Fedora Decides To Not Allow SSPLv1 Licensed Software Into Its Repositories

[ssokolow]

But there I think Oracle is right,
Because Google is using the Virtual Machine Technology, without consent, which now belongs to Oracle..
And its known that even at code level Google was using Oracle code without permission, but Google was always surpassed that, because, when someone is infringing your code, after you notify him, he has 1 Year to solve te problem, if incapable, it needs to comply.

If Google is using Oracle code without permission, that's already copyright infringement and/or breach of contract and has no bearing on whether APIs should be copyrightable.

Does Oracle has the right to copyright the API names only( the technology is of course copyrighted... or should be, at least the VM )?
In a world were some can, Oracle also wants the same..

The legal rationale under which APIs were originally considered ineligible for copyright is the same one which allows reverse-engineering... to produce compatible implementations so that the law cannot be used to perpetually lock in downstream customers by making it prohibitively difficult or impossible for them to migrate off the covered platform.

The stylistic elements of phones and cars do not contribute meaningfully to vendor lock-in.

In my opinion if the API is merely explanatory, and can be remade without deriving work, with no dependency, it should not be considered restricted on usage

But in the Java case is worst than that, because what mater there is the Java Virtual Machine, the technology behind it, and Sun MicroSystems waisted so much money on it, that they improved the VM, to a very nice level,
Without it Java would be performing very badly,( like Android does, because its not using the Optimized version of the Java VM.. but a sort of a clone, without paying royalties to the Owners, now Oracle )

In this regard, Scala, compiles to bytecode, but don't have its own VM I think, Kotlin, I think its the same, but not sure..

The law doesn't work that way. If Google used Sun code without a proper license, then it's copyright infringement and has nothing to do with whether APIs are copyrightable.

If they didn't, then it's a question of whether APIs are copyrightable... and if APIs are copyrightable, then you get things like Microsoft having a sure-fire way to hold a sword of Damocles over Wine's head.

I don't know about you, but I don't want the digital equivalent of having to pay a license fee for permission to speak English.

[tuxd3v]

and it's not unusual to get thrown out of distros for that, for json Fedora also stripped out the "json" directory out of the tarball so that the as unfree considered source don't appear anywhere until php upstream replaced the bundeld implementation

https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

Indeed,
Any person has the freedom to,
1) Do not use it
or
2) comply with it, like in any other licenses..

Anyway,
Yaml also has some comercial restrictions on it..

Cassandra also has restrictions on Usage,
But it seems more balanced, than MongoDB one, setting a minimum anual revenue has a trigger to go comercial..

[tuxd3v]

If Google is using Oracle code without permission, that's already copyright infringement and/or breach of contract and has no bearing on whether APIs should be copyrightable.
(...)
I don't know about you, but I don't want the digital equivalent of having to pay a license fee for permission to speak English.

Yes Google is usurping Java code from the beginning...
But they have almost always managed to dribles the Law..

for example Oracle is pushing the API thing, because its the unique option they have legally..

Because each time Oracle finds Java code on Android, it informs Google, and Google in a Year change it, substitute it, and go forward, and Oracle will have to continue to find new Code infringements on, years after year..

Its because of that that Oracle have advanced with the API thing, but it was badly interpreted, Java VM is a software, copyrighted, it doesn't give the right to someone to use parts of its code, and algorithms to build a clone..

You can create a VM,
Sure but with your Technology, not the Java VM technology, its copyrighted, and does not allow, copy of its code, its an infringement.

Also .NET VM is a infringement, of Java VM,
But there SunMicrosystems committed a big mistake, licensing Java for free on windows( Believing in the words of Microsoft at the time, to never use 'suck a horror thing on windows' ... they were naive), indefinitely..
So on court, it was decided, that Sun is right, **BUT could not receive nothing because Java os licensed free on Windows**..

But the Big Mistake of the court,
Is that Java is a Language, and **The Virtual Machine is another thing independent from Java Language**.

And the VM was not licensed free,and because its Copyrighted, you cannot us its code, and so .NET VM also infringes Law there..

But its very difficult to explain to a Court something so complicated, they don't understand the different of concepts, and Oracle is having a bad time, to protect the JVM..

[ssokolow]

Yes Google is usurping Java code from the beginning...
But they have almost always managed to dribles the Law..

for example Oracle is pushing the API thing, because its the unique option they have legally..

[...]

You are aware, are you not, that copyright in the modern sense was explicitly designed to incentivize eventual contributions to the public domain?

Ignoring the disaster it would be in a practical sense, allowing APIs to be copyrighted would be spitting on the original spirit that the U.S. founding fathers developed it in when they changed it from what it originally was... a censorship pact between the British crown and the printing guilds in exchange for making it a crime for anyone not in on the censorship to print things.

Well-managed law-making isn't about making sure everyone gets justice. It's about minimizing harm in the face of inevitable mistakes, oversights, and ambiguities.

You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered -- Lyndon Johnson, former President of the U.S.

[Grogan]

It couldn't be much worse than the GPL and some people's concepts of a "derivative work"? Think kernel devs moving interfaces to "GPL-only" and forcing non-free drivers to lie to (more like trick) the kernel build system just so end users can have a working driver?

+MODULE_LICENSE("GPL\0Proprietary...

<--- hahah

When I first got my current video card, there were no acceptable drivers except a "beta" fglrx which needed a lot of editing to work on the kernel du jour.

That certainly isn't "freedom" for me, the end user.

[p91paul]

If SSPL covers the whole software stack, you can't run MongoDB on Linux without paying: SSPL doesn't just require source code of your stack to be available, but for it to be available *under SSPL*. GPL code cannot be distributed under another license, so you cannot use MongoDB alongside GPL software or any similar copylefted license. Or proprietary software. Which mostly means you can't use MongoDB unless you pay. It's very reasonable to require people to pay to use your software, many companies do that successfully. It is unreasonable to call such a license ”free" though...