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Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

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Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#11

Post by akhilcacharya »

0xff00ffee wrote: post #3
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #2

IMO there's two ways to read this: either A) this is a baldly transparent attempt to "own the libs" and punish a company that the administration sees as a threat or B) they are too incompetent to understand the technical nuances of the case and are essentially morons. Maybe both? This administration can't be thrown out on their collective asses fast enough...

Both. 50 years of people cynically saying "all politicians are crooks". And now we have legitimate sleazeballs running the country and nobody believes it. On the one hand, Google is huge and needs competition. On the other hand: not this way. Antitrust and monopoly laws exist for a reason, but if you look at telephones in the 80's and microsoft & intel in the 90's, better lawyers get you around that. We need trustbus…

One of the most jarring things about the impeachment saga was Trump supporters defending him by saying "all presidents do it". Fundamentally the issue is norms are easy to break if a bunch of people don't know what they are and don't care enough to find out.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#13

Post by scarface74 »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #2

IMO there's two ways to read this: either A) this is a baldly transparent attempt to "own the libs" and punish a company that the administration sees as a threat or B) they are too incompetent to understand the technical nuances of the case and are essentially morons. Maybe both? This administration can't be thrown out on their collective asses fast enough...

Does it matter? Every time without fail when I argue on HN that government involvement in tech is usually negative I get downvoted to oblivion.

But then when the same government interferes and is on the "wrong" side of popular geek opinion there is an uproar.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#14

Post by sremani »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #2

IMO there's two ways to read this: either A) this is a baldly transparent attempt to "own the libs" and punish a company that the administration sees as a threat or B) they are too incompetent to understand the technical nuances of the case and are essentially morons. Maybe both? This administration can't be thrown out on their collective asses fast enough...

If one observes Trump presidency, Trump amplified previous admin policy rather than changed direction. If I have to bet a $1000 dollars on this - the previous administration has similar policy but much tamer version of it.

Trump doing this for Larry Ellison doing a fund raiser for him, is simplistic mid-manager level thinking!

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#15

Post by Apocryphon »

rvz wrote: post #7

This is the absolute reason why Dart, Flutter and Fuchsia exist. You can now imagine that if a loss from Google in this lawsuit were to happen, it would mean royalties in the billions for Oracle which Google won't pay for, or at least for a long time for Android. So an option is to migrate the Android ecosystem onto Fuchsia to rid of the Oracle royalty fees and own the ecosystem without anyone else looking to sue you…

Ironically, Samsung invested in Tizen development for a minute so they would have their own backup in case Android was no longer viable.

And it's also amusing that the Dart-skeptics now see there is at least one legal reason to justify Google's continued development of Flutter.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#16

Post by scarface74 »

0xff00ffee wrote: post #3
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #2

IMO there's two ways to read this: either A) this is a baldly transparent attempt to "own the libs" and punish a company that the administration sees as a threat or B) they are too incompetent to understand the technical nuances of the case and are essentially morons. Maybe both? This administration can't be thrown out on their collective asses fast enough...

Both. 50 years of people cynically saying "all politicians are crooks". And now we have legitimate sleazeballs running the country and nobody believes it. On the one hand, Google is huge and needs competition. On the other hand: not this way. Antitrust and monopoly laws exist for a reason, but if you look at telephones in the 80's and microsoft & intel in the 90's, better lawyers get you around that. We need trustbus…

The government caused the phone monopoly and the slap on the risk had nothing to do with Microsoft's missteps when it came to the internet and later mobile. Microsoft still has the same dominance on the desktop that they had during the 90's.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#17

Post by Apocryphon »

scarface74 wrote: post #13
vikingcaffiene wrote: post #2

IMO there's two ways to read this: either A) this is a baldly transparent attempt to "own the libs" and punish a company that the administration sees as a threat or B) they are too incompetent to understand the technical nuances of the case and are essentially morons. Maybe both? This administration can't be thrown out on their collective asses fast enough...

Does it matter? Every time without fail when I argue on HN that government involvement in tech is usually negative I get downvoted to oblivion. But then when the same government interferes and is on the "wrong" side of popular geek opinion there is an uproar.

That's how issues work, there are different stances that people feel positively and negatively about. People here are generally pro-net neutrality, which involves at least some FCC intervention and enforcement. It's not a blanket libertarian vs. statist situation.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#18

Post by burlesona »

seren wrote: post #6

I did not follow every step, but assuming Oracle win this, will it also apply to Amazon proposing DocumentDB with the same API that MongoDB ?

Seems like it would. Which, maybe isn’t a horrible thing, considering it would prevent a company like Amazon from just nuking a vendor like Mongo by cloning their tech and offering it in their PaaS. I would hope that we end up with something more like FRAND rules than conventional copyrights, though.

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#19

Post by TehCorwiz »

choward wrote: post #9

> The Trump administration brief came Wednesday just as Oracle founder Larry Ellison opened a campaign fundraiser for President Donald Trump at his southern California estate. Tickets ran as much as $250,000, according to an invitation obtained by the Desert Sun. Is this the same Trump that doesn't need anyone's money and isn't beholden to anyone? (Sorry for using Breitbart as a reference). https://www.breitbart.com/…

It's because it's all lies. One day 1 he lied about the size of his inauguration crowd and that set the stage. A person willing to lie about the most meaningless things will definitely lie about the meaningful ones.

I don't even know why I'm responding to this. I'm tired of the lying, but moreover I'm tired of people pretending that he doesn't lie constantly and egregiously about everything. I'm tired of people arguing in good faith against verifiable falsehoods, when there's no return of faith in the discussion. You can't "gotcha" him or his followers. It doesn't matter to them.

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

- Jean Paul-Sartre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Dona...

Re: Trump administration backs Oracle in Google fight

#20

Post by cletus »

Of course they do. Some might point to Larry Ellison being a major supporter [1] but I think the real motivation is this plays into the narrative that Google is somehow biased against conservatives.

What's interesting about this is Google made two huge mistakes here:

1. According to Google, Sun was fine with their use of Java. If so, why not just put it in writing and get a license? This might've only cost $10 million at the time. Maybe not even that. Even if it was $100 million, it sure looks cheap now;

Remember, Microsoft originally paid for a Java license for IE [2]. And one issue with the Sun-Microsoft lawsuit was that Sun argued forking Java was a breach of contract. Surely this establishes that even if Sun were fine with Android they could try and enforce their IP rights through litigation. So why not enshrine this in a license?

2. Google declined to bid on Sun. I remember when this went down and it seemed risky to let Oracle control Java given how invested Google was in Java at that point. And it should've been clear that Oracle's interest was to leverage Sun's IP to get a slice of Android. Hubris is the only thing I can think of that justified letting this happen.

[1]: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oracle-employees-call-on-l...

[2]: https://www.cnet.com/news/sun-seeks-35-million-in-java-suit/

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