I think they almost already do. Google is still coasting off a well built reputation for simple, good, user-friendly web services (search and email mainly) that for most internet users is all they ever see of Google,, thus thinking there isn't anything else that's a problem. Most of these same users don't even really appreciate just how much tracking of their lives the company does behind the scenes. They might read about it or glimpse parts of it here and there and frown a bit, but the completeness of the surveillance doesn't fully register I think. And besides, convenience, which always makes uncomfortable things easier to forget.
Thus, its uglier side doesn't gain as much of the attention it deserves. Microsoft never had quite that same good and simple reputation and enough people had enough problems with Windows platforms right from the beginning to really hate the company as soon as they had enough of a reason to from the media. Microsoft can be shitty too, but Google is much more involved in most people's daily lives in some dangerous ways.
Recently Microsoft forced millions of github users to either deanonymize using 2fa or get annoyed by their forced device verification. It was pure trolling for some: evil hackers can lock you out of your accounts with unaccessible email1!!!, so we'll lock you out first * MS-trollface.jpg *. So MS is worse at the moment, they add palpable damage.
Google at least just continues their thing which already have simple countermeasures like not using their search, blocking their web-trackers with extensions and disabling location-tracking in options.
Dethroning google by catastrophically harming everyone seems like a fairly bad outcome.
Mostly it will impact small projects - an open source implementation of an API would constitute a copyright violation, an open source reader of game data (eg all those game implementation that depend on the game data of a legitimate copy) would also be potentially subject to the same copyright violations.
In fact it would be very difficult for any open source project to read any proprietary format, without being subject to copyright violation suits.
Why shouldn't it? If I spent 10 months coming up with non trivial interface and 10 years marketing and popularizing it, you cant come in one day and steal the thunder
If we want the tech world to consistently advance, companies need to succeed by providing products and services people want, rather than collecting rent indefinitely off of a good idea they once had. Their thunder should get stolen if they can't do a better job than their competitors.
If it's an idea that does something functional, then it belongs in the domain of patent law: you register it, prove its unique, and then it's yours for 10 years.
What it definitely shouldn't be is copyrighted, the class of IP that's made for stuff like novels and paintings, where the protection is automatic and lasts until 90 years after your death.
It helps nobody to have to wait until 2150 to write an interface for Java.
"If it's an idea that does something functional, then it belongs in the domain of patent law: you register it, prove its unique, and then it's yours for 10 years."
APIs are nearly identical to code in terms of what they are, it's very reasonable to apply the same copyright rules.
> APIs are nearly identical to code in terms of what they are, it's very reasonable to apply the same copyright rules.
I don't really agree, except to say that, sure, there's a good argument that code is purely functional (in the sense of “providing function”, not the programming paradigm), too. But copyrightability of code isn't the issue in this case.
No they're not. API's don't have comments, they don't have expressiveness, and by their nature there is almost no choice on the part of the designer, they're just a list of names attached to functions (but not the functions themselves). There's only so many synonyms for "print".
Oracle is trying to claim that they own the idea of a toolbox with a tool called a "screwdriver", a tool called a "hammer", and a tool called "wire cutters", and nobody is allowed to make their own toolbox using the same list of names of tools.
" API's don't have comments, they don't have expressiveness, and by their nature there is almost no choice on the part of the designer, they're just a list of names attached to functions"
I don't know how anyone who's written code could even say this.
APIs have comments, they are expressive, there is considerable choice in design and they are a 'list of names' the same as the list of names attached to variables.
APIs are not code. They are functional interfaces that code interacts with. The decision to have a function called `sqrt` and put it in a module called `math` is not creative, and it is definitely not artistic.
You can’t copyright that - precisely because it is not a significant creative work.
The question is an API a significantly creative work, vs the implementation.
Historically - because the entire modern world depends on it - APIs were not considered copyrightable, largely because the creativity is embodied by the implementation.
You clearly disagree, I am curious if you believe being able to have competing software was detrimental - for example say MS claimed copyright over the XMLHttpRequest API? Or google over search engine query API, etc
> By all accounts thats an “interface” for a screw to be driven in by a screw driver.
As a functional component, to the extent novel and otherwise eligible for patent, patent protection for APIs makes perfect sense; patents also have an extremely short duration compared to essentially-eternal copyrights.
API copyrightability is, aside from being inconsistent (IMO) with both the letter and intent of the law, an absolutely nightmare in practical terms because it has neither the novelty requirements nor the short term associated with patents.
The interface of the Phillips screwdriver had some inherent value (i.e self centering property) so it makes sense to protect it.
With software the interface is a trivial detail that anyone could come up with. One interface is as good as any other. It seems disingenuous if the owner of one interface that suddenly became popular tries to claim copyright after everyone starts using it.
No matter what, one thing this surely will not do is "dethrone google". At worst a loss here will sting the investors for a while. But the possibility has likely been priced in already. Oracle request 9B in damages so supposing they get everything they asked for it's about 1Q of profits for big G.
Regardless of how their encryption is done, if you reregister your phone number you get an sms and you’re in and the complete message history is decrypted. So clearly they have all the keys, otherwise they couldn’t send it to you. Practically it’s not end to end encrypted.
Note that this is the same with many services that claim encryption, for instance Apple.
Does apple have the keys or does iMessage just resend as a regular text if you deregister? End to end means only the two parties involved have the keys period.
Well I can't remember specifics but I seem to recall somebody pointing to the flaws of their open bounty that it had very specific rules like not MITM'ing someone or something along those lines. Good end to end encryption shouldn't be able to be MITM'd is the thing.
