property law.
Eh.I give that analogy two points.
so if somebody steals my car and lies about it, saying they are a reputable member of society, I'm bad for suing them because in your mind, the thief isn't doing anything wrong because there are people who commit mass murder, and from that perspective the theft of my car isn't that big of a deal.
Bravo, troll. You have unlocked the ability to minimize anything anyone could possibly do wrong while at the same time finding ways to vilify their victims. A true master liar. You should enter politics or religion and control vast numbers of people with your brilliant efforts to turn the truth upside down.
What?
Seriously. What are you going on about here?
I'm saying evil is thrown around far too loosely. You can say bad, despicable, etc. But evil?
That's just hyperbolic nonsense.
You may be aware of only a select part of what this is all about going by your comments. The Oracle copyright claims are far from solid, widely disputed in the open-source community, and questioned by a number of software engineers. There's places that good discussion of the points both Google and Oracle are trying to make are discussed. If you're really interested in what's going on and not simply spinning the parts you like, you should take the time to visit these if you haven't already, paying particular attention to the comments:
I would agree the copyright claims are a circus sideshow to the far more weighty patent licensing issues that Google has with the Dalvik JVM.
Google will have a really hard time getting around having used Harmony project code directly despite the fact Harmony did not convey any commercial mobile IP licenses, and Google apparently knew that. That's all in the patent part of the case where the big money is at risk.
What?
Seriously. What are you going on about here?
I'm saying evil is thrown around far too loosely. You can say bad, despicable, etc. But evil?
That's just hyperbolic nonsense.
Well the reason we use the term "evil" in regard to Google is that Google itself used it to describe what it is not. If that slogan had any meaning at all, then Google's hypocritical actions since it began using the term is reason to ask whether google is in fact being exactly what it said it would not be.
Don't piss yourself that we're using the same term as Google did to critique Google's conduct.
That's just hyperbolic nonsense.
Ideas should never be patented (and allegedly can't be)
And literature is protected by copyright. What isn't patented is "story arc in which main protagonist starts off in a low place then after some turmoil and or sorrowful event in the middle followed by a meeting with an intriguing character and or object grows in spirit and or confidence and wins the day and or accepts his fate"
You can be charged with plagiarism if you steer too close to what someone else wrote, even if the words, etc. are changed around.
In my post, I equated words, etc. with code. We accept that you can't plagiarize someone else's story, so why shouldn't the same principle apply here?
You can be charged with plagiarism if you steer too close to what someone else wrote, even if the words, etc. are changed around.
In my post, I equated words, etc. with code. We accept that you can't plagiarize someone else's story, so why shouldn't the same principle apply here?
because the stories aren't the same...the themes may be but the characters are different, and the settings, and the climax, and pretty much everything else beyond "boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl, boy loses self, boy finds self, boy reunites with girl, boy and girl live happily ever after."
THAT can't be plagiarized.
"Motorola claimed that the term "heuristics" is broad and vague (in fact, some of the inventors of the patent admitted in their depositions that "heuristics" is "sort of a vague word") that it renders the patent indefinite. If this term was considered indefinite, the patent would be invalid.
Judge Posner, however, says that "defining a word is often more difficult than grasping its meaning in a specific context". He considers Apple's proposal that this word be understood as "one or more rules to be applied to data to assist in drawing inferences from that data" an "adequate definition".
From a policy point of view, I agree with Motorola: this patent is far too broad for my taste. It monopolizes an entire category of problem-solving strategies. That concern of mine isn't alleviated at all by Judge Posner's and Apple's definition, which is more verbose but just as broad from a technical/practical point of view the way I see it."
"For the other commenter who thinks Android is "based on Java", you are incorrect. While it is true that the programming language for Android is the Java programming language, the Android platform itself uses the Dalvik virtual machine and processes Dalvik bytecode, not Java bytecode, so the Android platform is NOT based specifically on Java ME technology.
Huh? Isn't that part of the basis for the suit, that Google is using Java ME without permission?
Toss that one in with the Lindholm report from Google, as another document that one of the combatants wishes wasn't ever seen. This time it's Oracle. To add injury to embarassment, the Judge in the case has already ruled that Google can depose that engineer.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...20210080453710
Oracle's third attempt to forge a damages report (aka Cockburn Report) added four Oracle "experts" to the list of those contributing to it. Guess what? One of Oracles own engineers and contributing expert witness for them has written this, now removed of course as soon as Oracle got wind of it.
"For the other commenter who thinks Android is "based on Java", you are incorrect. While it is true that the programming language for Android is the Java programming language, the Android platform itself uses the Dalvik virtual machine and processes Dalvik bytecode, not Java bytecode, so the Android platform is NOT based specifically on Java ME technology.
Huh? Isn't that part of the basis for the suit, that Google is using Java ME without permission?
Toss that one in with the Lindholm report from Google, as another document that one of the combatants wishes wasn't ever seen. This time it's Oracle. To add injury to embarassment, the Judge in the case has already ruled that Google can depose that engineer.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...20210080453710
Wow, if you and Google think this can be capitalized upon there is little hope for Google. The single out of context quote looks damning. But when you read the rest of the engineers post you can see what he was talking about -- why Android is not listed on Oracles official Java ME page!
The post had nothing to say engineering-wise on whether the Dalvik engine infringes on Java ME IP, which is what Oracle claims. Oracle has not claimed Dalvik and the ME-JVM put out the same bytecode, if they had then this would have been huge. But Oracle IS saying that Dalvik technology violates Oracle IP because the Java license was open sourced to desktop uses only and explicitly left as payware for the mobile arena. And that Google used open sourced desktop code anyway by repurposing for the Dalvik virtual machine.