The End of Programming as we know it

[Macrobius]

http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/232901227?itc=edit_stub

...
However, events in San Francisco quickly took a sinister turn when Oracle posited an ominous theory: that Google had violated Oracle's Java copyrights by reimplementing Java APIs in Android. The question of the copyrightability of APIs is the hinge on which the first part of the trial now rests, and it provides a disturbing vision of how software development might look should Oracle prove this claim.

In a nutshell, if the jury sides with Oracle that the copyrights in the headers of every file of the Java source base apply specifically to the syntax of the APIs, then Oracle can extract payment and penalties from Google for having implemented those APIs without Oracle's blessing (or, in more specific terms, without a license).

Should this come to pass, numerous products will suddenly find themselves on an uncertain legal standing in which the previously benign but now newly empowered copyright holders might assert punitive copyright claims. Chief among these would be any re-implementation of an existing language. So, Jython, IronPython, and PyPy for Python; JRuby, IronRuby, and Rubinius for Ruby; Mono for C# and VB; possibly C++ for C, GCC for C and C++ and Objective-C; and so forth. And of course, all the various browsers that use JavaScript might owe royalties to the acquirers of Netscape's intellectual property.

Essentially, every language implementation not issued forth by the copyright holder will be suspect until the copyright owners announce a permanent statement dispensing with any threats to enforce the copyrights....

groklaw comments

One correction, however. The jury doesn't get to decide the issure of API copyrightability. The judge will do that, if necessary, after the jury deliberates and reaches a verdict on the fair use and other Google defenses. If they decide Google's use was fair use, then there will be no decision on whether or not APIs can be copyright-protected in this litigation.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...20501005843202

I would say we have reached the end of the road for 'Programming as a Platform' -- the sort of package deal you get with Java or dot-Net. By Platform I mean giant APIs, 100s of dlls or shared objects, massive build systems to assemble anything, and IDEs to hook it all together.

For any number of reasons, we are going to roll back the clock and re-implement these huge ecosystems *again*, likely in C or C++, so that they run well on mobile devices, tablets, parallel GPUs, big data map-reduce clusters -- all of which need raw speed, low overhead, and wicked fast code when it runs on the metal. Highly virtualised, to be sure, but then don't forget even the Intel CISC instructions are themselves virtual and microcoded.

Google's Android is failing in the marketplace anyway -- meaning profits, not marketshare. It's losing money on Android every quarter (the judge in this case revealed -- a relevant point for damages based on profit!). As of now, the iPhone and Samsung are only models *making money* in the economic sense, rather than geeky wishful thinking.

Closed devices with near proprietary code means we leave behind 'portability' and go back to the bad old days of hand coding the fastest, lightest weight. Orca sized libraries and up will now be hunted to extinction by patent and copyright trolls. Perhaps a few will be kept in zoos run by the likes of Microsoft or Oracle, at great expense.

[Macrobius]

Update from groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...20507122749740

[ Recap of the day: Google won everything but the one issue that the judge has to decide anyway, the API SSO issue. The jury found, as they had been instructed to assume for the purposes of deliberation, that APIs can be copyrighted, the structure, sequence and arrangement of APIs, but that is by no means established. The same question, in a b) section, asked if fair use excused any infringement if found, and the jury couldn't resolve that issue. But the judge has to decide whether or not that is true, that APIs can be protected by copyright. That comes later this month. Meanwhile, Oracle prevailed only on 9 lines of code that Google admitted prior to trial to have included by mistake and then removed from current Android. Oracle's own expert, the judge pointed out in court, valued those 9 lines of code at zero. This is 9 lines out of millions. So that means, if we are looking at damages, that so far Oracle has won nothing. There is no liability. You can't have infringement without considering fair use, Google asserts, and there will be briefing on that. Somebody has to decide that fair use issue. And then the judge has to decide about the API copyrightability issue. If he rules that APIs can't be copyrighted, as the EU Court of Justice just ruled, then fair use is moot. And Oracle takes nothing at all from the copyright phase of this litigation, and this was heralded far and wide by Oracle people as the big ticket item, if you recall. ]

[Macrobius]

Judge Alsup ruled APIs cannot be copyrighted and did his damnedest to make the ruling appeal proof:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...20531173633275

The overall name tree, of course, has creative elements but it is also a precise command structure — a utilitarian and functional set of symbols, each to carry out a pre-assigned function. This command structure is a system or method of operation under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act and, therefore, cannot be copyrighted. Duplication of the command structure is necessary for interoperability....

Contrary to Oracle, copyright law does not confer ownership over any and all ways to implement a function or specification, no matter how creative the copyrighted implementation or specification may be. The Act confers ownership only over the specific way in which the author wrote out his version. Others are free to write their own implementation to accomplish the identical function, for, importantly, ideas, concepts and functions cannot be monopolized by copyright.

Commentary at Groklaw:

Update: What does this order mean...? That there will be no second trial on copyrightability, subject only to a successful appeal by Oracle and then a remand. If they are foolish, they will try for that.

It means that Boies, Schiller & Flexner once again have failed to extend copyright law to cover interfaces. Second, meaning they tried in the SCO wars too. Functional code is not subject to copyright protection. If Oracle wanted that, it should have gone for a patent.

This on top of:

So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different. When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and no one can monopolize that expression. And, while the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law.

It is true that the very same functionality could have been offered in Android without duplicating the exact command structure used in Java. This could have been done by re-arranging the various methods under different groupings among the various classes and packages (even if the same names had been used). In this sense, there were many ways to group the methods yet still duplicate the same range of functionality.

But the names are more than just names — they are symbols in a command structure wherein the commands take the form

java.package.Class.method()
Each command calls into action a pre-assigned function. The overall name tree, of course, has creative elements but it is also a precise command structure — a utilitarian and functional set of symbols, each to carry out a pre-assigned function. This command structure is a system or method of operation under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act and, therefore, cannot be copyrighted. Duplication of the command structure is necessary for interoperability.

Apparently the judge learned or already knew how to program -- his level of understanding is remarkable for the judiciary.