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Java Is Still Free

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Re: Java Is Still Free

#51

Post by pron »

FactolSarin wrote: post #48
pron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, Microsoft has already extracted billions from Android due to litigation or threats of litigation over patents.

Your comment is irrelevant. Besides the fact that other companies like Apple wielded their parents against Android, the big difference is Microsoft's patents weren't open source. The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. And if you want to talk Microsoft, the most relevan…

> The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language.

While OpenJDK is, indeed, very much open source, Android did not use it -- although I think it does now -- as they didn't want to use its open source license. Google, on the other hand, uses OpenJDK extensively, and have even forked it internally, without any complaint from Oracle [1].

So no open-source software was the subject of the lawsuit (well, no Oracle open-source software).

> they never sued Mono, a re-implimentation of their non-Open Source .Net Framework.

That is not about benevolence but the simple fact that Mono did not harm their business in any way (few people used it; Microsoft did, however, sue or threaten to sue over the wildly successful Android). On the other hand, licensing Java for use on mobile devices was Sun's main income from Java.

Companies don't generally do things on principle, but for business reasons, nor do they refrain from business out of principle. Both Oracle and Microsoft sued (or threatened to) over Android for business reasons, and Google chose not to use the open-source Java for business reasons.

[1]: https://video.oracle.com/detail/videos/featured-videos/video...

Re: Java Is Still Free

#52

Post by iuwhagtr »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #9

Hint: if you want to get a discussion going, or, in fact, have your article read in the first place, don't put it on Google docs, nor medium via link shorteners for that matter.

Why not? Google Docs does not show any stupid popovers, ads or anything

Re: Java Is Still Free

#54

Post by hazz99 »

iuwhagtr wrote: post #52
tannhaeuser wrote: post #9

Hint: if you want to get a discussion going, or, in fact, have your article read in the first place, don't put it on Google docs, nor medium via link shorteners for that matter.

Why not? Google Docs does not show any stupid popovers, ads or anything

It takes a while to load, and heavy traffic stops some features from working. You're much better off writing in markdown and generating the site with some static site generator, although I'll admit that is more work.

It's not a huge deal though - I'm fine with it, just an interesting choice :)

Re: Java Is Still Free

#55

Post by pjmlp »

FactolSarin wrote: post #48
pron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, Microsoft has already extracted billions from Android due to litigation or threats of litigation over patents.

Your comment is irrelevant. Besides the fact that other companies like Apple wielded their parents against Android, the big difference is Microsoft's patents weren't open source. The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. And if you want to talk Microsoft, the most relevan…

Sun and Oracle never sued their partners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Java_virtual_machines#...

Only those that tried to misuse Java by creating partial implementations of it (Microsoft and Google).

In fact, Sun only put a show to avoid losing their face, as what they really wanted was to sue Google, but their bank account wasn't any longer like in the Microsoft suit days.

Gosling interview on how it all came to be from internal point of view, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be...

Finally Google had the opportunity to buy Sun assets and thus avoid being sued, while having the freedom to steer Java however they would have liked to do.

Opportunity that they decided wasn't worthwhile to pursue.

Re: Java Is Still Free

#56

Post by merb »

iuwhagtr wrote: post #52
tannhaeuser wrote: post #9

Hint: if you want to get a discussion going, or, in fact, have your article read in the first place, don't put it on Google docs, nor medium via link shorteners for that matter.

Why not? Google Docs does not show any stupid popovers, ads or anything

because you can generate a html out of your google docs? or you can use google pages (where you can edit your page in google docs)...

Re: Java Is Still Free

#57

Post by [deleted] »

kamaal wrote: post #44
icebraining wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't agree with their tactics, Google was - by their own word - not using Java. This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java.

>>This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java. That depends on how commercially successful your product is. I don't think it would even make logical sense for Oracle to go after every single start up that uses Java. But lets say tomorrow news came out that a big reason for AWS's success is Java, then all of a sudden you are going to see Oracle want some of that money. Please note I'm n…

[deleted]

Re: Java Is Still Free

#58

Post by pjmlp »

pron wrote: post #51
FactolSarin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is irrelevant. Besides the fact that other companies like Apple wielded their parents against Android, the big difference is Microsoft's patents weren't open source. The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. And if you want to talk Microsoft, the most relevan…

> The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. While OpenJDK is, indeed, very much open source, Android did not use it -- although I think it does now -- as they didn't want to use its open source license. Google, on the other hand, uses OpenJDK extensively, and have even fo…

Actually Android still doesn't use 100% of OpenJDK, that is just PR from Google supporters on the Android story, easily proven by looking into AOSP source tree,

What Android does is to use a subset of OpenJDK, and even that is pretty much dependent on which Android version one is talking about.

So it is still impossible to get a random jar from Maven Central and be certain that it will work of the box on Android, even on Android P.

Re: Java Is Still Free

#59

Post by pjmlp »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #42
threeseed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly write in Java/Scala/Clojure etc ? Because I have never met a single JVM developer who either (a) wants another JVM fork, (b) wants OpenJDK to be undermined or (c) thinks Oracle has been anything other than a pretty great steward of the platform.

Point (c) is changing with this recent kerfuffle, no?

Only by the Oracle haters that lack experience on the Java world.

Sun, Bea and many others used to charge for support as well, IBM still charges for it, but it is good to pay them because it wasn't Oracle it seems.

Re: Java Is Still Free

#60

Post by kijin »

threeseed wrote: post #34
kijin wrote: post #7

Sure, MySQL is also still free. OpenOffice remained free until Oracle dumped it on Apache's doorstep. Neither product was ever under threat of becoming legally unfree. The problem is that people don't trust Oracle anymore. The developer community doesn't want to touch anything from Oracle with a 10-foot pole even if it's licensed under GPL. I haven't used enough Oracle products to judge whether this sentiment is just…

> The developer community doesn't want to touch anything from Oracle Which developer community are you talking about ? Because in the JVM community we like Oracle quite a bit since they have been surprisingly great at supporting the platform over the last decade. Actions speak louder than words you know.

The FOSS community in general, I guess. Which has a much larger presence on forums like HN than the subset that is JVM developers.
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