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Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

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Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#11

Post by tptacek »

seldo wrote: post #6

Excuse the really really obvious question, but how can you sue somebody for intellectual property infringement on open-source software? Didn't you already give anybody the license to do what they wanted with it? If they've violated the license terms in some way, isn't that different from IP infringement?

Of course you can. There'd be no such thing as an enforceable software patent if any company could just sponsor an open source project to implement each part of its product that infringed a patent. Presumably --- hopefully 'grellas will clear this up --- Oracle can measure damages incurred by Google supplanting Sun/Oracle Java with their own Java in terms of percentage points of global smartphone revenue.

Here's some more context:

http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_prentice/2009/08/06/google-op...

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#13

Post by noonespecial »

It just goes to show that whatever company-de-jour promises about enforcing the patents that they are granted today, all bets are off when they fall on hard times and are acquired tomorrow.

Serious about openness? Skip the "patent and promise" dance and just release the damn thing BSD.

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#15

Post by hugh4life »

I bet the mono people are laughing their asses off now...

I think Sun suing Microsoft was a mistake too for the Java platform... the write once, run everywhere ideology made Java the native platform of the server... write once, run everywhere should be the default, but it should be easier and encouraged to escape...

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#16

Post by tzs »

squidsoup wrote: post #5

This article is a bit light on detail - can anyone explain how the development of Android infringes on Oracle's IP?

If they were talking about Oracle's patents, it would make sense. It's the talk of it being copyright infringement that has me confused.

Android is basically, as far as I've read, a Linux kernel, with Google's own user space on top of that--their own equivalent of libc and their own windowing system. On top of that, they run their own JVM, which they wrote themselves and which is NOT even compatible with Oracle's at the byte-code level. Android apps are written in Java and compiled/JITed for Google's VM.

So, unless the Java compiler itself takes code from Oracle's compiler, it is hard to see what in their would contain copies of Oracle code.

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#17

Post by squidsoup »

tzs wrote: post #10

Google should switch to C# and Mono. Besides giving them a better language and VM, it would cause the most amusing set of rants from the anti-Mono crowd. Win/win.

By better language, do you mean better than Java? The JVM supports many other great languages like Ruby, Clojure and Scala.

I'd love to see Google provide GWT support for Scala, but that's another issue :)

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#18

Post by macemoneta »

As background, from WikiPedia:

"On November 13, 2006, Sun released much of Java as open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code available under free software/open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright."

If Sun willingly made the code GPL licensed, and Google isn't using anything outside the GPL code, even if some of the technologies were covered by patents I don't see Oracle having a case. Right now, this sounds very much like the SCO - Linux suit that dragged on forever and went nowhere.

Re: Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android

#20

Post by kingkilr »

cscotta wrote: post #7

The biggest issue I see with Oracle's lawsuit is not with Android itself, but the future of Java as an open platform. The claims are pretty serious, and Oracle is going straight for the jugular. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out, but I've got to hope that Google will come out of this in good shape for the sake of Java. It's unfortunate that Oracle is interpreting Google's implementation of Dalvik and a Ja…

> Interpreting functions utilizing a hybrid of virtual and native machine instructions

Are they serious? Unless I'm missing something this is a fantastic joke, JITs far predate Java.

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