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First, this is not a 99% blatant copy. I see things on the java side that are not in the libm side, like addExact, IEEEremainder or nextDown. I see things on the libm side that are not in the java package, like fpclassify, gamma or jN. I see things that have been adapted to match java conventions, like copySign vs copysign. The Jaccard similarity index appears to be pretty far from 1, whereas it is a perfect 1 in the case of Google. The perfect 1, up to keeping the 'java' in 'java.*', makes it a 'blatant theft' in the case of Google. Second, unclear what the legal status of libm is. It appears to implement a standard, thus is legitimate to ask whether the set of implemented functions and their names are the original contribution of libm authors, or are derived from the standards. Generally, if one wants to implement a standard, one needs to acquire the rights to do so, usually in the form of a reasonable fee. Third, if there are significant overlapping parts that are the creative work of libm authors, and they can establish a prior art claim, they are entitled to seek fair compensation from Sun / Oracle. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/Math.htm... https://sourceware.org/newlib/libm.html PS. Re: atan2, wikipedia: 'The function atan2(y,x) first appeared in the programming language Fortran (in IBM's implementation FORTRAN-IV in 1961). It was originally intended to return a correct and unambiguous value for the angle θ in converting from cartesian coordinates (x, y) to polar coordinates (r, θ).' Perfect example of a term that arguably migrates into the common technical vocabulary over decades. |
Which were added in C99, which postdates the initial release of Java.