
Oracle: “Google has 'destroyed' the market for Java - tyurok
http://www.itworld.com/article/2971034/mobile/oracle-google-has-destroyed-the-market-for-java.html
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AnimalMuppet
The world does not owe Oracle a place for Java as a mobile operating system.
When you're the disrupted rather than the disruptor, your market gets
destroyed. That's usually good rather than bad for society as a whole. That
part isn't even actionable at law. So, Oracle: Deal with it.

Now, claiming that your copyrights have been violated _is_ actionable at law.
The Supreme Court let stand a decision that APIs are copyrightable (!), but
Google still has a fair use defense that has not been ruled on.

If Oracle wins, Google's going to change the API for Android. Java will become
less relevant, not more. Oracle may get some money for damages, but Java will
lose.

~~~
aikah
> If Oracle wins, Google's going to change the API for Android.

No they are going to pay Oracle, they don't have much choice. They should have
bought Sun years ago but Google was too greedy and thought it could get away
with anything.

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AnimalMuppet
They're going to pay Oracle damages for what has already happened. They are
not going to continue to use the Java API. They're going to have an alternate
API ready to roll five minutes after they lose the last appeal for this suit.
Depending on how the judgment is written, it might be enough to move stuff
from the java package to a new android package.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion. I don't speak for Google.

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cybernytrix
Why do so many HN folks feel that Google is the savior here? The reality is
that both oracle and Google are for-profit companies and hence both are
greedy. Talk to any old Sun employee and they will tell you how Google came
and saw and took whatever they could, when they could have legally licensed
j2me for a pittance. Thanks to that stupidity, they are now paying the
lawyers. On a separate note, more I think of it, Page/Brin getting out of the
way and letting sane adults run sub-divisions is the best thing to happen to
Google.

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mtgx
Since Android grew in popularity, the Java language has been more popular than
ever, which I'm sure helps Oracle by creating a large ecosystem of Java
developers.

Now if developers start moving away from _Oracle_ tools like they have in the
past with Open Office, and I'm sure they will in the future thanks to their
insistence on copyrighting APIs and keeping their software insecure and not
allowing anyone else to look at it - well then, that would be no one but
Oracle's own fault.

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bediger4000
_no one but Oracle 's own fault._

Agreed, but how much damage to society can the Oracle-asaurus do while
thrashing around in the tarpit before it dies?

Currently, the copyright laws seem to benefit large, deep pocket players, not
society as a whole. Oracle-the-Corporation can certainly use copyright law to
inflict a lot of damage on everyone else while it spoils its own reputation
and poisons markets & etc.

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Borborygymus
I thought before Oracle acquired Sun, Java was released under the GPLv2. Can't
Google (or anyone else) simply use Java under the GPL, or is the "infringing"
code not part of that GPL'd release of Java?

