Looks like the software industry can go on.
Well… sort of. I think that’ll go to appeal. Google craftily made it look like they didn’t actually copy anything to a pretty uninformed and ignorant jury… when they clearly did.
This opens up the slim possibility that Oracle will mercifully divest itself of Java, on the other hand. Which would be nice.
Cas 
What irks me about this case is the Google position that no hard, creative labor goes into designing the API. According to Google that is no effort at all and only the implementation involves real work.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks the implementation is relatively trivial in comparison to designing, validating and evolving a good API.
On the other hand, if this went in favor of Oracle, it would be like software patents all over again, but ten times worse.
Exactly. And yet the internet is awash with programmers who seem to be entirely happy about this situation.
I’ll suppose those programmers have never spent 20 years designing something, only for some giant corporation to come along and go “yoink! I’m ‘avin’ that” and subsequently make forty billion dollars out of it without giving them a bean.
Cas
How would they do this? Also why? considering their business.
And why do you think the implications would be favorable?
I’m being facetious really but I’ve not been overly impressed with Oracle’s stewardship of Java for the last 10 years or so, though it could be worse. For the “how”, they might simply abandon it to fully open-source development; the “why” would be… well they’re not really make a lot of money for all the effort they’re putting into developing Java. They could happily fob it off on some enthusiastic geeks and a bunch of other companies like Red Hat and Azure and get on with the business of making money off of someone else’s efforts. A la Google
Cas
There are a couple of things to comment on with regards to the api comment
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Java is free, so why aren’t they free to use the API’s?
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Openjdk is an opensource version of java, which by definition means Oracle have allowed people to extend it (although this is the only project they contribute to)
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The previous CEO of Sun did not mind Google doing what they were doing. He knew they were not providing their own java implementation
The whole basis of this case seems, in my opinion, to revolve around Oracle not liking it when their own attempt at java mobile failed (it was failing already before Android came about) so they change from a pro Android stance to a anti Android stance. Larry Ellison actually thought Android was good for Java in the beginning.
The API are important and google admitted this in the current court case so Google aren’t denying this fact
Obviously not - but more to the point why should they care? Open Source is all the rage these days. You’re making it sound like Oracle is a one man personal project. Clearly this decision benefits the system as a whole, no? Plus all programming languages are subject to a bit of a catch 22… All I’m saying is it’s definitely not as black and white as you make it sound.
What bothers me is that everyone seems to be bogged down in all sorts of ancillary arguments about this and that without asking the simple, fundamental question, which is: how would you feel if it was you?
Forget Oracle, Google, whoever. Imagine you, personally, had designed the entire Java API from scratch all on your own, and it took you 20 years, and you planned to sell licenses to use it, and it was going pretty well.
Now imagine I downloaded it, carefully copied the most important 10,000 lines of code out of it, did a search-and-replace for Java and replaced it with Cafe, and then subsequently made $40bn on top of it.
You’d be extra cross, am I right?
Cas
- Mythical man years, obviously.
My point is precisely that it isn’t you, me or anyone else personally - it’s corporation and should be considered as such.
No, absolutely not: because corporations have the same rights in law as you or I have. Which means a ruling for a corporation will directly affect you, the little guy, as well, henceforth.
Cas
Yeah, no.
[EDIT]: As in they reap the benefits but take none of the, erm, the other thing.
[EDIT2]: In other words a corp isn’t personally liable for anything. A corp isn’t a person. It’s a construct. It’s an important distinction I think. I feel context should be taken into greater consideration.
For me it is simple: If I don’t anyone to make this happen I don’t open source it. I do pretty much everything as open source and almost everything is Apache License 2, therefore everybody is able to do this and it is on purpose. Obviously I prefer it happens to me but Google would most probably be able to attract a lot more devs than I could.
Apart from that there is a difference between me / you personally and a corporation. If Oracle wins and Microsoft sues you for using a Windows API, do you have millions of dollars to spare on such a shit? 
Open Source does not mean “Please Copy Me”. It just means you can see how the binaries are made. You’ll note that every single source file in the JDK contains an actual copyright notice.
Cas
If I had spent 20 years creating Java API’s, tried to sell license but failed to make any real business out of it and then allowed an open source version to live I don’t think I would have a right to be cross.
I’m not a copyright expert but doesn’t GNU General Public License version 2allow you to modify the files but to keep the license terms?
More sticks for the fire: http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/05/google-android-victory-might-kill-gpl-oracle/
Cas
That’s an article written by the Oracle lawyer