The D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Oracle could pursue its case against Google that claimed that Google copied Java in developing the Android operating system. Many are concerned that the decision could seriously damage innovation and creativity in the tech industry. (Bloomberg News, May 9, 2014, by Susan Decker)
Timothy B. Lee, writing for Vox, May 9, 2014, criticized the decision explaining that “Google wanted people who wrote programs in the popular programming language Java to be able to re-use their code in Android apps. To do that, Google had to ensure that Java code written for other purposes ran exactly the same on Android.”
The federal district trial judge ruled that Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are not subject to copyright, but the D.C. appeals court disagreed and sent the case back to the trial court to decide if Google’s copyrighting was a lawful fair use. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, May 9, 2014, by Corynne McSherry)
Writing for Wired, May 9, 2014, Robert McMillan quotes Bryand Contrell of Joyent that copyrighting APIs are a “perverted and depraved principle.” Cantrell goes on the argue that Oracle’s stance is hypocritical. Cantrell is developing an open-source version of the Solaris operating system some of whose APIs Oracle has copied without permission.