Jury in Oracle v. Google finds in Google's favour - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/735924335412543488 <comment><USER2> Law evolves and the law of copyright in particular is ripe for "disruption" \- and I say this not as one who opposes the idea of copyright but, on the contrary, as one who strongly supports it.

It is right that the author of a creative work get protection for having conceived that work and reduced it to tangible form. Developers do this all the time with their code. So too do many, many others. Many today disagree with this because they grew up in a digital age where copyright was seen as simply an unnecessary impediment to the otherwise limitless and basically cost-free capacity we all have to reproduce digital products in our modern world and hence an impediment to the social good that would come from widespread sharing of such products for free. Yet, as much as people believe that information ought to be free, it is a fact that simply letting any casual passer-by copy and distribute any creative work with impunity would certainly work to rob those who may have spent countless hours developing such works of the commercial value of their efforts. I will grant that this is a social policy judgment on which the law could come down on either side. I stand with the idea of copyright protection.

Even granting the correctness of copyright as a body of law that protects certain property interests, there are still many abuses in the way it is implemented and enforced. Copyright terms have been extended to the point of absurdity, and certainly well beyond what is needed to give the original author an opportunity to gain the fruits of his or her labor. Enforcement statutes are heavy-handed and potentially abusive, especially as they apply to relatively minor acts of infringement by end-users. And the list goes on.

The point is that many people are fed up with copyright law as currently implemented and, when there is widespread discontent in society over the effects of a law, the time is ripe for a change.

I believe this is where copyright law is today.

The Bono law may have slipped through Congress with nary a dissent in its day but this will not happen again, whatever the lobbying power of Disney and others. And the same is true for the scope of copyright law as it applies to APIs.

Ours is a world of digital interoperability. People see and like its benefits. Society benefits hugely from it. Those who are creatively working to change the world - developers - loath having artificial barriers that block those benefits and that may subject them to potential legal liabilities to boot. Therefore, the idea that an API is copyrightable is loathsome to them. And it is becoming increasingly so to the society as a whole.

The copyright law around APIs had developed in fits and starts throughout the 1980s and 1990s, primarily in the Ninth Circuit where Silicon Valley is located. When Oracle sued Google in this case, that law was basically a mess. Yet Judge Alsup, the judge assigned to this case, did a brilliant synthesis in coming up with a coherent and logically defensible legal justification for why APIs in the abstract should not be protected by copyright. He did this by going back to the purpose of copyright, by examining in detail what it is that APIs do, and by applying the law in light of its original purpose. The result was simple and compelling (though the judicial skill it took to get there was pretty amazing).

Legal decisions are binding or not depending on the authority of the court making them and on whether a particular dispute in under the authority of one court or another when it is heard.

The decision by Judge Alsup is that of a trial judge and hence not legally binding as precedent on any other judge. It could be hugely persuasive or influential but no court is bound to follow it in a subsequent case.

The Federal Circuit decision that reversed Judge Alsup and held APIs to be copyrightable is not that of a trial judge and has much more precedential effect. Yet it too has limited authority. The Federal Circuit Court does not even have copyright as its area of jurisdiction. It is a specialty court set up to hear patent appeals. The only reason it heard this case was because the original set of claims brought by Oracle included patent claims and this became a technical ground by which the Federal Circuit Court gained jurisdiction to hear the appeal. But there are many other Federal Circuit courts in the U.S. and the effect of the Federal Circuit Court decision concerning copyrights is not binding on them. There is also the U.S. Supreme Court. It has the final authority and its decisions are binding on all lower federal courts as concerns copyright law.

The point is that the battle over this issue is not over. It is true that the Federal Circuit decision was a large setback for those who believe APIs should not be subject to copyright. Yet there remains that whole issue of social resistance and that is huge. It will undoubtedly take some time but the law can and does change in ways that tend to reflect what people actually think and want, at least in important areas. No one has a stake in seeing that Oracle be awarded $9 billion in damages just because it bought Sun Microsystems and found an opportunity through its lawyers to make a big money grab against Google. But a lot of people have a stake in keeping software interoperability open and free and many, many people in society benefit from this. Nor is this simply an issue of unsophisticated people fighting the shark lawyers and the big corporations. Many prominent organizations such as EFF are in the mix and are strongly advocating for the needed changes. Thus, this fight over APIs will continue and I believe the law will eventually change for the better.

In this immediate case, I believe the jury likely applied common sense in concluding unanimously that, notwithstanding Oracle's technical arguments, the use here was in fact benign given the ultimate purposes of copyright law. I leave the technical analysis to others but, to me, this seems to be a microcosm of the pattern I describe above: when something repels, and you have a legitimate chance to reject it, you do. Here, the idea of fair use gave the jury a big, fat opening and the jury took it.

<comment><USER3> People complain about the special interests, but some fail to realize that the major backers of Extreme Copyright (TM) are a special interest that we created.

We, the US public, out of the goodness of our hearts and wanting to foster art, gave up our right to "repeat what we heard" (copying, when what you hear is digital) in return for incentives to create art.

And then _bam_ ; decades later the incentives are the de facto baseline, and have been extended with almost no public awareness (let alone debate) using the special interest money that our goodwill created for them.

It is the ultimate checkmate of democracy, and if it weren't so unjust, you would have to hand it to the media industries for playing so masterfully.

Well, good job. You got us. You took the rules we made, and took the public (US, but even more abroad, by exporting your draconian laws via more special interest money) and absolutely destroyed us. You won. Game over.

But wait... not quite. The game is politics. And if you had been content to simply swim in your unimaginable Scrooge McDuck pool of gold dubloons, you would swim until the end of time. But the public is finally starting to notice, and the technorati whose careers and employers (like Google) depend on having a level playing field (even though they try to tilt it in their favor when they can) are starting to notice. I'm not so optimistic that change will come, but if it does, my vote will be for whatever is closest to "burn the fucker to the ground". And some other people feel the same way.

What's the possible consequence of such an extreme change? I guess the risk of fewer Taylor Swifts. Fewer Kany Wests. Fewer Oracles. Fewer Microsofts. Fewer Steve Jobs. Those are such small consequences that, to be honest, they might be additional benefits.

It would be best if the copyright system were reduced to a smouldering ruin, so that the public could better understand exactly what we gave up when the copyright regime was created, and make a more informed decision about which incentives really are needed to make innovation happen. Until we do, the special interests created by those very laws will continue to make us pay for the favor we gave them.

<comment><USER4> > Fewer Oracles. Fewer Microsofts. Fewer Steve Jobs.

Was it so bad back when you could just buy software for money? Before business models built on eyeballs and data mining instead of copyright?

<comment><USER5> Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods to the windows Java extension that would be on all windows computers? Or maybe when office used a hidden format to store files so no one could share files without buying a license? They were not great times at all...

<comment><USER6> > _Like when windows extended Java then started adding incompatibile methods_

Visual J++ was a very usable Java. Had Sun failed to sue it out of existence, the world would have had a Java with a good UI stack developers actually used, an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy, AND almost all packages built for Sun's Java would drop right in without problems. Visual J++ would have created the same effect on the use of Java that Android did, but it would have happened approximately 10 years earlier.

Sun's suit was tremendously destructive of a very useful product that would have helped the cause of Java's wide use. Unnecessary, spiteful, and an own- goal.

EDIT: And less VB, and more Windows applications software running in a managed language runtime, years earlier.

<comment><USER7> > an IDE that was not unusably slow and buggy

Can't argue about the UI stack in general, but IntelliJ is a dream compared to anything Microsoft have ever produced.

<comment><USER6> I'm talking about Forte, circa 2000. That's when Sun sued Microsoft over Visual J++.

Forte later became NetBeans and today it is fine but it was rubbish back then especially compared to Microsoft's tool chain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are the statutory fair use factors the jury was required to consider (17 U.S.C. 107):

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

It's a somewhat surprising result, because two of the factors weigh heavily against Google (it's a commercial work, and was important to Android gaining developer market-share). Oracle's strategy going forward, both in post-trial motions and in any subsequent appeal, will be based on arguing that no rational jury could have applied these factors to the undisputed facts of the case and concluded that the fair use test was met.

It's also not a particularly satisfying result for anybody. If API's are copyrightable, then I can't think of a better case for protecting them than in this one, where Google created a commercial product for profit and there was no research or scientific motivation. It wasn't even really a case (like say, Samba) where copying was necessary to interoperate with a closed, proprietary system. Davlik isn't drop-in compatible with the JVM anyway.

That makes Oracle's win on the subject matter issue basically a pyrrhic victory for anyone looking to protect their APIs. They're protectable, but can't be protected in any realistic scenario.

And if you're in the camp that believes APIs should not be protected, this precedent--if it stands--means that you'll have to shoulder the expense of going to trial on the fair use issue before winning on the merits.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, it sounds like by the letter of the law Google's use was not "fair use", if you grant the assumption that APIs are copyrightable in the first place.

What recourse does Oracle have now? Didn't the Supreme Court decline to take this issue up last time round? Does that mean this case is closed?

<comment><USER9> As Rayiner mentions, first they'll be a post-trial motion to vacate or overrule the jury verdict. Regardless of how those motions are decided the losing side will appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Only after a Ninth Circuit panel and perhaps en banc panel rules will one side or the other try for a cert petition to the Supreme Court.

<comment><USER10> Since Oracle hasn't dropped its patent claims from the complaint (despite the fact that they've already been defeated), doesn't Oracle get to bypass the 9th circuit and vault the case back to the CAFC?

<comment><USER9> Good point. That's a corner of the federal rules I'm not nearly familiar enough with to give you a confident answer.

<comment><USER11> It will return to the federal circuit. The patent issues _were not even appealed_ to the federal circuit the first time.

"Because this action included patent claims, we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1)"

...

"The jury found no patent infringement, and the patent claims are not at issue in this appeal. "

See Oracle America v. Google, Inc. ([http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/content/oracle-america-inc-v- go...](http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/content/oracle-america-inc-v-google-inc- opinion))

The federal circuit will, in turn, pretend to apply ninth circuit law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My favourite part of the trial was when the judge told Oracle that a high schooler could write rangeCheck[1].

[1] [https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/05/16/1612228/judge...](https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/05/16/1612228/judge- to-oracle-a-high-schooler-could-write-rangecheck)

<comment><USER13> My favourite part:

Movement to a few minutes of terse explanations, including what the acronym GNU stands for: GNU is Not Unix.

"The G part stands for GNU?" Alsup asked in disbelief.

"Yes," said Schwartz on the stand.

"That doesn't make any sense,"

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/in-google-v-oracle-the- nerd...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/in-google-v-oracle-the-nerds-are- getting-owned)

<comment><USER14> I never realized how entertaining this trial was.

Schwartz: "Back in 2009, Android WAS lame."

Google atty: "Move to strike, your honor!"

[https://twitter.com/xor/status/730456825649188865](https://twitter.com/xor/status/730456825649188865)

<comment><USER15> Yer, it was absolutely hilarious.

They had to get a tech guy in to open Java files on a computer. They didn't have an IDE installed on there and there were complaints that there were too many folders!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd also just like to give huge props to Sarah Jeong for keeping up such a high-quality live stream of tweets over the course of the entire trial. That's reporting done right.

<comment><USER17> > tweets

> reporting done right

I'm not sure. Surely it would only benefit her if she weren't limited by 140 characters, right?

<comment><USER18> No. You're allowed more than 140 characters because you can tweet more than once. The real time updates were invaluable.

<comment><USER19> How so? This isn't something where you'll have to decide in a split-second wether to take to the streets in response to this or that development. You could argue that there is some value for stock traders (and tbh, given the result, even for them it's basically the same as it was before), but that's about it.

It's just the "breaking news" frenzy applied to social media. Nothing to celebrate, imho.

<comment><USER18> Sorry but this was an example of how a real time feed on twitter can be informative in a way that a long form piece could not. A summary of the trial would not be the same as the minutiae that she was able to convey. It was done really well. If all you get is long form from New Yorker or Le Monde, you're missing out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Whew, Oracle's lawyers and blind greed doesn't get to destroy interoperability for the entire Tech Industry.

But the fact that Oracle could get this close and spin deceit to a non- technical Jury to decide whether using API declarations from an OSS code-base would in some universe entitle them to a $9B payday, is frightening.

<comment><USER21> > But the fact that Oracle could get this close and spin deceit to a non- > technical Jury to decide whether using API declarations from an OSS code- > base would in some universe entitle them to a $9B payday, is frightening.

Yes this was really a close one. I am breathing a sigh of relief now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is it just me, or is this result the worst of both worlds (for the you-and- me's of the world, rather than billion dollar corporates)?

Had APIs been found not to be copyrightable, that would have been great and opened up the development ecosystem for us to use and adapt each other's APIs.

Had it been clear that no this sort of thing wasn't allowed then small developers would have had protection that they could publish their APIs without fear of a deep-pocketed competitor saying "thanks, we're going to muscle you out of the market, using your own design to do it, and ignoring any of that GPL nonsense you've licensed it licensed under, we're just having your API as our own thanks". Not an open world, but at least everyone would be on a level field.

But a "fair use" finding of fact sets no precedent for anything else, gives no protection for the ordinary developer, and essentially means "it turns out you can do this if you're big enough to afford to pay high-tier lawyers for six years". (ie, BigCorp can copy APIs with impunity, but you can't)

</comment><comment><USER23> If you found Sarah's coverage of the trial useful, she is accepting payments on PayPal since she was doing it with her own money: [https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/731687243916529665](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/731687243916529665)

<comment><USER24> It costs her money to post on Twitter?

<comment><USER25> It costs her time, at a minimum, which comes at the opportunity cost of other money-making ventures.

<comment><USER26> She's strengthening her personal brand and potentially gaining access to new clients for future work. I have absolutely no problem with her asking for donations, but let's not be disingenuous :)

<comment><USER27> This is the first time I've seen "do it for the exposure" in the wild ([http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure)). And you even called the other person disingenuous (albeit in jest). I'm impressed.

<comment><USER26> Looks like I missed the part where someone else was making money off her reporting and refusing to pay her, do you happen to have a link?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow. I suddenly have a lot more faith in the courts and juries to land sane verdicts in technology trials. Still sad that it takes a billion dollar company to be able to stand up to this (as anybody smaller would be crushed by the trial expense) but let's celebrate it none the less.

Any lawyers around? I wonder if Google can claim legal expenses back from Oracle.

<comment><USER29> Under the Copyright Act, the judge has discretion to award attorney fees to the prevailing party. [0]

[0] [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505)

<comment><USER28> > Under the Copyright Act, the judge has discretion to award attorney fees to > the prevailing party. [0]

I think that'd be good for the ecosystem as it'd send a message that there will be consequence for pursuing frivolous lawsuits.

<comment><USER30> I don't think it's fair to call this law suit frivolous.

From a developer perspective, the ideal and just end result has always seemed rather obvious. However, the multi-year history of this case demonstrates the correct legal answer not so obvious, at least from a legal perspective.

For example, settling the issue on fair use was definitely not how most people thought/hoped this would shake out way back in the beginning of the law suit(s).

<comment><USER31> This law suit is frivolous based on the assumption that APIs are not copyrightable (a very reasonable assumption in 2009).

<comment><USER32> But the result of the trial was that they _are_ copyrightable, so clearly it wasn't frivolous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Despite the win, I think it would have been far better for the computer industry if Google had bought Sun. Unlike other companies with crap (IMHO ... Nokia, Motorola), Sun actually had stuff of value. This is a lesson that geeks get but I'm not sure MBAs do or will ever get.

<comment><USER34> Sources at the time told me IBM were planning on buying Sun (for the hardware/Telco business) and avoiding anti-trust problems by spinning software off to Red Hat (Java, ZFS, Solaris, etc). They got cold feet over the spectre of bribery investigations against Sun.

I weep for the parallel universe in which Red Hat had been in a position to open all of Sun's technologies properly.

<comment><USER35> RedHat? I don't. Had that happened, Java, ZFS, MySQL, VirtualBox, etc would now likely all be required components of systemd. (Yes, I'm being a little facetious, but I really believe RedHat has some sinister ulterier motives. They've been absolutely horrible with systemd, Gnome, GTK3, etc.)

What happened to Sun was an outright catastrophe, but we've mostly recovered with OpenZFS, MariaDB, Jenkins, LibreOffice, etc. The major piece we're missing is a clean fork of VirtualBox. Android's also not in a good state to replace desktop Java, but it could conceivably be one day at least.

<comment><USER36> To be fair, I use VB every day and it is getting frequent updates and hasn't crashed in 2 years, it used to crash quite often when Sun developed it. Maybe it could be something better, or amazing and different, but it's still free and very stable, so I'm quite happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Great news! This is a win for us software devs :)

I'd like to note that Ars Technica's coverage of the trial has been excellent throughout.

<comment><USER38> No it's not. It effectively means I can copy code without respect to the original author's rights, slap a new license on it, and call it a day. As long as it's under the guise of some higher ideal of software development -- which we know from historical accounts this was definitely not the case.

<comment><USER39> What?

This case had literally nothing to do with copying code.

<comment><USER38> You do realize how this case got to the court it's in, right?

So yes, it most definitely isn't about copying code.

<comment><USER39> >So yes, it most definitely isn't about copying code.

Exactly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Congratulations! It's a pity that previous decision declared APIs copyrightable. This never should have happened. But at least fair use worked out.

I wonder though how universal that ruling would be. Is any reimplementation of APIs going to be fair use, and if not, what are the criteria?

</comment><comment><USER41> Apis are still copyrightable according to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. That's not great, and I hope Congress does something about it for the other languages (eg. C#/.NET) that haven't yet been whitelisted as fair to use by the judicial system.

</comment><comment><USER42> Great news to a degree. It still means APIs can be copy-written which is a bit unfortunate in my opinion. But they won on fair use which is still a victory.

Anyways I wonder how long this is going to keep going on for as I'm assuming Oracle will appeal.

</comment><comment><USER43> See, as ever, Florian Mueller for a... different perspective: [http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/oracle-v-google-jury- find...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/oracle-v-google-jury-finds-in- favor-of.html)

<comment><USER44> His level of insanity and hatred is beyond belief

<comment><USER45> No. He's a paid consultant to Oracle and Microsoft (see: [http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-to-google-which- blogge...](http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-to-google-which-bloggers-did- you-pay-off-2012-8?op=1)) and his employers get their money's worth.

<comment><USER46> He still seems like a sociopath. Taking money to poison communities does not glorify it.

<comment><USER45> I didn't say he's not scummy, just that he's not insane. It's my belief that he's get paid well to say scummy things, which is rational if not tasteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What impact does this have on reverse engineering private APIs and reimplementing them? And selling those reimplementations?

Can I reverse engineer the private API of a mobile app, then implement my own client to talk to its servers?

What if I create my own "bridge" API to talk to the private API? Can I then sell access to the bridge API, allowing developers to use the private API of the app through my service?

And how does this relate to, e.g. running private world of warcraft servers with modded code that allows purchasing in-game items? (See [http://www.themarysue.com/blizzard-private-server- lawsuit/](http://www.themarysue.com/blizzard-private-server-lawsuit/))

<comment><USER48> These kinds of questions are why this court case is so incredibly disastrous. Oracle has really done humanity an enormous disservice here, and any clients of theirs should immediately sever contracts in return for their blatant attempt to destroy software development. I'm not fucking exaggerating. If you thought software patents were bad, Oracle just unleashed a whole new level of hell.

<comment><USER47> I'm not sure if you misread my questions or I misread your answer. I'm asking about _new_ opportunities this precedent allows, not existing ones it forbids. For example, the private WoW server case was ruled in favor of Blizzard. With this new precedent, would a court come to the same conclusion?

<comment><USER15> The OP certainly did answer your questions and since you asked the questions you did you probably already know the answers ;-).

<comment><USER47> Haha, cheers. I'm not quite ready to commit to a ;-) just yet however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > "For me, declaring code is not code," Page said.

Unless, of course, the declaring code is declaring declaring code, as in Prolog and its ilk.

</comment><comment><USER50> Now we have to hope this doesn't get overturned by a Circuit judge like it did before. Still, this is excellent news.

<comment><USER51> I'll admit to not really understanding the path this has taken through the courts - I haven't been following that closely though.

<comment><USER16> A short summary:

* Oracle sues Google on copyright grounds.

* Case is overseen by Judge Alsup, who taught himself Java in order to understand the technical merits of the case. Case is split into two phases: copyright and patents.

* A jury finds Google to be infringing on copyright, but deadlocks on the fair-use defense. The jury finds Google to be non-infringing on all patents.

* Judge Alsup breaks the jury's deadlock on copyright by ruling that APIs are not copyrightable in the first place.

* Oracle appeals the patent claim, Google simultaneously appeals the copyright claim (it wasn't 100% in their favor).

* The Federal Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) hears the case due to the patent portion. It overturns Alsup's decision, declaring that APIs are in fact copyrightable. It remands the case back down to Judge Alsup.

* Google petitions the Supreme Court to hear the case instead, but the Court declines the request.

* Judge Alsup oversees a second trial, this time solely on the fair-use merits.

* The jury finds that Google's use of the APIs indeed falls under fair use.

<comment><USER52> The Federal Circuit isn't the Ninth Circuit, and that's really the whole problem. The Federal Circuit is the special-purpose patent appeals court. For a case like this where they were hearing the appeal because there were patent claims, they are supposed to treat the non-patent issues in the manner of the local circuit (9th).

The Federal Circuit has a history of ruling in favor of broader intellectual property rights and being periodically reined in by the Supreme Court. They do it for patents, and when Oracle uses a losing patent claim to get copyright issues before the Federal Circuit, they rule for expanding copyright. If Oracle hadn't included patent claims, the appeal would have gone before the Ninth Circuit and probably lost. The Federal Circuit did a farcical job of applying Ninth Circuit copyright precedent, especially in contrast to the thorough job Alsup did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Oracle will likely appeal, but they'll lose again. Overturning a unanimous jury verdict is very difficult.

</comment><comment><USER54> What I don't understand about this: Why didn't Google/Android use Java under the Open Source license under which it has been provided. Wouldn't that have saved all the trouble?

<comment><USER55> When Google started Android (2005ish, iirc), OpenJDK didn't exist yet.

<comment><USER54> Well that's a simple and convincing answer. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> While it is unpopular among most HN readers that APIs be found to fall under copyright, I don't see how it affects software interoperatability in the long term.

It seems to me that all that this necessitates is for software publishers to include an open license for their APIs, or to release it into the public domain.

In fact, it might even be beneficial, since companies can license different APIs to different customers, and have additional legal force prohibiting the use of APIs that are unofficial or unauthorized to them.

</comment><comment><USER57> Excuse me here but I have to ask. Is this final? Because I've read that Oracle won the case some time ago.

<comment><USER58> The district court originally ruled that APIs weren't copyrightable. The appeals court overturned that decision, ruling that APIs were copyrightable, but that it could be fair use. The case went back to the district court for that point, and the jury now decided that it was in fact fair use.

<comment><USER59> Yep, and that fair use argument is why the SCOTUS declined to hear it at the time. Be interesting to see if it goes back that way or if Oracle decides it's not going to get anything from doing so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I remember that afternoon deserts served in Google restaurants when I worked there were very tasty - I hope everyone is celebrating with a good snack :-)

Seriously, I think this is a good verdict. I think that Oracle has been doing a good job sheparding Java, but this law suit really seemed to me to be too much of a money grab.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is possibly my best-case scenario. APIs are copywriteable (so says the Supreme Court), and this seems reasonable, since some APIs really are very good and treating them like an artistic work has benefits. But implementing them is fair use, preserving the utility of APIs for compatibility. Great news!

<comment><USER62> > _APIs are copywriteable (so says the Supreme Court)_

The Supreme Court denying cert _is not_ an endorsement of a ruling. No precedent is set. They could completely disagree with the lower court's ruling but not take the case for any number of reasons: there's no split between circuits, so they want to let other opinions develop before taking on a subject, they don't believe the case details are a good test case for the subject (something the FSF argued was the case for this suit), etc.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/certiorari](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/certiorari)

<comment><USER63> They also may not have taken the case because it was an interlocutory appeal, and the Supreme Court has a strong bias toward taking appeals of final judgements and avoiding interlocutory appeals unless, in addition to a good reason to take the case, there's also a good reason not to let it go to final judgement before taking it.

It's still possible that the Supreme Court could take this case and Oracle might go back to losing on copyrightability rendering fair use moot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This is fantastic news!

</comment><comment><USER65> So, APIs are still thought as copyright'able and that was a different trial, right?

Now Google was ruled okay to use that single, small function, or what was this about?

A little more info would be nice for those who aren't following this closely.

<comment><USER55> In 2012, court rules Java APIs are not copyrightable. In 2014, that decision was appealed and overruled, declaring Java APIs copyrightable. The case was sent back to determine if Google's reimplementing APIs was "fair use" of copyrighted material.

Now we saw that trial, where jury ruled on fair use. It was fair use.

(nothing to do with any small function, that was in 2012)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> What is the room for appeals here?

This is a massive ruling, heres to hoping it stands

<comment><USER67> This is already the retrial, I'm pretty sure it's dead now.

<comment><USER68> Nope. Oracle can appeal to the Federal Circuit.

<comment><USER67> Of course they can. But appeals typically have little chance of success, and a case that has already gone all up the appeal chain once and had a complete retrial?

No way.

<comment><USER68> It hasn't had a complete retrial. In the first trial, the judge (Alsup) ruled that APIs cannot be copyrighted. Google also had a fair-use defense, but didn't waste time on the trial with that, because Alsup had already ruled that APIs could not be copyrighted. Oracle lost that trial.

Oracle appealed, and at the appeals court won a ruling that APIs _could_ be copyrighted. The case got sent back down for a trial that was _only_ about the fair-use defense, not a complete retrial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> If Oracle decides to drop Java development, I wonder who will bother to pick it up.

Surely not Google, if they hadn't bothered the first time around.

<comment><USER70> Considering IBM/SAP are vowing to bring Swift to masses on servers and clients. Apple/MS dropped Java quite a while back. I do not see any big vendor with serious money to pick Java development. Redhat is there but I doubt they will when they might be looking to push Ceylon.

Of course it is hypothetical as I absolutely do not think Oracle will consider doing such thing.

<comment><USER69> Oracle had already a big bet on Java before they bough Sun.

Many of the Oracle-hate group aren't aware of the NC Computer and the JavaStation, or that already in 2000 most of the Oracle GUI tools were Java based.

So on one hand they have lots of interest in Java and have been better than Sun in its last years, but they also have not been handling JEE, JavaFX and mobile support on iOS and WP that well.

Also many of the nice goodies in language evolution have been postponed for Java 10 (AOT, value types, JNI replacement).

Being too old at this game I have the same feelings that Java might follow Clipper or Delphi footsteps, if Oracle looses interest in the tech stack and no one picks it up, regardless how ingrained Java is nowadays.

IBM is not only looking at Swift, they also have made J9 modular as a framework for implementing language runtimes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Is this legit? If so, thank goodness.

<comment><USER72> [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-wins- trial...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/google-wins-trial- against-oracle-as-jury-finds-android-is-fair-use/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> So is this really over for good now? Can Oracle appeal and drag this on for another decade?

</comment><comment><USER74> I for one would like to have a public digital recording of the actual trial available...

</comment><comment><USER75> Hopefully soon we can stop focusing on legalities and get back to building cool stuff.

<comment><USER76> When's the last time Oracle has built "cool stuff"?

<comment><USER77> April 28th, 2016 according to vagrant on my Mac [https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog)

At least I think it is pretty cool (and very gracious of Oracle)

<comment><USER52> You're not exactly setting the bar very high for Oracle. VirtualBox was mostly GPL'd before its developer was bought by Sun, which was later bought by Oracle. Saying that it's "very gracious" of Oracle to not kill a successful project or fire all its developers makes it sound like you've been brainwashed under an oppressive tyranny.

<comment><USER77> You're a special kind of ingrate. Oracle spends a great deal of its treasure on open source software. They maintain and innovate on those projects at great cost to themselves. You have no leg to stand on. Oracle is doing a nice thing for the engineering community. They don't have to, but they do. It is nice of them. You are being rude

<comment><USER52> > "They maintain and innovate on those projects at great cost to themselves."

 _Net_ cost? Most certainly not. That's not how Oracle works at all.

Saying that they aren't entirely opposed to participating in mutually beneficial arrangements is still setting the bar pretty damn low and is not a distinction worthy of any praise.

<comment><USER77> That's not how favors work. When someone does something nice for the engineering community you use it with gratitude (if you do use it). Oracle makes cool software. It doesn't cost anything to aknowledge it, but it sure makes you look like an ass to argue that they don't. So many people use vagrant right now and it just works because of VirtualBox. That's cool. No bar to clear. It's just nice that Oracle paid for that

<comment><USER78> Vagrant works with many other VMs as of version 1.1. Oracle didn't create VirtualBox, they bought it. I avoid using it, like I avoid depending on _any_ Oracle-owned software. Especially if it means I would be obligated to thank them for it.

<comment><USER77> Oracle paid for all the work done on VirtualBox. They paid for the past work and they pay for current work. You can dismiss it as something they bought, but that doesn't address that they paid for all the past work done on it when they bought it. It doesn't address that they pay to maintain and innovate on it. Everyone knows vagrant works with other VMs. Almost everyone uses VirtualBox. You are not obligated to thank them, but you are an ingrate if you do use it and don't have an attitude of thankfulness that it works well for you (if that is the case). I mean, if a person does that they really are ungrateful. What else do they complain about? Do I hate working with them? Probably. Attitude and acknowledgement of the way things actually work and who pays for them is a big part of being a nice person

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Perhaps the jury was not as clueless as some here were assuming?

</comment><comment><USER80> Would swizzling methods violate copyright?

</comment><comment><USER81> Patents and Open source is Oxymoron

</comment><comment><USER82> That was expected. Happy for Google.

</comment><comment><USER83> Good for google

</comment><comment><USER84> Oracle is evil.

</comment><comment><USER85> IANAL

</comment><comment><USER86> This is 100% inaccurate

That story leaves out significant details, and his description of the reason is wrong. He leaves out significant prior sources and reasons, to the point your statement "It was not created to help artists or whoever" is simply wrong.

Wikipedia provides a far better history with extensive sources [1]. Note for example the section "Early Developments" where they list precursors to anything in your source as having significant components of individual and author rights.

Note also in the US copyright law _was_ started by author guilds wanting _author_ protection, and the first federal copyright act in 1790 was about protection for authors, not for printers. This was an extension of many states laws that had passed _author_ protections.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law)

<comment><USER87> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11782568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11782568) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER86> It was a reply to DannyBee's post claiming copyright "was not created to help artists or whoever". It starts with "This is 100% inaccurate" which is why I began this the same way.

I note others have since reposted the same links in reply to DannyBee for the same reason.

How it is off topic since it directly addresses that claim?

Did it get detached from the parent, removing context?

<comment><USER87> It's off-topic because it turned into a tedious back-and-forth in which you became increasingly uncivil. You've done that repeatedly in arguments on HN. Please don't do that.

When comments get aggressive and litigious, good conversation flees the room. Such spats also go inevitably off-topic, since how-right-I-am-and-how-wrong- you-are is not a topic.

<comment><USER86> You're right. I'll do better in the future. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> thank god.

</comment><comment><USER81> Say no to software patents

</comment><comment><USER89> Nelson Muntz would rejoice at this verdict. Oracle's claim was laughable.

</comment><comment><USER90> Google copies API from Oracle, yet I still have to come up with my own solutions to get a job at Google? Fuckin' Google.

</comment><comment><USER91> Today is a sad day for Silicon Valley. Our legal process has demonstrated how incompetent it is when it comes to Technology IP protection.

<comment><USER92> How so? My understanding was that Oracle was suing Google over the use of an API. This seems quite unreasonable to me but that could be due to my tech background and lack of legal knowledge.

<comment><USER93> While I don't really agree with the OP, I totally understand the sentiment. It's really an acute issue between legal copyright and the new reality of modern computing. It used to be that copyright sustained our industries. Pottery, Pattern designs on fabric, and later music and films.

In the modern world however, it seems positively damaging, with the likes of China, with no respect for IP and copyright rocketing ahead, most of the innovation happening in the west is in ways to bypass it, GNU is Not UNIX, Lame ain't an MP3 Encoder... and the old guard that depended on the old way falling ever further behind.

In the days of getting material simply by asking a computer to fetch what you want (and nothing more than a few watts of electricity being consumed to do so) copyright simply doesn't make sense in any respect.

But I suspect that opinion is just as unwelcome as the OPs.

<comment><USER94> Additional reading material: [http://questioncopyright.org/learn](http://questioncopyright.org/learn)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Share your 'Aha's: links.betterexplained.com - <AUTHOR> http://betterexplained.com/articles/share-your-ahas-linksbetterexplainedcom/ <comment><USER2> Hi Brett, thanks for posting and for setting up slinkset.

I'm hoping to tap into some of the Hacker News wisdom in terms of sharing epiphanies :).

<comment><USER3> betterexplained kicks absolute ass. Resources at comparable standards are extremely rare. Your slinkset may very well be recursive: [Posts betterexplained.com]

<comment><USER2> Thanks -- really glad you're finding it useful. Yeah, don't mind the self references if there's meta discussions people want to have :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a great idea, this kind of "big picture" articles are worth much more than news "bits and pieces".

</comment><comment><USER5> No offense, but how is the launch of a slinkset site a top HN story?

<comment><USER6> It's not the mechanics behind the site that is important, it is the concept. Betterexplained is a site providing valuable insights, and <http://links.betterexplained.com> promises to become a great resource for understanding the world.

Hackers care about curiosity, learning and understanding, hence the interest.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does one get into contracting for financial institutes? - <AUTHOR>

I've been trying to get into some contract developer roles for financial institutes in London. I must've applied to about 10 different roles and haven't heard anything back. My CV/Resume is one of an experienced developer (12yrs) but just don't have any/much finance experience.<p>Yes - I've considered the possibility that I'm shit (I'm fairly certain I'm not). But other than that how does one get into contracting for financial institutes? <comment><USER2> Experience of finance is required, or you had better be cheap. Experience of a product or a platform is better, but you can't understand those with out the financial knowledge . They will teach you both if you go permanent.

Typically, you need a specific skill, and they hire for that. The more exotic the better. Java? no. C++ on unix? more so. Front Arena or Murex? Easy.

Back office jobs most likely won't give you the financial market/product exposure, but closer you get to front office the less coding happens (and you won't get close without experience.)

My "in" to the industry was having perl as well as their other requirements, which made me unique amongst the other applicants (perm role). I gradually transitioned to being a c++ guy as that paid more and I was optimizing for cash.

How to get there from where you are? We'd need to know "where you are". as cjbenedikt says, what do you do, know etc?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My experience is quite varied but I'd say mainly anything MS stack oriented, with some Java and C++. I've also got quite a lot.of web and mobile, which I appreciate isn't 100% applicable to the financial sector.

Perhaps more relevant is my hobbyist experience building poker bots, so I know about some complex Maths, AI and game theory but I don't have a degree so I know that a potential employer may not appreciate my skill set in those areas.

I would be willing to go cheap for maybe a year until I've got a better history in the financial sector. How cheap is cheap?

<comment><USER3> where are you based?

<comment><AUTHOR> But I could work from anywhere Uk or Europe based

<comment><USER3> how can I get in touch - London is pretty good - am temporarily based in Frankfurt

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure thing mate, my email address is mc underscore gringo at hotmail dot com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Financial industry as a whole is under a lot of stress right now. The jobs opps out there are shrinking...Banks talk about going lean, AKA layoffs. If you can't get into an investment bank, go for a tertiary opportunity. Try retail or some insurance company for a year or two.

You need Java or C++. Web/SOA/ and for some reason they all want multithreading experience, even though 80% of the work is server side. Familiarize yourself with the Java Concurrency package.

<comment><AUTHOR> Web & SOA are a given, design patterns and high performance concurrency are all a given and there's strong signs of that all over my CV. Also, I've worked at Insurance companies before, I thought all of that might be enough to get my foot in the door.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> what exactly would you like to do? work as a freelance developer? what languages do you code in?</comment>


Real-Time Expression Transfer for Facial Reenactment - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXVspNUeiWw <comment><USER2> I wonder how long it is going to take until the public at large and courts are aware of these advances.

This was possible earlier by any actor with a large enough budget (state security forces, hollywood studios, ...) - but it's now within the reach of just about anyone (or will be within 5 years, when released as a PhotoShop / Premiere / FinalCut plugin).</comment>


On a Mission - <AUTHOR> http://a16z.com/2014/02/11/on-a-mission/ <comment><USER2> Should the mission slide go before or after the up-and-to-the-right graph? :)

Joking aside, the last reason to have a mission is to get funding. The work is not worth the effort if it isn't meaningful. You are always optimizing for life, not money (although money is a part of life of course).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not buying this.

First, it's funny that "building great products" is considered a mission. No. That's what a company does to make money. Money is the mission. If you just want to build great stuff, then don't call it a product or don't charge for it. Start a non-profit, build it, then give it away.

Not to be pedantic, but it just feels like the last stop of self-worshiping capitalism when it's considered a mission to build stuff for sale. That's kind of the default with capitalism. The question is, what's the real vision or meaning behind the product/company? What goal is it meant to achieve?

Beyond that, he's making these statements at a time when we are seeing a glut of the most trivial products/services that are not exactly world-changing. In fact, many have decried the lack of meaning and unwillingness to tackle hard problems in SV.

So, it just seems like we're moving the goalposts. SV has become a vision- less, vapid place, that simply seeks the easiest path to making money? No problem. Just redefine the word "meaning" and the word "mission" and voila!

<comment><USER4> It takes money to build things at scale. Our company has an awesome mission to empower artists by providing them with high quality exposure. Nobody is donating millions of dollars for us to do this out of the kindness of their hearts and their charity should go to starving people. That doesn't mean what we do isn't important or meaningful. In the absence of a truly charitable cause, the only way to provide this solution is by bringing in revenue and there is nothing wrong with charging for a service that provides value. Marc is saying that they look for founders doing things they find meaning in because you build something bigger when you do it for a purpose beyond money. That doesn't mean it doesn't take earning money to fulfill the mission.

<comment><USER3> I don't mean that there's something wrong with making money. I am not even saying that there's something wrong with making money purely for the sake of making money. I also don't suggest that seeking-profit means that a company has no mission.

I am simply saying that making a product, in itself, is not a mission to be held above the aim of any other capitalist endeavor. That is, simply saying "my mission is to build great products" is meaningless. Is that it? Full-stop? Well, if so, then just say "my mission is to make money"; else, what is otherwise the point of building something great and calling it a product?

And, what we see coming out of SV has been to a large extent void of any real mission apart from making money. So, contrary to the article, I think that there are plenty of people from investors to founders to employees who are simply chasing a buck. So much so, that from outside SV (and from many quarters within), it has become the understood ethos of the valley.

If that's the deal, then OK. But, let's not pretend it's something else.

<comment><USER5> "So, contrary to the article, I think that there are plenty of people from investors to founders to employees who are simply chasing a buck. So much so, that from outside SV (and from many quarters within), it has become the understood ethos of the valley."

Those VCs are not AZ16 + those startups are not the future facebooks or googles of the world.

<comment><USER3> > _Those VCs are not AZ16 + those startups are not the future facebooks or > googles of the world_

Perhaps not. But, when the article is quoting Jobs as saying:

"I want to make a ding in the universe. I want to make beautiful products that people love."

It makes me wonder how we're defining _mission_. Making products that people love is what every company strives to do. Doesn't seem like much of a standard to me, and declaring that by so doing you hope to make a dent in the universe doesn't make it any moreso.

So, I'd ask Mr. Andreessen, "Is that it? Does the desire to make products that people love qualify for a16z's mission requirement?" Because, if so, then I'm having trouble seeing where that investment philosophy really differs.

The other part is with regard to recruiting and the overall SV ethos. It may be true that select people want to work for companies with a mission. And, maybe many do-- _all things being equal_. But, his "insight" that a person would rather work for $120K plus a mission than $120K and no mission is self- evident and doesn't tell us anything. The test of his theory is whether people are willing to work for $60K plus a mission.

And the thing is we know that so many people are really just chasing a buck. We see this in what has been coming out of SV; the glut of copycat and uninspired businesses aimed at this or that trivial opportunity and the relative dearth of companies taking on really hard or "mission-worthy" challenges.

I am not saying that there are zero companies of the latter ilk. I am saying that this article is making statements about the current reality that just don't ring true. Look no further than the "fail-fast", "iterate quickly", "look for pivots", "find product-market fit" culture that has dominated SV over recent years. Do any of those things sound conducive to building companies that are on a mission? Or do they sound more applicable to companies that are just looking to make a buck any way they can?

Maybe Mr. Andreessen is decrying that same culture. But, the article doesn't help by making declarations about the current state that don't appear to be accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if I have a mission or not.

On one hand, in the "Rich or King?" formulation, I want to get rich. I don't want to be running my company twenty years from now. I'll want to retire (hopefully a very wealthy man) and go do other things that interest me - because there are far, far more interesting things to do in the world than there is time to do them anyway. Getting rich is, among other things, a way of simplifying the process of doing all those things that are interesting but not financially self-sustaining.

On the other hand, I want to change this little corner of the world, where a bunch of professional nerds like me suffer seemingly endless frustration and grief trying to make the computer systems that we get paid to work on and occasionally love actually keep running. I hate system downtime, in part because I hate the kind of work involved in downtime - digging through different systems for clues, calling buddies on other teams for their clues, giving status reports on the status reports, and beating our collective heads against the wall trying to get the information required to actually _do our jobs_ \- that is, get the downed systems back up again.

I admit it, I like working on big enterprise systems. I like debugging them, and I like making them better. It may be Stockholm Syndrome at this point, but it's pretty fun sometimes. And I like my colleagues who work on them with me, the special balance of discipline and imagination it takes to do ops and development on really big systems. I want to make their lives better.

And then one day I had this idea, and saw how I could make life a little better for all of us, and save time, money, and credibility for our employers in the bargain. And if I can get rich along the way, all the better.

Is that a mission? Or just a mission statement? Does it matter?

<comment><USER7> Hmmm...I see signals of both in what you say:

I think the mission to make a life a little better in a specific way is a true mission. Solving a frustration that you truly hate is a common factor in many successes.

That said, I also tend to see the most successful entrepreneurs much more concerned about the mission than retirement. Not sure if go on to other things meant Bill Gates style or tropical beach style. If you are truly mission oriented, then you would presumably care more about the mission than yourself. Retirement is an afterthought.

<comment><USER6> This gets back to the problem that the "mission" when we talk about software startups generally involves making a lot of money as well. If you want a software mission without promise of wealth for the work, you do open source (I actually briefly considered open sourcing this project, and I wouldn't say it is absolutely ruled out. But that's a one-way hash function, so there's no need to commit now).

This past weekend, I gave up most of the time I'd normally spend working on my startup on something else instead - playing in two different bands in a jug band competition! We're talking about people who actively opposed to paying anybody anything for the work, who fight tooth and nail to win temporary possession of a freaking _waffle iron_! And I'd be really damned proud if one of my bands won that waffle iron, too - it's been a prize for over 30 years.

What did I get out of it? My closest musical partner and I put together something of a dream band of some of our musician friends, and we jammed out Stairway to Heaven in under five minutes in front of 300 people. Financially, that's worth less than nothing. Emotionally, I'll always remember that moment.

Playing good music is a mission for me. Supporting the musical community and cultural history of Minneapolis is a mission. But those aren't missions that pay my mortgage.

This is what squicks me out a little about all the people marketing themselves on the internet who claim to have a "passion" to do <something boring>. They might find the work interesting and rewarding, but passionate? It sounds dishonest and self-serving.

I'd like to build something that is valuable, something that lasts, something that is truly hard to build in a multi-year way. Is that a mission? Maybe. Is that a passion? NO. The desire to create something big and powerful, that's passion. But the thing I'm actually creating? That's the map, not the territory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you actually want to pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you don't. And I guess you would rather do that, than not have one, but clearly it helps enormously to have a real mission."

Which is why all HN job postings contain keywords like "change" and "disrupt."

Also, if you have a purely ideological mission with no plan to make money with it, you shouldn't be starting a business and getting investors. You should be starting a non profit and getting donors. The difference is, investors expect to be payed back.

<comment><USER9> >Also, if you have a purely ideological mission with no plan to make money with it, you shouldn't be starting a business and getting investors. You should be starting a non profit and getting donors. The difference is, investors expect to be payed back.

Or you can have the best of both worlds: make the thing you are doing because you want change sustainable, so you dont have to beg to anybody and can just go on making it happen..

I think is that what he was talking about.. you try to make a dream come true.. than make it sustainable somehow.. becoming rich? maybe.. but thats not the primary goal.

I think it has a lot to do with the personality.. Machiavel already stated that if a king need troops, its better to hire mercenaries only as a last case.. soldiers that fight for ideals are much more powerful.. i've read that when i was a teenager and never forget of that part..

So the ideological fellow is unbeatable, because passion is the most powerful human fuel ever "invented" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> He is making the mistake of looking at the successes without knowing the failed companies' strategies. The successes may have this in common, but so may the failures.

</comment><comment><USER11> The irony of, "[t]he Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you actually want to pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you don't."

I've seen a lot of founders actually start off this way, they come up with a mission post product. The best are actually capable of being delusional enough to believe this mission over time.

</comment><comment><USER12> AFAIK, Zuckerberg, and Page and Brin, STILL have voting control of their companies, all the way from day 0 to IPO. So not just "I want the world's information to be indexed", but " _I_ want to index the world's information". etc.

<comment><USER13> Or they think they're the best people equipped to do that and they don't want to give up control and have the mission lose out (perfectly understandable). It's not purely self-interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Small note: I think what Steve Jobs said was "make a dent in the universe", not "make a ding in the universe"

</comment><comment><USER15> From a time when one had to read the back of the software box to check for Windows or MacOS compatibility: "Mosaic Communications Corporation intends to be the premier provider of open software that enables people and companies to exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global networks."

</comment><comment><USER16> This resonates well with a16z is doing (imagine they were a startup, and they were investing in themselves).

a16z wants to help people (who are predominantly using software and engineering) change the world. They plan to do this through VC investments, high caliber recruiting, etc. and will happen to become wealthy along the way.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think many people on this thread don't understand the importance of "mission". Mission plays a big role in hiring the best talent - without a mission, you are like a rudderless ship. You may make money in the short-term but you are not building a great company for the future.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am building robots to create strong AI. I've tried to think of something more important and impactful than strong AI, but that's it. It's why I'm here. How about you?

<comment><USER18> That sounds wonderfully interesting. Care to be a bit more specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Then why did they invest in Zynga multiple times?

</comment><comment><USER20> why is this on hacker news? this is just an advertisement, e.g. to speculators</comment>


Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-to-larry-ellison-and-kathleen-wilson-thompson-as-board-directors-11546003507 <comment><USER2> Bruce Scott, the co-founder of Oracle says, "I remember Larry very distinctly telling me one time: Bruce, we can't be successful unless we lie to customers." And adds: "All the things that you would read in books of somebody being a leader, he wasn't. But he was tenacious; he would never give up on anything." [0]

Elon stretches the truth constantly. Should be a good fit.

[0]: [https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/01/larry-ellison-hearsay- we-c...](https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/01/larry-ellison-hearsay-we-cant-be- successful-if-we-dont-lie-to-customers/)

<comment><USER3> > _" Elon stretches the truth constantly."_

That's putting it gently. Putting aside his twitter spats, Tesla is still prominently advertising _" Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars"_[0] even though their cars do not contain LIDAR, which essentially every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree is necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars[1][2].

[0] [https://www.tesla.com/autopilot](https://www.tesla.com/autopilot)

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mobileye-ceo-tesla- self-d...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/mobileye-ceo-tesla-self-driving- cars/)

[2][https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars- luminar-...](https://www.wired.com/story/lidar-self-driving-cars-luminar- video/)

<comment><USER4> > every expert in the field unconnected to Tesla seems to agree [lidar] is > necessary to implement Level 5 self driving cars

As someone that doesn't know anything about self-driving cars, how can this be true? Humans can drive cars with only visual input. Why can't AI?

<comment><USER5> Human eyes don't work anything like cameras. The eye processes information that isn't just intensities of photons and their wave lengths—which is the only information collected by cameras. See Walter Pitt's "What the Frog Eyes Tell the Frog Brain" for an introduction: 'Fundamentally it shows that the eye speaks to the brain in a language already highly organized and interpreted, instead of transmitting some more or less accurate copy of the distribution of light on the receptors.'

<comment><USER6> A simple abstraction here: we put two high-quality monitors before our eyes and get all the data from them. Can we continue driving this way? Absolutely. This means that no matter how our eyes actually work, an array of RGB pixels is enough. I'd go further and say that a 64 x 64 grayscale camera at 10 fps is enough to drive a car. The real magic happens in the brain that reconstructs the 3D model and predicts what happens next.

<comment><USER5> That is an analogy not an abstraction but if you had read the paper or the single quote I provided, you would know that even relatively simple eyes (such as those of the frogs which cannot see still objects) don't only process a distribution of light intensity and frequency. The eye measures other information that is lost by the camera including photon phase, arrival time, polarization, orbital angular momentum, linear momentum, and probably many more measurements. More so, this is done by specialized organelles of the eye rather than by the brain.

<comment><USER6> It's great that eyes can detect polarization and orbital momentum. My point is that none of that info is needed to drive a car.

<comment><USER5> That's true, but the main point is that current software still relies on sampling. Eyes don't sample.

<comment><USER6> And this is irrelevant also, because we can introduce sampling the way I described and can continue driving just fine.

<comment><USER5> I've thought about it and yes this does make sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After his failure, as virtually the only Theranos board member with a high- tech background, to provide any good advice on tech development to Elizabeth Holmes, this seemed incredible to me. Then, I read this in the statement: "Larry is also a big believer in Tesla's mission, having purchased 3 million shares earlier this year."

So, Musk was required to introduce more outside independence to his board, per agreement with the government. He chose one of the least credible board members he could, and one who owned a lot of shares in Tesla to boot. Aha. I think I understand now.

<comment><USER8> Both Ellison and Musk are vying for the position of "real life Tony Stark", I will wager in the next year they will have a major falling out.

<comment><USER7> It is two very large egos. But, wasn't Ellison a board member for Apple when Steve Jobs was CEO? So apparently he can get along with other big egos pretty well.

<comment><USER9> Ellison was a very close friend of Jobs. At least as per Jobs biography by Isaacson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my eyes, Larry Ellison on the Tesla BoD just damaged the brand of Tesla by an order of magnitude.

<comment><USER11> My thoughts exactly. I've lusted over the Model S for years, and the minute that they become available in my country I'll be the first in line.

But, now that means doing business with a company owned by One Real Asshole Called Larry Ellison? I wouldn't dare. The way his most well-known company treats its clients is so grotesque that I wouldn't even want to work at a company that uses its products. They are extremely abusive.

For the first time in Tesla's history, with all its obstacles and negative press, I now fear for the brand reputation.

<comment><USER12> How does Oracle treat their clients badly? Honestly curious, never worked with them.

<comment><USER13> They're absolute assholes during license audits and negotiations. They're one of only two companies to earn a spot on my "Never voluntarily do business with" list.

<comment><USER14> And the other?

<comment><USER13> The other is Verisign, but I am far less passionate and communicative about that one as it was a result of a singular (albeit terrifically bungled) incident, not an on-going and top-down strategy to be a dickish company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 3 million shares. Am I doing the math wrong or is that somewhere in the ball park of 500M to 1B depending on when they were purchased? That's quite a display of confidence.

<comment><USER16> Yup, it's a billion-ish USD at today's price of about $332/share. That's about 3% of Larry's reported net worth.

<comment><USER15> Geez. Okay I didn't realise he was hyper rich. Well, I'm delighted for anyone to want to support electric cars.

<comment><USER17> It's hard to think about the wealth of extremely wealthy people intuitively. Just for added perspective, he bought an entire Hawai'ian island called Lanai.

<comment><USER18> And Lanai is not just some some little place (140sq mi). It is about 1/4 the size of Oahu or Kauai [1]. 3% of the island is still own by other people/entities.

[1][https://email@example.com,-158.324...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-158.3241197,8z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x795536d9a3986425:0xf609afa076d8b8b5!8m2!3d20.8165975!4d-156.9273193)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The same guy who encouraged Elizabeth Holmes to ignore her engineers in favor of over the top promotion. Also a board member who failed (or chose not) to detect the underlying fraud...

Every time I consider closing out my Tesla short position something like this happens and I get more confident that something is awry.

<comment><USER20> I'm no fan of Ellison or Oracle. But a guy worth $60 billion with decades long ties and influence in media and government investing in TSLA and serving on its board is not something that should make shorts happy.

<comment><USER21> This. It's not surprising at all how emotional and "short" sighted people are being about Ellison because "Oracle sucks".

I despise Oracle as much as the next guy but if I were in Elon's shoes I'd want Ellison on my board. The car business is tough, really tough. At one point the database business was really tough. Ellison achieved a near monopoly. Despite our views on the quality his software. Tech people were not his customers, CIO's were. He gave them exactly what they wanted.

Ellison is shrewd, not stupid. Churning out shit cars would be stupid. Helping Elon cut waste and increase sales would be shrewd. Perhaps Ellison, if anything, could temper Elon's boundless optimism and pet projects.

<comment><USER22> It seems to me that you just made the argument for the opposition. We know that Ellison was successful in a business that involved selling big contracts to a small number of purchasers spending from a budget of company or taxpayer money. But that's not Tesla's business. Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their own money on a product with lots of similar competitors? Maybe? But he doesn't have a track record of doing that.

The retort here might be that people who have a track record of being "good at business" are good at _all_ business. I personally don't buy that. I think too much executive decision-making is guesswork based on pattern-matching to prior experience for that to hold; if you have no prior experiences with a matching pattern, you're no more or less qualified than the next smart person making it up as they go.

<comment><USER23> > Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their > own money on a product with lots of similar competitors?

are you buying a battery-backed electric power storage substation?

didn't think so..

tesla isn't just about cars

which isn't to say i like musk or ellison

<comment><USER22> Hmm, that's a good point. I'm definitely more bullish on their power storage business, so if Ellison pushes them further that direction since it's more similar to the kind of business he knows, then maybe that's a good idea. Maybe Tesla is also big enough at this point to support multiple divisions with different customer bases and business models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cripes. The "pedo guy" thing made me cringe and reaffirmed that Elon is a fallible human, but this is the first time as a Tesla owner I'm worried about the leadership of the company.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fascinating. Kathleen Wilson-Thompson is a senior manager at a huge American company, still there doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia article about her.

<comment><USER6> "Senior manager" isn't a remarkable achievement. It's just a role or position in a company that needs to be filled in. She happened to be the one who got picked (for various reasons). If she founded a company with $1B profits a year, it would be a different story.

<comment><USER26> This was downvoted, perhaps because people read your comment as being dismissive or contemptuous of her achievements, which I don't think you really meant to do.

I think the point you meant to make is that being a senior manager at a big company doesn't rate highly enough to warrant a dedicated Wikipedia page - which is more a comment on Wikipedia's notability criteria.

Let's agree that it is impressive and commendable for her to have achieved such a level of seniority at Walgreen's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Oh wow. I was pretty much decided that my next car will be a Tesla Model 3. With Ellison? Nope nope nope. I don't want to support people like that.

<comment><USER28> I'm not sure why you get downvoted. It seems like an honest opinion and I share it also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A lot of people seem negative about this. Can someone explain why? Are there any implications I should expect (as a Tesla owner and stockholder)?

<comment><USER30> Well, it's sort of weird. He's never really been involved in a company that manufactures, i don't believe. Plus his legacy is that of maximizing licensing fees which isn't really in Tesla's wheelhouse given their history of opening patents.

Maybe he's being brought in to fight the right to repair and help lock down Tesla's to maximize some sort of dealer /service model?

Or maybe this is some sort of long play to get Tesla stuck on Oracle's platform :-)

<comment><USER31> Its the beginning of the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yay, that settles it. Now I definitely can't afford a Tesla. The car maybe, but the legal team that should go with it, nope. Current owners, make sure you have a lawyer on retainer.

<comment><USER33> haha wow, what a perspective.

thanks for this

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yup, _that_ Larry Ellison. I'm not sure whether this is good news or not.

<comment><USER35> He invented the cloud

<comment><USER36> Or didn't invent the cloud:

Exhibit A -> "What the hell is cloud computing?"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FacYAI6DY0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Given Tesla's current issues with how they have been reported to treat their workforce, while Larry might be useful in terms of finance and contacts, I'm more interested in discovering what Kathleen is bringing to the table and what her attitudes to things like unions and employee rights in general might be. I suspect that could be at least as make or break as anything Larry might do here.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, she seems clearly brought in to help with the safety and legal issues with the workforce. Hopefully she can help actually fix the problems and not just manage and price the fallout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't know if this is good or bad or what. But at least it seems like Larry Ellison is someone that will never be intimidated by Elon Musk.

</comment><comment><USER40> I guess someone needs advanced access to cryopod batteries.

Still not quite the level of Dropbox '14.

<comment><USER41> dropbox '14?

<comment><USER42> When Condoleezza Rice was appointed to the board of Dropbox

[https://www.wired.com/2014/04/dropbox-rice- controversy/](https://www.wired.com/2014/04/dropbox-rice-controversy/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> To put in context the remark that Ellison made about lying to customers that is referenced in the top rated comment, this happened during a sales cycle to Bank of America in 1981-1983 timeframe (can't remember exact year). It's featured in the 2006 Bloomberg Ellison video bio (link below) and it's where Ellison wanted to exaggerate the number of Oracle programmers/engineers from 3 to 15. I have no sympathy for Bank of America, but that's because they're a bank who screws over regular ppl somewhat directly. Oracle has the decently to put a few middlemen in the process.

NOTE: I'm a liberal arts major who was hired straight out of college during the GFC of 2008 for a non-technical role by Oracle and then later they trained me and put me in an engineering slot (!) so I'll always be in their debt/totally bias. The above story I thought was somewhat relevant / interesting nonetheless + I hate Bank of America and now bank at USAA.

[https://youtu.be/mB2V0BXH608](https://youtu.be/mB2V0BXH608)

</comment><comment><USER44> The board appoints officers, officers run the day to day and establish the operational personality of a company. It probably won't affect the Tesla approach to customers, but it's a very young company so - time will tell. I think in the short term it'd be a bad idea to mess with what's been successful, and focus on the areas that need shoring up.

</comment><comment><USER45> Since Elon the Magnificent clearly doesn't care what the Board says, one can only wonder why Ellison signed on for this ride.

</comment><comment><USER46> Proprietary presidents protect their paired patronage

<comment><USER47> Try saying that 10 times quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wow, what is he bringing to the table?

<comment><USER49> Hopefully about $30-50 per share in "market confidence" in the midst of a bear market. Otherwise Tesla probably goes bankrupt in March.

<comment><USER50> Why would an increase in stock value stop a company from going bankrupt?

<comment><USER49> Tesla issued a bunch of bonds that come due in March. If the stock price is above ~350 then they can pay off the bonds in by converting them to stock. If it's lower than that they pay them off in cash.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-to-pay-march- convertib...](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-to-pay-march-convertible- debt-cash-stock-report-2018-12)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> my guess is that elon musk will leave sooner or later, having to listen to someone with an ego like larry ellison will drive elon insane.

</comment><comment><USER52> Time for all the car magazines to update all their cost of ownership estimates to account for software licensing fees.

</comment><comment><USER53> Lots of discussion here already: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776883)

<comment><USER54> We merged that thread into this one, which was posted earlier.

<comment><USER47> Finally! I've been suggesting for years that HN start merging comment threads for duplicate posts. I hope this gets automated.

<comment><USER54> We've been doing that a long time!

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20comments%20moved)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20merged)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:sctb%20merged)

We don't catch all of them, though. If people see two current threads about the same things with lots of comments, emailing us at email@example.com would be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Expect software updates for Tesla automobiles to become progressively more expensive and more difficult to install, they will also be packaged with adware.

All patents will be closed and litigation against all other electric car makes will ensue.

<comment><USER56> Tesla cars currently use CentOS 6. I could imagine Larry suggesting they move to Oracle Linux.

I would be less concerned with adware and more concerned about short-cutting best practices. For example, prior to Oracle acquiring Sun, they used to build packages that would move the compiler (out of the way) and drop in their own packages under /usr/bin to make Oracle re-linking happy. After the acquisition, all of the push-back on such practices were bypassed. They did similar things in linux RPM packages. Oracle RPM's would install files to /tmp, move files owned by other RPM's out of the way and move their files from /tmp to /bin, thus bypassing any dependency conflicts.

Now imagine them applying this mind-set to the Tesla cars. I am curious what could go wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Dupe

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776883)

<comment><USER57> True, though HN title does not mention Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. The original title and body do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> "As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more complicated!' but it's like: Wow, this is really simple! This company is very straightforward, in its defense. This company is about one man, his alter-ego, and what he wants to inflict upon humanity -- that's it! ...Ship mediocrity, inflict misery, lie our asses off, screw our customers, and make a whole shitload of money. Yeah... you talk to Oracle, it's like, 'no, we don't fucking make dreams happen -- we make money!' ...You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' \-- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle." \-- Bryan Cantrill [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc)

<comment><USER59> Isn't the whole premise of capitalism that people motivated by money will build useful things for the world? How did Ellison conclude that shipping mediocrity is more profitable than shipping excellence?

<comment><USER60> Right now, there's a whole bunch of businesses and governments that are trapped on oracle. That's because they were the only game 20 years ago. And inertia and lockin is the game.

Where I work uses Oracle. And every dev and sysad wants away from it. And the answer every time is "we can't support forking our DB backend cause were too tied to oracle and its bugs".

And the prices go up and up. And everyone on it is effectively trapped. Even their competitor, Salesforce, is on oracle and wants off... And they can't.

<comment><USER59> Is there a standard capitalist solution to lock-in? (Or is it too new of a problem to have been researched?) This seems like a fatal flaw if your goal is even merely free markets and vibrant competition, not even improving society.

Perhaps one option is to remove government protection from trade secrets and intellectual property. Were it not for the threat of government interference, a competitor could easily arrange to get Oracle's source code leaked, and then the two of them would actually compete on quality of their support/service contracts.

<comment><USER61> The problem is more sunk cost fallacy than just being a capitalist problem.

There's an article from the Pinterest devs when they migrated from node.js to MySQL. They were thinking the conversion would cost too much and take too long. They already spent a lot of time and money to create Pinterest on node as well. Plus MySQL isn't hot and sexy. But they knew a lot of the problems they were running into would disappear if they converted.

I think it took like a week of planning and like a weekend to accomplish. And the devs got to sleep at night after that. I'm missing details, you can google the article. It's on their dev blog. Also I bring it up because it's the only db conversion I can think of that is documented.

Thinking you have to stick with something because of investing so much time/money even though it's not working, is a super dangerous thing in the long term. It's a human problem more than a systems problem.

<comment><USER62> For every one of those database migration success stories, there's a potential TSB style disaster though[1]. Problems with migration are real and potentially very serious. It's not just cost if it goes to plan that needs to be considered - for business critical systems, 'don't fix it if it isn't broken' is a good adage for a reason...

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSB_Bank_(United_Kingdom)#Mi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSB_Bank_\(United_Kingdom\)#Migration_to_the_Sabadell_Proteo_banking_platform)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'd love to hear from some Tesla employees with awakened consciousness how they feel about Ellison's involvement.

<comment><USER64> > I'd love to hear from some Tesla employees with awakened consciousness how > they feel about Ellison's involvement.

What does "awakened consciousness" mean in this context?

<comment><USER63> Nothing different in this context, I mean it in the universal sense:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=awakened+consciousness&oq=aw...](https://www.google.com/search?q=awakened+consciousness&oq=awa&aqs=chrome.2.69i60l2j69i59j69i57j69i60l2.2816j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

Could also look at it as Spiral Dynamics Turquoise:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=spiral+dynamics+turquoise&so...](https://www.google.com/search?q=spiral+dynamics+turquoise&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4h-D188LfAhWDTd8KHZHRC50Q_AUICSgA&biw=1440&bih=790&dpr=2)

<comment><USER64> Sorry, I guess I shouldn't have said "in this context", I'm not familiar with the term at all. I was trying to differentiate from just the literal "awake" and "conscious", as in not asleep. I assumed it was some religious term.

The search results seem to indicate it's some vague mysticism not specific to any particular belief structure? Not an area I'm familiar with. Thanks for the info!

<comment><USER63> All good! That's right, it's the field called "Spirituality" that many people confuse with Religion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> My brain replaced "Ellison" with "Wall", and until the first paragraph I was terribly excited....then not so much.

<comment><USER66> Tesla cars badly need a perl 6 API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Glad to hear Tesla is adding more women. I truly think women in leadership are a grossly underutilized resource. EDIT: Doubly so women of color. If anyone needs a different perspective, it's Elon. I hope he listens.

<comment><USER67> Wow, huh, my comment was down-voted.

My theory is that innate talent (if there is such a thing) is probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races, so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount (of course, if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have meritocratic equality, which is kind of what we want).

Plus it increases the solution space you're able to efficiently explore due to a wider range of perspective and background.

I have had several women bosses, and they're pretty much all great. We'll know when we've achieved gender equality when it's just as common to have a crappy female boss as a male boss.

Oh, and folks suggesting we look at "objective" metrics alone... Well, there's no such thing. When hiring folks, there's an enormous amount of information that just can't be known at the time. You really do have to look at the outcome to judge how "objective" you're actually being, on net.

.

"Am I pretty much just hiring people who look like me?"

There's two answers to that question:

"Well, obviously people who look like me are naturally better than everyone else."

Or, my perspective:

"I'm probably missing something important so I should cast a wider net."

<comment><USER68> > probably roughly evenly distributed among the sexes and races

While some studies disagree, we can assume its true for the sake for discussion.

> so in fields which are dominated by white men, you're actually at an > advantage if you manage to hire women and/or minorities as you are able to > hire some of the very best humans effectively at an enormous discount

There is a logical error here. The assumption is that the missing non-white men in the evenly distributed population would not be working. Instead what we see in countries like Sweden is that people segregate, so you got the non- white men dominating some fields, and white men dominating other fields, and so forth. A field which is dominated by white men that want non-white men has to compete with fields that are dominated by non-white men. Similar, there is no discount to get white men into fields that are dominated by non-white men because they have to compete with fields that are dominated by white men.

> if everyone did this, the discount would disappear and we'd have > meritocratic equality

Logical error #2. If everything was equal we would not see every field being exactly 50% men and women, with exact race distribution as proportional to the population. Randomness would still apply. Unless the population is infinitive you will get random variation.</comment></comment></comment>