81–90 of 643 posts
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Android arguably saved Java by making it much more relevant than it otherwise would have been.
Whaaa? I mean Java is undoubtedly more popular because of Android but it's not like it was hurting before. Sure, there aren't a lot of consumer-facing applications running Java but it's pretty much the standard on the enterprise side of things.
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…
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Call me naive, but is a company being happy with what you're doing to the tune of them even saying so (or representatives thereof) tantamount to an implicit contract? I know it's been argued in this case, but it strikes me as disingenuous at the least and fraudulent at the most to change your mind. Sure we don't mind Google bearing the brunt of this because they can, but how would we feel were a smaller company subje…
This isn't a bait and switch based on legalities. If Oracle made representations to Google that they didn't mind them using their software, Google would be able to claim that Oracle is estopped from pursuing a claim due to the prior authorization they received. What's being stated here is that Google's infringement improved Oracle's market position - that fact doesn't bar Oracle from pursuing their remedy against inf…
Here's some old HN discussion on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2806771
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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.
Please don't use the expression "contributing back" on a platform that Google rules with an iron fist. Not only is their draconian licensing contract kept secret, for fear that consumers might realize the sort of behavior Google is up to, but now Google is explicitly implementing block screens for installing the app store on an Android device that isn't adequately under Google's thumb. This isn't the behavior of a co…
Chrome isn't open source. Chromium is. Chromium contains V8. V8 alone launched the huge nodejs community. In your mind, because Chrome isn't 100% open source, the fact that you can use pieces of it that are for tremendous benefit to the community doesn't count?
Handsets aren't the only thing Android is used for. Virtually every consumer product I see launch these days used some part of Android. TVs, smart speakers, IoT devices, thermostats, car entertainment systems, set top boxes, watches, and on and on. If someone wants to do a Kickstarter on a new piece of HW, the first thing that they're going to thing of is forking a chunk of AOSP, and to deny the immense value this has enabled for people building such devices is absurdly blind. Without ASOP, many of these projects wouldn't even exist.
Your positions are transparently hypocritical for someone who was a Windows Mobile fanboy, and rarely says a negative word about Apple or Microsoft's 100% proprietary platforms.
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.
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But the thing is Google didn't use the Oracle Java engine. They implemented their own runtime environment that's mostly API compatible with Java (and getting further from that as the years go on). This gets into really critical concerns around APIs. If commercial product A sucks and I'm in a shop where we made our own drop in replacement that implement's A's APIs .. then we open source that drop-in replacement and pu…
All telecommunication companies, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, .... have their network elements APIs copyrighted and pattented. Try to sell a device that comunicates with a e.g. BTS station without buying their licenses, to see how it ends.
I think the part that gets lost in all of this is that Sun offered to license Java to Google previously for $100M. [1] Google turned that down and bypassed Sun because they didn't want to pay (or license). At the time, Sun was happy to see Java being used by Google, even without the license. Still, Google knew exactly what they were doing. [2] My point is, they did this to themselves and they knew what they were poss…
But the thing is Google didn't use the Oracle Java engine. They implemented their own runtime environment that's mostly API compatible with Java (and getting further from that as the years go on). This gets into really critical concerns around APIs. If commercial product A sucks and I'm in a shop where we made our own drop in replacement that implement's A's APIs .. then we open source that drop-in replacement and pu…
That's not quite right - Google adopted Apache Harmony[1] (an open source project, and if you want to attribute an organisation responsible for Harmony's success - such as it was - it would be IBM). Apache Harmony would have been 100% API compatible with Java had Sun (and later Oracle) not refused to provide the Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK).
The Android runtimes (Dalvik, then ART) never had compatibility with Java bytecode, instead, Android build-tools use(d) Java bytecode as an intermediate pipeline step; the ultimate executable had 0% compatibility with the Java runtime.
I always wondered why Google didn't buy Sun when they had the chance? This (Android's use of Java) has always been a risk for Google. Either in form of the lawsuit but in more general what Oracle (or someone else) would do with Java. Anyways. I hope both companies are smart enough to settle this in a reasonable manner.
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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.
Do you oppose copyright on all software, i. e. source code, as well? Because I could somewhat understand that sort of IP anarchism, although I wouldn't agree. But I'm having a hard time thinking about a coherent reasoning to see source code as copyrightable, yet deny the same to APIs. Copyright applies to any creative endeavours that reach a certain level of breath and/or depth. Having been involved in a few library…
The entire PC industry was launched because clean room re-implementation of the API of the BIOS broke IBM's stranglehold. Is the world better without WINE? Without game or CPU emulators?
I am philosophically opposed to the idea of API copyrights especially. This is a corporate battle whose collateral damage is going to harm the entire industry.
It's funny how everyone loves forking, until tribalism kicks in, and then people start granting mulligans on philosophy just because of tribal positions on whichever company they don't like. Remember this? http://www.gordoni.com/software-patents/statements/oracle.st...
"Oracle Corporation opposes the patentability of software" "A balance of fifty years protection for direct copying of code would continue to be provided by copyright law."
Funny how perspective changes if you perform a buyout of a struggling company's assets to use it to shakedown the market.