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Comment by ChairmanZach | Hacker News Reader

""[Google]'s Section 102(b) argument also suffers from a broader flaw." (this sentence transitions from the Administration's rejection of Google's suggestion that declaring code is inherently more functional and less expressive than implementing code to the DoJ's agreement with Oracle's lawyers on the purpose of Section 102(b))"

That Google would be in the right by copying the declaring code of 27(!) different namespaces is nothing but crazy.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/05/us-dept-of-justice-finds-...

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So, reimplementing API's is crazy?

Should Microsoft sue wine developers?

Should Amazon sue anyone making a compatible EC2 API?

The .NET standard libraries are part of the CLI which is a part of ISO/IEC 23271:2012, a standard. I have no idea when it comes to the EC2 API.

Should it be legal for me to copy all of the declaring code of my employers product and after writing my own implementation selling it as my own product/work under a different name?

Wine reimplements win32 and directx, etc, ot the .Net api.

Wine is a reverse engineering of the APIs, not a blatant copy.

edit: Straight from Wikipedia: "Wine is predominantly written using black-box testing reverse-engineering, to avoid copyright issues.[4] [4] https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?p=37364#37364 "

Can you explain us the difrerence between reverse enginerring Long _HTCTI(int param1) and Long _HTCTI(int WindowPosition) ?

An API is an API and it will be the same if it is reverse engineered or copied the declaration.

And Google didn't copied without permission Sun's code, they used Apache Harmony

Incorrect. Wine is based on Windows documentation of Windows APIs. There is no practical way to "discover" an API.

Still incorrect. The black box testing refers to testing of the implementation, not the API.

Wine has nothing to do with .NET

> Should it be legal for me to copy all of the declaring code of my employers product and after writing my own implementation selling it as my own product/work under a different name?

How do you think compatible API implementations have been done until now?

If they are done by copying someone elses work without permission then by copyright infringement. If done by implementing a standard or through a license etc. then no harm is done.

Do you think that I should be allowed to steal the declaring code of someone elses proprietary solution and pawn of as my own?

So yes, you're saying that Microsoft should sue Wine developers because they stole the API

Why should they? Microsoft has nothing to gain from doing so and reverse engineering interfaces or implementing them under fair use is already allowed.

Wine is also something done explicitly to create compatability, Google made sure Android was not compatible with "regular" Java.

> Why should they? Microsoft has nothing to gain from doing so

Tell us what can benefit Oracle by suing Google.

> Wine is also something done explicitly to create compatability, Google made sure Android was not compatible with "regular" Java.

Android is compatible with Java syntax. And even Java ME, the java developed for mobile platforms, is not compatible with regular java so, what is your point?

From Florian Miller's bio on that page: "He is now developing a game app for smartphones and tablet computers." I wonder if that includes Android.

That FOSS Patents piece is the best commentary I've seen on the subject, thanks for bringing to my attention.

Finding non-shill opinions on this whole issue is quite hard. Once you check the facts of the case it's really quite open-and-shut in Oracle's favor.

Says the account that seems to have been specifically created to shill on this issue.

Ah, Florian Mueller, a paid Oracle shill.

I don't care how involved he is in the case, I read his writing and I found it to be illuminating -- far more so than anything else I'd read on the subject.

You can happily take the opposing view simply because he is involved and is probably biased, but that will make your viewpoint almost entirely baseless.

Mueller has a history of doing an excellent job working things that aren't actually reasonable to informed parties that seem illuminating to people that aren't informed. It's actually a fairly key skill for a professional propagandist. I haven't actually read the piece on question here, but appearing illuminating and actually being deceptive propaganda are not mutually exclusive traits.

if that's the case, it's the job of the 'informed' guys to write similarly illuminating counter-arguments, because I've not found any yet.

The illusion of illumination is greatly enhanced by having a strong guiding narrative, which is easy with propaganda, harder with reality.

You cannot cry propaganda without providing some evidence as to what is misleading or factually incorrect, because otherwise anyone can say anything is propaganda.

Techdirt's take: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150526/16550931121/obama...

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