[PieterCasparzen]

Your feelings aside - this is what the law says.

You're citing cases, not statutory law. Lawyers will cite cases all day that reflect their side of the argument; I'm not a lawyer and I don't have time to research all case law on this subject.

From the Judge's Final Instruction to the Jury, section 17:

"Another statutory limitation on the scope of a copyright is that copyright never protects any procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery. Possibly such things can be claimed under the patent system or by trade secret laws but they may not be claimed by copyright. For purposes of your deliberations, however, I instruct you that the copyrights in question do cover the structure, sequence and organization of the compilable code."

In section 19 the Judget continues...

"The copyrighted Java platform has more than 37 API packages and so does the accused Android platform. As for the 37 API packages that overlap, Google agrees that it uses the same names and declarations but contends that its line-by-line implementations are different (with the exception of the rangeCheck lines), a contention not disputed by Oracle. Instead, Oracle contends that Google copied the structure, sequence and organization of the compilable code for the 37 API packages as a group. Google agrees that the structure, sequence and organization of the 37 accused API packages in Android is substantially the same as the structure, sequence and organization of the corresponding 37 API packages in Java. Google states, however, that the elements it has used are not infringing and, in any event, its use was protected by a statutory rule permitting anyone to make “fair use” of copyrighted works."

And in section 20 he addresses names...

"Now, let me tell you the law about names. The copyrights do not cover the names, such as those given to files, packages, classes, and methods, because under the law, names cannot be copyrighted. This applies to the name “java” as well. Although “Java” has been registered as a trademark, there is no trademark claim in this lawsuit. The name java cannot be copyrighted, nor can any other name, whether one or two words or longer in length. While individual names are not protectable on a standalone basis, names must necessarily be used as part of the structure, sequence, and organization and are to that extent protectable by copyright."

Back to my commments...

It was the copying of the SSO in it's entirety, minus some inconsequential changes made in some ridiculous attempt to thwart the copyright, where google ran afoul of copyright. In the last sentence of the Judge's jury instruction 20, he instructs on the fundamental principle of copying a quote or small piece of a whole copyrighted article, versus copying essentially the entire thing. And as far as software programs go, a whole class hierarchy is really the essence of the program. Gee, I didn't copy the code implementing functions - I just copied the entire class hierarchy verbatim.

Google's defense rests upon fair use. Do I need to quote the Judge's instructions on fair use in section 26 ? It really does not help google's case.

The best way to protect open source and/or free software is to not make any use of any source code that has any possibility of being proprietary in any way. Then it will be unassailably open and/or free source.

[fremont_steve]

This just in -

“he 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.”

So there we have it - until an Appeals Court says otherwise, you can’t copyright APIs, and Google did NOT do anything wrong. Oracle was trying to take Copyright into an area where you have to get a patent.

If you want to protect and API - you either have to keep it a Trade Secret, or patent it. Copyright isn’t the vehicle for that protection.