>The alternative, and very likely real reason for the suit, is that Oracle actually cares about its intellectual property and would prefer that Google not do what they will with it.
I think it's far more likely that Oracle has seen a way to get a slice of the Android pie, and the rapidly growing long-term revenue stream that it likely represents.
> and the rapidly growing long-term revenue stream that it likely represents.
Again, they don't need a long-term revenue stream. I'd wager that their revenue stream from Oracle Database and other products, as well as the long-term support contracts for those products, shadows Android in comparison. Bold, I know, but Oracle is widely, widely used in the enterprise sector. The salary for an Oracle DBA alone speaks volumes regarding this.
In your world, Oracle executives sit around and think: boy, we could score a small percentage of that Android market. It pales in comparison to what we can make off of enterprise customers, but that cash flow is definitely worth the negative publicity and community recoil!
Completely ridiculous.
Your comment is merely another angle of repetitive arguments attempting to make Oracle out to be the bad party for suing Google. While I dislike Oracle just as much as the next geek for their treatment of open-source products, they might actually have a point with this lawsuit. That's all I'm saying, and watching my karma swing around wildly for taking the middle ground instead of jumping on the anti-Oracle bandwagon is amusing.
Oracle does not, and never has cared about their reputation with the technical community. They care about their reputation with the people who actually buy their software.
The people who buy their software understand things like duty to shareholders, and Oracle has historically determined that exercises like this are part of that duty.
I think it's far more likely that Oracle has seen a way to get a slice of the Android pie, and the rapidly growing long-term revenue stream that it likely represents.