

Day 3 of Oracle v. Google: Larry Page bests David Boies - grellas
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120418212325628

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cheald
Strong play by Google's lawyers here.

    
    
        Google: This means that a JME app may not run on a JavaCard device?
        Edward Serevan: Yes.
        Google: There are different APIs between JavaCard and JSE?
        Edward Serevan: [Some disagreement over the differences between versions.]
        Google: There are differences between JSE, JEE, JME, and Java Card?
        Edward Serevan: Yes.
        Google: How can it be that (Oracle can say that Java is WORA)?
        Edward Serevan: Oracle defines WORA as across platforms [different operating systems], not Java versions.
    

I'm not sure how Oracle is going to get the assertion that Google caused
significant damage to the Java ecosystem by their violation of WORA to stick
here, in light of this testimony. By any objective measure, Google has created
a new platform for Dalvik in Android.

~~~
JamisonM
They are going to assert the Android is for phones, and J2ME is for phones.
Thus Android broke their WORA definition for that platform. Seems fairly
straightforward and that Google is kind of making their case for them.

(Just to clarify: I think Oracle should, and is likely to lose their case.)

~~~
cheald
I think that's easily trumped, though, because "phones" are not a platform.
They're a form factor. Otherwise, J2ME should run on iPhones and Windows 7
devices.

Part of the whole Android package is a hardware specification [1]. Android The
Product is a platform, which consists of a compatible hardware device and a
Dalvik VM with Android APIs. It isn't just the software. J2ME might happen to
run on some handheld battery-powered computers, but a form factor does not a
platform make.

[1]
[http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/source.android.com/en/us/compatibility/4.0/android-4.0-cdd.pdf)

~~~
JamisonM
I don't think that saying J2ME _should_ run on any given OS for a platform or
form factor is relevant. I could then argue that if there is no Java for Minix
or someone's pet OS that runs on a server somewhere that servers are not a
platform for Java. Doesn't seem right.

I don't think it matters how complex or precise the Google definition of what
Android is, that is their definition. Oracle's point in this was the damage to
the perception of Java as a portable way to build programs for anything "Java"
-- Android was only part-way Java, creating the alleged confusion. I think the
parallel to Sun's MS suit from long ago is fairly straightforward.

~~~
bad_user

         I think the parallel to Sun's MS suit from long 
         ago is fairly straightforward.
    

Not it isn't.

Microsoft had Java licensed from Sun, meaning that they could use the Java
trademark for their own compiler and their own VM. In return Microsoft had to
make their compiler and their VM be compliant with Java's specifications.

Microsoft then started to extend everything, the language, the base class
library (and you cannot extend the base namespaces, e.g. java.*) and their
virtual machine. They did this while advertising to developers that their
compiler takes Java code and produces Java-compatible bytecode.

The differences:

    
    
         - Google never agreed to an (explicit) license
         - Dalvik is not a Java VM and was never advertised as such
         - Google does not claim Android has Java technology inside
         - Google does not claim that the compiled binaries can be
           executed on Java VMs
    

What Google actually did:

    
    
         - created a compiler that translates from JVM bytecode 
           to Dalvik bytecode
         - took the base Java library from Harmony, a 
           clean-room implementation
    

What Google did is exactly what projects like IKVM.net are doing. IKVM is a
project that allows you to recompile and run Java jars on top of a .NET VM.

This is not new and if Oracle wins it will open a huge can of worms, as if our
industry wasn't having enough problems related to "intellectual property"
already.

~~~
JamisonM
Google did not agree to a license but if Oracle convinces the court they
needed one then that is a moot point (Oracle asserts trademark, copyright, and
patents to make this claim I believe). All the differences between what MS and
Google did are irrelevant if Oracle can convince the court that having Java
all over the developer website and documentation created confusion with
respect to what Java is.

I think to a relatively non-technical judge they have a chance -- I can
imagine a judge asking himself/herself, "So you used the language Java and the
libraries for Java but you said that it wasn't Java. But if it walks and talks
like a duck and you call it a chicken are you still not creating confusion for
anyone who knew what a duck was before you showed them your 'chicken'?"

I agree that this would line projects like IKVM up to get nailed but that has
nothing to do with the merits of the case.

------
Steko
I enjoy reading both the incredibly biased but still informative Groklaw and
then the incredibly biased in the opposite direction (and paid by MS/Oracle)
Florian Mueller. Looking past the thinly veiled cheerleading isn't that hard
once you realize where they're coming from and both seem fairly thorough.

But what would be really awesome is if there was somewhere I could go for
legal tech blogging that isn't always good or bad news for open source.

Nilay Patel and Matt Macari at the Verge do a good job but coverage isn't as
regular as what you'll get by checking Groklaw daily and it gets lost in the
Verge-o-polis.

~~~
mdaniel
I mean this honestly: what makes you think Groklaw is biased? That deosn't
match my [uninformed] mental model of their site.

~~~
Steko
I don't think PJ ever hid the fact that she was advocating in a certain
direction, quoth wiki:

"Groklaw publishes articles (both news and opinion) from a self-described pro-
FOSS, anti-FUD perspective"

The comments are similarly policed to comply with this. This certainly isn't a
secret, as Florian Mueller's deals with MS and Oracle were, and I don't think
I'm making a wild accusation here.

Back in the day a 100% anti-SCO line worked great because SCO was a fraud. But
the current issues are murkier and the one sidedness of the site now sticks
out like the news channel at your grandparents house.

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zmanji
I'm not sure what is being contested in the case any more. Larry Page
testified that their implementation of Java was a clean room implementation.
Is Oracle trying to assert that an API is something that is subject to
copyright?

~~~
caf
The trial is examining both copyright and patent issues. But yes, one of the
things Oracle is claiming is that they can copyright their API and you can't
reimplement it without a license.

This does not seem like it should fly, in my inexpert opinion.

~~~
fpgeek
If it does fly, Oracle is going to have a lot of fun.

For instance, Oracle copied SQL from IBM years before it was a standard.
There's also Sun's involvement in Wabi. I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind
extracting some cash for that "infringement".

~~~
pdw
Novell and the Unix API...

------
mturmon
Misspells the Oracle software architect Edward Screven as Edward Serevan
throughout.

------
pcullen
Oracle mobile phone plans revealed

<http://ofb.net/~pcullen/ophone/ophone.html>

~~~
fletchowns
Gonna start to get pricey with multi-core phones.

------
stretchwithme
How strange is it that Eric Schmidt guided the development of the very
software Google is now accused of copying?

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Estragon
What is SSO?

~~~
Nogwater
I just searched the linked page and found this: SSO (Sequence, Structure,
Organization).

~~~
Estragon
Thanks.

