I wonder if Jensen is scared. If this opens up the door to other implementations this could be a real threat to Nvidia. CUDA on AMD, CUDA on Intel, etc. Might we see actual competition?
replies(5):
However, this might make mlx into a much stronger competitor for Pytorch.
The gist is the API specification in itself is copyright, so it is copyright infringement then.
Supreme Court ruled that by applying the Four Factors of Fair Use, Google stayed within Fair Use.
An API specification ends up being a system of organizing things, like the Dewey Decimal System (and thus not really something that can be copyrighted), which in the end marks the first factor for Google. Because Google limited the Android version of the API to just things that were useful for smart phones it won on the second factor too. Because only 0.4% of the code was reused, and mostly was rewritten, Google won on the third factor. And on the market factor, if they held for Oracle, it would harm the public because then "Oracle alone would hold the key. The result could well prove highly profitable to Oracle (or other firms holding a copyright in computer interfaces) ... [but] the lock would interfere with, not further, copyright's basic creativity objectives." So therefore the fourth factor was also pointing in Google's favor.
Whether "java" won or lost is a question of what is "java"? Android can continue to use the Java API- so it is going to see much more activity. But Oracle didn't get to demand license fees, so they are sad.
I always thought it was resolved as infringement and they had to license the Java APIs or something ...
Wow.