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Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

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Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#31
post #15
post #4

Does oracle have a case or not? If you were Oracle, would you be ok not taking this to court?

They clearly have a case because they just won it.

Yeah, seems a little strange to ask a question like that after the court already ruled in their favor. Whether you like it or not, clearly they did have a case.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#32
post #18
post #5

I’m not sure if I have the timeline correct but I thought Java was owned by Sun Microsystems at the time when they made these decisions. I’m sure they rightly assumed Sun Microsystems would never do this. It is sad to see what Oracle is doing with Sun Microsystem’s creation.

It is beyond sad. Oracle bought Sun exclusively to sue Google for its use of Java in Android. (I know someone involved in the lawsuits.) We really need to fix our patent system on the software side.

We really need to fix our patent system on the software side.

While this might be true, it's worth noting that this is a copyright case and not a patent case.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#33
post #22

I wonder how the $$ Google might pay to Oracle compares to the $$ it is spending to move away from Java by building replacements (v8, Go, Dart, Flutter/Fuschia, etc.) that are all essentially "GC languages with a great runtime VM". E.g. I can understand Oracle/Sun needing some amount of money for stewarding Java, as the teams required to build/maintain/QA/release the JVM were AFAIU in the hundreds, so not cheap. But…

V8 has little to do with Oracle, fundamentally. V8 came about because they wanted a higher performance JS VM for their browser; the JVM was never in contention there.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: I feel Google should be punished for what they did to Java. Maybe the mechanism being used is wrong, but Android bastardized Java and as an Android developer I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java. Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too litt…

Android arguably saved Java by making it much more relevant than it otherwise would have been.

But isn't that the point? That Google uses the Java infrastructure, but when it comes down to licensing, it isn't Java anymore? Google made a business decision to not buy a license and time will tell if that was a good decision or not.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#36
post #9

I bet Larry and Sergey are thinking we should have bought SUN.

that would've been pretty cool. they had that kind of capital back then, right?

I think market cap of Google was close to 200B the deal was valued something like 7.5.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#37
post #19

Google shoulda thought twice before stealing Sun/Oracle's IP.

Yeah, “stealing” an API and open source, building a successful mobile UI platform (unlike personal/embedded java and Sun’s own failed attempts at fragmentation) and contributing it free back to open source where it has been used as a base OS for thousands of new products from TVs to drones.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#38

It's a shame that there was no one like judge Alsup in the appeals court. Now it's about legal phrases and licensing terms instead of common sense all over again.

Unpopular opinion: I feel Google should be punished for what they did to Java. Maybe the mechanism being used is wrong, but Android bastardized Java and as an Android developer I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java. Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too litt…

On the other hand, Java was on a decline before Android, and since then it's more popular than ever. Just think how many new developers have had to "learn Java" just so they can build Android apps.

I understand the fragmentation issue, but I think it's a minor one and the net benefit for the Java ecosystem was much larger.

Also, Oracle is simply in the wrong trying to copyright APIs, and it has gotten a lot of hate from developers over that + all the other things they've done to Sun's previous projects that also made developers hate them.

With its developer-hostile attitude, is it any wonder developers are no longer interested in having anything to do with Oracle?

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracles-lack-of-develop...

Like what is this nonsense from the article:

> Oracle said its APIs are freely available to those who want to build applications for computers and mobile devices, but draws the line at anyone who wants to use them for a competing platform or to embed them in an electronic device.

Re: Oracle Wins Revival of Billion-Dollar Case Against Google

#40
I think the case was basically lost as soon as the court ruled that APIs are copyrightable. I still disagree with that decision, but once you've already arrived at that point then I think it's pretty hard to argue that Google's use of those APIs was fair use.
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