Posts by rgmiller1974

After ten years, the Google vs Oracle API copyright mega-battle finally hit the Supreme Court – and we listened in

Re: wholly negative implications

I remain unconvinced.

WRT GNU Classpath: Classpath presumably includes a System.out.println() (and I assume that function is one of the 11,000 lines of code that Oracle and Google are fighting over). I believe you when you say Classpath's version of that function was *implemented* completely independently of Oracle's version, but so what? I'm sure Google independently implemented the Android version. Oracle is trying to claim that you need a license from them simply to use that function signature even if you provide your own implementation.

As for the C library, yes there are freely licensed versions available now. But if the courts rule that function definitions are copyrightable, do those licenses remain valid? Take the example of the printf() function: I *assume* that was first written by Dennis Ritchie when he was working for Bell Labs. If function definitions are copyrightable, then Bell Labs would have started out with the copyright. Given the long and tangled history of C and Unix, I don't know who owns the copyright now. But it could be argued that whoever does own the copyright never gave permission to have that function definition placed under a BSD license and thus that license is invalid.

Re: wholly negative implications

How about this for a more specific example: GNU Classpath

GNU Classpath is (as far as I understand things) a re-implementation of most of the standard Java class libraries. As such, the developers did exactly what Google is being sued for: kept the API's but wrote new implementations. If API's really are copyrightable (and re-implementing the functions they define yourself is *not* fair use) then can Classpath continue to exist? If people thought the API's were copyrighted, could Classpath have ever gotten started?

And leaving Java behind and switching to C: If Oracle wins, what happens to (for example) stdio.h? Does GNU (and every other compiler vendor) have to launch a massive software archeology project to determine who first came up with the printf() function? And then ask, "Pretty please, may we continue to use this function as is?" And then repeat that process for *EVERY OTHER* function in all the standard C libraries? And until that's settled (if it ever is), pretty much every single program written in C is left in copyright limbo.

Latvian drone wrests control from human overlords and shuts down entire nation's skies

Also, civilian air traffic control radars don't really detect the airplanes themselves; they detect the radar transponders installed in airplanes. If the drone doesn't have one (or it was turned off for the test flight), then air traffic control radars aren't going to be much use even if the drone flies through an area where there is ostensibly radar coverage.

Boeing boss denies reports 737 Max safety systems weren't active

Re: Blame Game

"I spent 22 years in the aircraft industry certifying and delivering new commercial aircraft to airlines."

There's something I haven't been able to find out, and it sounds like you might be qualified to comment on: How much did MCAS save in terms of certification and pilot retraining effort?

Or, to put it another way: What if Boeing had NOT developed MCAS and simply said, "Here's the 737 Max. It has a slightly more pronouced pitch-up-with-engine-thrust behavior than previous models and pilots need to be aware of it." Would the FAA have accepted that and just required some more time in the simulator for pilots? And would that extra training requirement have disuaded airlines from buying the MAX?

(As it is now, it appears pilots are going to have to get training in how to handle the aircraft when MCAS fails, and I'm beginning to suspect that will actually be more training than if MCAS just didn't exist.)

Python creator Guido van Rossum sys.exit()s as language overlord

Re: Reinventing a more limited wheel

I'm curious about the example thames posted. Is

results = [(x, f(x), x/f(x)) for x in input_data if f(x) > 0]

really any slower than

results = [(x, y, x/y) for x in input_data if (y := f(x)) > 0] ?

In the first expression, I can see that f(x) could potentially be evaluated three times, but would that actually happen? The example implicitly assumes that f(x) returns the same value each time it's evaluated. If that's the case, is the interpreter not smart enough to cache the result of f(x) for later use? (And if that's not the case - for example if f(x) returned x+time.time() - then the two expressions above aren't actually equivalent.)

No chance of flying too close to this: Icarus, the most distant star seen, is 9bn light years away

Re: Douglas said it best.

Douglas Adams' description is pretty good, but I actually think Bill Bryson said it better in "A Short History of Nearly Everything": "Space is very aptly named."

.. ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / -.-. .- -. / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... then a US Navy fondleslab just put you out of a job

Is it still flashing in Morse code?

Is the light still flashing in Morse code? (It wasn't clear to me from the article.)

The reason I ask is that if you're going to have electronics on both ends, then why not use them to do something useful, like encode the data with a protocol that includes error correction?