61–70 of 103 posts
Does this mean there's some chance you'll be able to use Java for Mac App Store apps?
This is off-topic, but I'm amazed by the descriptions at the end of TFA (I know, I know, it's a press release, but still...) Oracle is the world’s most complete, open and integrated business software and hardware systems company. (...) Let's grant integrated and complete, but definitely not "open". Though this is dwarfed by Apple's incredible self-praise: Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world,…
iPods completely dominate portable music playback, and the iTunes store is one of the biggest sellers of music in the world (didn't they take #1 a while back?). That would justify "leads the digital music revolution".
Take a look at Android's UI design before the iPhone came out, and compare to after iPhone. Look familiar? Take a similar look at mobile app sales before and after iPhone. "Revolutionary" is an acceptable claim, considering how much the mobile phone industry changed in direct response to the iPhone.
That leaves the iPad, the only one on the list they may have overhyped in the press release. Sure, it blows away every other attempt at a tablet so far, but most of the other table makers trying to capitalize on the iPad's success seem to be aiming for smaller tablets, so we can't yet say the iPad is "defining the future".
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It's not "clean", only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, if you modify the JRE and don't get it re-certified then you lose the patent protection. And to get it certified you have to agree to a restrictive licence from Oracle. Sun promised Apache to make the TCK available under an open licence but this never happened. IBM was previously putting pressure on Sun/Oracle to make…
> only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, No. That's not true. As long as your code is derived from OpenJDK (and unavoidably licensed under GPL), you are protected from patent lawsuits from Oracle (for technology contributed to OpenJDK). What it doesn't protect you from is trademark issues if you claim whatever thing you have is Java. You can say "pretty much compatible with…
See the Oracle vs. Google suit for how it is closed. There is one blessed open implementation, other implementations get the shaft aka Apache harmony, Google's Dalvik.
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> only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, No. That's not true. As long as your code is derived from OpenJDK (and unavoidably licensed under GPL), you are protected from patent lawsuits from Oracle (for technology contributed to OpenJDK). What it doesn't protect you from is trademark issues if you claim whatever thing you have is Java. You can say "pretty much compatible with…
>"What it doesn't protect you from is trademark issues if you claim whatever thing you have is Java." There's more to it than that. If I call it Dalvik, like Google did, why would I get a lawsuit? Edit: I have to say I don't think I even understand what open source means anymore. If I release an open source product, but then say you can only make modifications and sell it if you pass my tests (which I don't make free…
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> only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, No. That's not true. As long as your code is derived from OpenJDK (and unavoidably licensed under GPL), you are protected from patent lawsuits from Oracle (for technology contributed to OpenJDK). What it doesn't protect you from is trademark issues if you claim whatever thing you have is Java. You can say "pretty much compatible with…
It's ambiguous. Oracle's not the only company with patents in Java technology, the TCK patent protection clause is stronger than that in the GPL, in that it give you protection against non-Oracle patents that are part of Java. It's arguable that Oracle implicitly licences these as part of the GPL patent clause, but it's not watertight. Third-party implementations such as Harmony (and presumably GNU Classpath) obvious…
It's Oracle's obligation to either give a royalty-free permission to use and grant usage of its patented technology (all of it, not only stuff expressed in code it contributed) or refrain from distributing OpenJDK under GPL altogether.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents
Unless I misread the text there.
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It's ambiguous. Oracle's not the only company with patents in Java technology, the TCK patent protection clause is stronger than that in the GPL, in that it give you protection against non-Oracle patents that are part of Java. It's arguable that Oracle implicitly licences these as part of the GPL patent clause, but it's not watertight. Third-party implementations such as Harmony (and presumably GNU Classpath) obvious…
> It's arguable that Oracle implicitly licences these as part of the GPL patent clause, but it's not watertight. It's Oracle's obligation to either give a royalty-free permission to use and grant usage of its patented technology (all of it, not only stuff expressed in code it contributed) or refrain from distributing OpenJDK under GPL altogether. http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents Unless I misread the text th…
Dependent on the language of these waivers, Oracle may or may not be considered to be "controlling" the patents. If they're not controlling the patents then it means they can't give the GPL waiver on behalf of the other contributors, and thus any non-TCK compliant OpenJDK fork may be in violation.
Speaking more generally GPL v2 was never really designed to handle patents, the patent clauses are pretty much secondary to the rest of the GPL, and probably are much more vulnerable to attack via loopholes than the rest of the GPL due to their vague and implicit nature.
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> It's arguable that Oracle implicitly licences these as part of the GPL patent clause, but it's not watertight. It's Oracle's obligation to either give a royalty-free permission to use and grant usage of its patented technology (all of it, not only stuff expressed in code it contributed) or refrain from distributing OpenJDK under GPL altogether. http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents Unless I misread the text th…
Oracle isn't the only company with patents in the JRE though, when a third party contributes patented technology to the JRE they have to agree to the patent waiver for all TCK passing implementations. Dependent on the language of these waivers, Oracle may or may not be considered to be "controlling" the patents. If they're not controlling the patents then it means they can't give the GPL waiver on behalf of the other…
If Oracle included patented technology it did not control, then it must stop distribution of infringing code under the GPL. That's one of the reasons it took so long for Sun to license its code under GPL - it was cleaning up code, removing patent-infringing code.
The terms of the TCK will not protect you from lawsuits for infringing on patents Oracle had not the right to grant you usage. In fact, no agreement with Oracle would.
This bit is hilarious: The best way for our users to always have the most up to date and secure version of Java will be to get it directly from Oracle. Contrast that with a recent quote from Bill Evans: We're happy to continue to support Flash on the Mac, and the best way for users to always have the most up to date and secure version is to download it directly from Adobe. It's like they're just toying with the tech…