Oracle/Google ruling seems to imply Philips Hue Lighting API now fair game for cleanroom implementations? http://www.developers.meethue.com/documentation/conditions-use
Oracle/Google ruling seems to imply Philips Hue Lighting API now fair game for cleanroom implementations? http://www.developers.meethue.com/documentation/conditions-use
Dan Lyke 14:29 on May 26, 2016 Permalink
I haven’t read the decision, but based on the things I read about Google’s argument in this case, it seems like this decision was about this API, not all APIs.
Johannes Ernst 14:49 on May 26, 2016 Permalink
This whole thing is a bit baffling to me. Just exactly where are the red lines here? E.g. which APIs are fair game, and if (some) APIs are ok to copy, what about protocols? Seems there’s only a spitting distance between an API and a protocol?
Dan Lyke 14:51 on May 26, 2016 Permalink
Yeah, reading a news story on this now I’m super confused. I’m not complaining about the verdict, but “fair use” seems like a stretch for copying something that is copyrightable in its entirety. So this really feels like a “yeah, Google convinced the jury that Sun thought that this was fair use, and nobody likes Oracle”, but it doesn’t feel like “Woohoo! Reimplement all the APIs everywhere!”