
Oracle v. Google - What's The Deal With The Java Specification License? - pron
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012041812230622
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toyg
The more this goes on, the more I'm flabbergasted at the incompetency of the
Oracle legal team. I'm sure there are 99 ways to nail Google using Sun/Oracle
IP, but the one they picked clearly ain't one.

If things keep going like this, it might actually be the first time in quite a
few years that Ellison ends up losing a court case.

~~~
pron
Right. One thing is certain: Google did whatever it could to find a legal
loophole in Sun's licensing to let it basically steal Java (I mean, come-on,
legal or not, that's exactly what they did. After all, Dalvik has no technical
merit over Sun's JVMs - in fact, it's inferior. Its only value to Google was
as a means for legal maneuvering). So Google was certainly not acting in good
faith, and I think that when someone is not acting in good faith, there's
usually a way to nail them, especially if you can afford good lawyers.

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chc
Is this the same way Rubinius stole Ruby, Microsoft stole C++ and KDE stole
JavaScript? I think the point here is that a language isn't really something
you can own. An implementation, sure — but the language itself? Under what
law? You can possibly copyright the text of the specification (but certainly
not the facts therein), you can copyright the implementation, you can
trademark the name and you can patent specific techniques used in the
implementation, but what confers ownership of the language itself? I don't
believe there is any precedent for a language being wholly "owned" in the
sense that nobody else could independently implement the spec.

~~~
pron
It's not the language that they took, but the whole platform. They don't
provide a compiler from Java to whatever bytecode Dalvik is using, but from
Java bytecode to Dalvik bytecode.

Now I'm not saying they're doing anything illegal or in breach of any contract
- I really don't know - and I don't know whether or not you could own a
language in the legal sense - I have no idea about that either - but all of
Google's actions seem to be in bad faith.

Whether or not it has any legal merit, the Java licensing was specifically
meant to ensure compliant implementations. In addition, Sun didn't want other
mobile implementations and tried to prevent that. Then Google went ahead,
forked Java into a non-compliant implementation (and that would have been
fine, too), but built their entire tool system in such a way as to allow many
_compiled_ Java libraries to run unmodified on an inferior JVM - sorry, a
'non-Java' VM - that they'd bought with the sole intention of circumventing
Sun's licensing.

I don't know if Sun had a right to license Java as they did, and I don't know
if Google did anything legally wrong. But what is clear that they've tried to
stay as close as possible to Java (the whole platform - not just the language)
without breaching the letter of the law in Sun's license. In fact, most of
their technical effort was directed at precisely that - circumventing Java's
licensing.

Now, I don't know why people are rushing for Google's defense as if they've
been acting altruistically or something. Everything the did, or do, they do
for profit.

There are no good guys in this story. There are simply two huge conglomerates
in a business war. Oracle is trying to take advantage of Android's success
where they've failed in the mobile arena, and Google is trying to take
advantage of Java's popularity. Both companies are simply trying to exploit
each other for their own benefit.

Whatever the legal outcome, I think both developers and consumers would
benefit greatly if Android were to become a compliant Java implementation, and
could take advantage of Oracle's superior VM.

~~~
chc
Your only accusation of wrongdoing (either ethical or legal) seems to be that
Google "acted in bad faith," but I have no idea what you mean by that. I
believe that phrase normally means "used deception and subterfuge," but I
don't see how Google did anything duplicitous.

You seem to think I'm "rushing to Google's defense as if they've been acting
altruistically". This is incorrect. I don't know what your motivation is here,
but I don't really have strong feelings about Google one way or the other. I'm
just calling 'em as I see 'em.

All Google did is create its own implementation of a programming language.
Never before in history has this been considered an evil thing. It happens all
the time. I wouldn't call Rich Hickey or Guy Steele evil for "stealing" Lisp
from John McCarthy, so out of consistency, I can't call Google evil for doing
the same thing with Java. I also don't see how Google was deceitful in this,
as you claim. They seem to have been quite up-front about what they were
doing.

In fact, I'll go further: If any party acted in bad faith, it would have to be
Oracle, which supported Google and Apache's alternative Java implementations
up until it sued Google and gave Apache the middle finger.

~~~
pron
Google did not just implement the language. In fact, they didn't implement the
language at all: to the best of my knowledge they haven't even written a Java
compiler.

All they did was write a translation tool that takes Java binaries and makes
them run on a different VM, not covered by the Java license. Unlike others who
implement languages to provide technical benefits, Google had no such
intention. Their only consideration when choosing to re-implement a piece of
Java or not was whether it would allow them to evade Java's legal
restrictions.

My stake in this is that as a Java/other-JVM-languages developer, I don't like
the fact that we now have two incompatible Javas. Now, Google explain their
actions by saying that Sun were dragging their feet during negotiations, and
maybe they're right. Maybe, thanks to Google we have an almost-Java thingy on
a successful mobile platform.

I think the parties should settle, and I hope the result (whether money
changes hands or not) would be bringing Android in the Java fold, and making
it compatible.

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binarray2000
Those slides are kind of funny: Oracle's are dark (background and other
colors) while Google's are bright. How not to think of StarWars,dark force...?

~~~
pron
I wouldn't take it this far. I think both companies have crossed over to the
dark side a little bit in this matter.

