Free for a Fee

The trial in the dispute between Oracle and Google over the use of Java technology in the Android operating system is over, and the greatly anticipated ruling on copyright in the Java Application Programming Interface (API) has issued. The court ruled that the elements of the Java API, including the structure, sequence and organization, are not protected by copyright. It is important to note that the court did not rule that no elements of an API may be protected by copyright. Although broad in its implications, the opinion is fact-specific to the Java API.

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2012/06/06/oracle-v-google-judge-writes-the-book-on-software-programming-copyright-for-now-anyway/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Twitter has joined the Linux Foundation, making its commitment to open source software just a bit more official. Like many operators of high-traffic websites, Twitter relies on open source throughout its data centers, with Linux servers hosting workloads and software projects that make it easier to handle big data and serve up Web content.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/twitter-joins-linux-foundations-fight-for-open-source-software/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Valve recently announced plans to bring its Steam game distribution service to the Linux platform. The company has also ported its Source game engine and the popular title Left 4 Dead 2. In a recent interview, Valve’s Gabe Newell said that the move was partly influenced by concerns about the increasingly closed nature of the Windows platform.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/gnu-founder-stallman-calls-drmd-steam-for-linux-games-unethical/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Tyler Ochoa (see some of Tyler’s other posts) with comments from Eric

Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 3:10-cv-03561-WHA (N.D. Cal. May 31, 2012).

On Thursday, Judge William Alsup concluded the district court phase of the Oracle v. Google Java-Android trial by holding that the structure, sequence, and organization of the 37 APIs copied by Google is not protected by copyright.

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Other reactions to the ruling:

* SCU’s incoming new law professor Brian Love was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News as saying: “This is now effectively a total loss for Oracle, across the board…It’s absolutely the best possible case for Google.”

* EFF: No Copyrights on APIs: Judge Defends Interoperability and Innovation

The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2012/06/oracles_apis_ar.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The dispute between The SCO Group and Novell, Inc. over the ownership of copyrights in the code to certain versions of the UNIX operating system, which started eight years ago, appears to have been handed its retirement papers by the Tenth Circuit. Yesterday, on the case’s second visit to the circuit, the court upheld the jury verdict in Novell’s favor on the issue of copyright ownership. The SCO Group v. Novell, Inc., No. 10-4122 (10th Cir. Aug. 30, 2011).

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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2011/08/31/novell-prevails-in-long-running-dispute-over-ownership-of-unix-copyrights-and-open-source-software-moves-on/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.