API Copyright of JVM

At this stage of the copyright litigation in Oracle v Google, Oracle needs to demonstrate to Judge William Alsup that there is a “genuine issue of fact” whether Android infringes the Java Virtual Machine APIs. That’s enough to get Oracle’s copyright case in front of a jury. To get the copyright issue thrown out before trial, Google must rebut the arguments that Oracle has presented. Addressing each specific fact, Google’s Reply last week offers an exceptionally detailed and clear tutorial on API copyright law. A legal monograph published by Professor Efthimios Parasidis in 2005 provides a similar analysis.

There are two possible outcomes to the copyright claims of Oracle: Android infringes the Java APIs or it doesn’t. It may appeal the partial summary judgement on the copyright issue once there is a final judgment on the rest of the case. If Judge Alsup rules in favor of Oracle, then the copyright infringement issue will be decided by a jury later this year.

Windows API Example

Google’s Reply makes a strong case against copyright protection of APIs. But there are additional examples where APIs were considered unprotectable. In the antitrust case against Microsoft, a U.S. District Court stated “Theoretically, the developer of a non-Microsoft, Intel-compatible PC operating system could circumvent the applications barrier to entry by cloning the APIs exposed by the 32-bit versions of Windows (Windows 9x and Windows NT).” The court went on to say “Applications written for Windows would then also run on the rival system, and consumers could use the rival system confident in that knowledge.” This is the same circumstance in which U.S District Court Judge Alsup finds Android.

API Copyright and the GPL

Oracle has made Android a target in spite of the fact that Oracle has little or no stake in mobile devices, now or on the horizon. The chief beneficiary of taking down Android would be Apple, chaired by Ellison’s friend Steve Jobs. It seems questionable whether the Oracle Board of Directors is providing oversight of this case, since it doesn’t appear to benefit Oracle shareholders. One wonders if Ellison has other goals in mind. Oracle might like to see the API copyright issue head to the U.S. Supreme Court. If so, losing may ultimately benefit Oracle, eliminating concerns about linking to Linux header files or the GNU Classpath, and taking the air out of vague GPL license terms that create extraordinary copyright hazards for software companies.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and designer of The Patent Studio. You can follow him on Twitter @johnkoenig.

What DSL Technicians Know

Although the telephone company has many tools to troubleshoot problems with their lines and equipment, they cannot help you much with the phone wiring in your home. A weak DSL signal inside your home can be caused by long wire lengths, poor connections, multiple wires, multiple connectors, improper grounding and other variables. Your DSL speed will be better if you eliminate these issues. DSL modems are good at working around noise on the line, but do so at the expense of top download speed and latency (delay). DSL technicians tell us that many line problems originate from bad inside wiring, so splitting the DSL signal from the telephone line as early as possible would certainly eliminate this problem.

DSL Pots Splitters are the Key

To do that, you can install an inexpensive pots-splitter where the telephone line enters your home or garage at the box called the Network Interface Device (NID). By installing a pots-splitter at the NID, the DSL signal from the telephone company to your modem is as short and uncluttered as possible. No longer does the DSL signal wind through your home over internal phone wiring — even though most telephone company installation instructions tell you to do that. Why do they recommend that? Because installing pots-splitters yourself inside the home saves the telephone company the expense of making a trip to do the installation right. Those “pigtail” pots-splitters you self-install don’t offer the optimum DSL signal path. The excess in-house line length, the phone jacks and the additional phone equipment in your home all contribute to noise and attenuation of the DSL signal — and therefore slower speeds.

Make DSL Troubleshooting Easier

Instead, to achieve the shortest, cleanest connection, you should buy a pots-splitter and put your DSL modem next to the pots-splitter at the NID. By installing the pots-splitter at your NID, you keep your home telephone wiring out of the DSL signal path, and consequently your line condition is now the responsibility of the telephone company. The telephone company can then easily use their central equipment to monitor and troubleshoot the condition of the DSL line to your home. They otherwise cannot do the best job troubleshooting the line if the DSL signal also runs through your house. With the DSL signal terminating at the NID, they have no excuse to deliver speeds less than the one offered under your service plan. If the speed is much less than promised, ask your telephone company to fix their line until it comes close to the DSL rate offered under your service plan.

Finish with Wireless Router

Once you’ve installed your pots-splitter and modem next to the NID, you also need to install your Ethernet router there too. You might wonder how to use your computer when the Ethernet router is in the garage. There are a couple of solutions. You can use a wireless router, many of which offer exceptional range, or use HomePlug devices. Although these add a little cost, your improved DSL access speed should be worth it. If your wireless Ethernet connection is blocked by the walls, wireless extenders and HomePlug devices offered by many vendors provide a fast, reliable Ethernet connection to any room in your home.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and designer of The Patent Studio. You can follow him on Twitter @johnkoenig.

Spawned the PC Era

The consequences of these IBM decisions not only spawned the PC era, but also led to the creation of a new and highly profitable PC software segment. To help complementary hardware designers and software publishers create expansion hardware and software applications, IBM published the essential BIOS code for the PC. The BIOS remained copyrighted by IBM since they intended to use it to prevent unlicensed cloning of the IBM PC. Unfortunately for IBM the BIOS was soon reverse engineered by Compaq and others using a “clean room” process that avoided legal liability for copyright infringement. This gave low-cost makers of PC clones the last technology piece they needed to deliver inexpensive PCs. The resulting explosive growth of PC clone sales and adoption ultimately changed all aspects of computing, creating a wealth of new companies like Microsoft, Intel, Compaq, Dell, and subsequently drove acceptance of the PC architecture into more demanding server applications at the enterprise level.

Over a Billion PCs Sold

Within 25 years over a billion PCs were sold. Still the leading computing architecture, the second billionth PC was shipped sometime in 2008. How could such enormous consequences arise from a few relatively modest engineering decisions? The answer seems simple. Open architectures are vastly more efficient to extend, allowing many more individuals and companies to contribute and participate in accelerating the design, application, low-cost manufacturing and distribution of a product. IBM didn’t intend to create an open platform with the IBM PC. It just didn’t foresee that the BIOS code would be reverse engineered. In an attempt to regain control, IBM created a new proprietary system bus called the MCA and licensed it for hundreds of dollars. While this approach would prevent others from cloning new IBM PCs without a license, the MCA bus was adopted by virtually no one outside of IBM. Instead, the clone makers created their own standard ISA bus which was soon followed by an even faster EISA bus.

Peripheral Component Interface

A similarly important milestone in the history of the PC was the introduction by Intel of the Peripheral Component Interface or “PCI” standard. Intel realized they should create a standard bus and support it with low-cost Intel chips. Intel designed the PCI bus to be fast, inexpensive to build, and royalty-free.  With Intel behind it, the jockeying between IBM and the clone makers about board compatibility ended. The enormously successful PCI specification and its successors since 1992 are still the dominant local bus system within PCs and servers. Today PCI versions continue to receive wide support from all PC manufacturers globally. The PCI bus from Intel was wildly successful in simplifying integration, further driving down the PC system costs, and vastly improving PC reliability for all consumers and businesses.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and designer of The Patent Studio. You can follow him on Twitter @johnkoenig.

Photo Credit: A. Disc

At the time it was indeed an infernal battle with computers; monotonous tinkering, prone to error and failure. Out of this problem arose a solution from Berners-Lee, and a standard which revolutionized computing and communications.

The Documentation System in the Sky

Berners-Lee decided to write a paper about it. To Berners-Lee it was a difficult idea to explain at the time. He imagined it as “some big, virtual documentation system in the sky” he said. He sent the proposal to his boss, who called it “vague, but exciting” and gave Berners-Lee the green light to work on the project. Indeed his implementation worked so well that he is considered the inventor of the world wide web. Extensions of the HTML standard today, make it possible for anyone with a computer to share information in writing, on a moments notice, with everyone, virtually anywhere in the world. It wouldn’t have happened this way without the work at CERN.

The History of the Browser

The world wide web Berners-Lee invented in 1990 didn’t catch on immediately. In January 1992 there were only 50 web servers in the world. In July of 1992, Perry Wei at UC Berkeley demonstrated the Viola browser for Unix X Windows. In November of 1992, Tony Johnson at SLAC delivered the Midas browser for X Windows. Jim Calliau at CERN started development of the Samba browser for the Macintosh. In December 1992, Perry Wei, embedded programs in HTML pages, which he demonstrated to Sun Microsystems engineers, including the Viola source code. More accomplishments have followed. Today, Internet Explorer is the chief browser and Google is the main search engine for sorting through the billions of documents on the web.

A Call for Raw Data Now

But despite the current success and sophistication of web-based sharing, Berners-Lee directs our attention to a new priority he calls “Raw Data Now.” Speaking at the TED Conference, he made his point with a simple premise, paraphrasing here that: you cannot naturally use data by itself. In other words, for it to be really useful, we should combine and share our data with other data. Berners-Lee calculates that without sharing, data serves a very limited purpose. Not only should we share our data, but we should demand that governments and businesses share the data they prepare as well, he says. Accessible raw data is his new objective for the world wide web. As he points out, “data drives a huge amount of what happens in our lives… because somebody takes the data and does something with it.” To Berners-Lee, it is essentially from this sharing of data, that advances in science will emerge.

Three Rules from Tim Berners-Lee

If the past was document sharing, the future is data sharing. Berners-Lee says now, “I want you to put your data on the Web.” But how should we go about that? To answer that question, he provides three points of instruction. One, a URL should point to the data. Two, anyone accessing the URL should get data back. Three, relationships in the data should point to additional URLs with data.

These three rules are a much simpler departure from the past 10 years of discussion, chiefly focused on the “semantic” web and a “resource description framework”. Those concepts have so far received little mainstream acceptance because of their high level of abstraction. Other technology is faring better, in particular the hardware devices. For example, wider data collection through common 3G devices can now monitor traffic, temperature, emergencies and other events with transparent data connectivity. If the past is any indication, hardware advances will continue to arrive much earlier than software advances. So while the raw data is coming, we still have a long way to go before the software to access a world wide web of data is mature.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and designer of The Patent Studio. You can follow him on Twitter @johnkoenig.

Berners-Lee Photo Silvio Tanaka