Ellison Doesn't Know If Java Is Free 393
New submitter Emacs.Cmode sends this excerpt from CNet:
"Among the highlights emanating from U.S. District Court in San Francisco courtroom 8 today was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's response to a question regarding the status of the Java programming language, which his company acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Asked by Google's lead attorney, Robert Van Nest, if the Java language is free, Ellison was slow to respond. Judge William Alsup pushed Ellison to answer with a yes or no. As ZDNet reporter Rachel King observed in the courtroom, Ellison resisted and huffed, 'I don't know.'"
Groklaw has a good write-up about what happened during day one of the trial and a briefer summary of what happened on day two.
Free? (Score:5, Interesting)
What, precisely, does it mean if you say a programming language is free?
Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
Just another rich out of touch moron who doesn't know anything about his company...
MAD. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think this lawsuit is going to be good for anyone but Apple.
Google might get a huge kick in the junk over Dalvik, Oracle might get a huge kick in the junk over whether or not Java is even an open platform or not, and the only ones who look to gain are Apple and maybe Microsoft.
Of course the language itself is free. (Score:5, Interesting)
A language is nothing but a listing of words and how they are used. It is a cataloging of facts.
Facts, as such, are not copyrightable. You can't copyright the listings in a phone book, and neither can you copyright the contents of a header file. Because there is no creative content, and as far as the US is concerned, "sweat of the brow" does not give you copyright.
This is why Oracle is not going after IBM for Iced Tea, because Oracle they know they have nothing and are afraid of what the Nazgul might do in retaliation.
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BMO
Re:Good answer (Score:5, Interesting)
The honest answer would have been, "in some ways yes, in some ways definitely not".
Oracle's courtroom slideshow at the bottom was really damning... as was its purpose. It's pretty clear that Java is meant to be a fucking trap.
And there's no way we're going to get away from it any time soon. Fuck you Oracle. Fuck you twice. :(
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
Just another rich out of touch moron who doesn't know anything about his company...
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but I challenge you to answer the question accurately and while under oath. Remember we're looking for a "Yes" or "No" answer here...because all software licenses/patents/agreements are that black and white of course...
Oracles own lawyers would have likely given this answer. Only difference is they've had years of practice saying it in various ways, all of which don't sound near as stupid as "I don't know".
Re:Of course the language itself is free. (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow-up
This is also why the astrology book company that was suing the owner of tzdata.dat also had no case and when confronted with ICANN taking over tzdata, they chickened out. Because it's one thing to sue someone who can't afford to even show up in court and another to sue someone who can defend themselves.
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BMO
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
OR a CEO on the stand being asked a question that's difficult to answer based on *purely* legal matters.
Is Java "open"? I don't even know if Oracle's lawyers know the specific answer to that question, because what is open? In a PURELY legal stand point, is open about source distribution? Is open about the licensing? Is it about the JDK APIs? What IS open?
that's a question Larry Ellison would've also tanked on too, I'd bet.
Re:WWSD? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually since most of what he does these days is bitch and moan, I can't say that "we like him for what he does" is entirely accurate either. The GNU/Linux farce is just another example of him desperately trying to remain relevant and another in a long line of embarrassments on his part.
What has Stallman done in the past five years that's of any significance? I'm sure you'll blabber about GPLv3 but if you'll note the community response to that, it's become more divisive than the GPLv2 ever was. If Stallman were really that interested in freedom he'd go with the BSD license, since that actually offers, you know, the most freedom. GPLv3 is all about Stallman's ego and his personal, anti-corporate agenda, not about free software.
TL;DR: for a smelly bastard Stallman is quite washed up.
Re:MAD. (Score:2, Interesting)
True. Apart from greed, Ellison pursued this to impress his close friend Jobs. Another clueless CEO tricked by Jobs.
Re:WWSD? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Stallman were really that interested in freedom he'd go with the BSD license, since that actually offers, you know, the most freedom. GPLv3 is all about Stallman's ego and his personal, anti-corporate agenda, not about free software.
The GPL (in its various versions) and the BSD license emphasize different parts of freedom. GPL is particularly about the freedom of those upstream, and the BSD license is particularly about the freedom of those downstream. Unfortunately, it's not possible to maximize both of those at the same time as they're somewhat antagonistic; some things that a downstream participant (a consumer of the licensed code) might want to do will reduce the power of the upstream participant (a producer of the licensed code). A case in point is where the code in question is used as a component (despite not being originally intended as such) and resold as part of a larger product; the freedom for the downstream actor to do that is much more extensively curtailed by the GPL than by the BSD license.
This is really a philosophical difference — you can't reconcile them, and it's really about a statement of values — and it is often counterweighted by a community that uses "soft power" to encourage the other sorts of freedom; patches still flow upstream in BSD-based communities, people still build products in GPL-based communities.
Re:WWSD? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a fan of Oracle, but it's actually Owen Hughes who was using the word 'free' the right way - the way it's understood in English. Stallman's redefinition of the word is completely warped, and so was Bruce Perens' advice in this case.
The correct question to him should have been, 'Is it open-source?' I know, that's not what Stallman is interested in, since it doesn't feed his agenda. But such a question would have enabled Hughes to give a direct answer. The heckler who said 'Don't use the word 'free' to describe this, use 'cost-less'' was the one who, like Stallman, has either forgotten English, or didn't know it in the first place. If I am walking around Costco and get a sample of some sausages, or cheese, or lemonade that some vendor wants me to add to my cart, I wouldn't ask her (in the event I didn't know) whether it was cost-less: I'd ask whether it's free.
For the purposes that Stallman has described at length, a more appropriate word for him to have used would have been 'Liberated Software'. I know why he doesn't use it - it would betray his Marxist motivations more than his usage of weasel words like 'Free' does, since Liberated, though perfectly appropriate in English to describe the FSF's definition of 'Free Software', and is the literal English equivalent of 'libre', is more associated with Leftist thought, like terms such as Progressive. His excuse for not using libre is that English speaking people in India won't understand it. That's hogwash, and besides, FSF India already uses a Hindi term 'Swatantra Software' (meaning Independent Software, which is another fine term he could have used w/o confusing people, and the Hindi term doesn't mean Rs0 price. Besides, even in India, if you tell someone that something is 'free software' they too will assume that it's Rs 0). If the idea is to promote the ideology of commutative freedom, then Liberated software would have been the most appropriate term to use.
So if one wants to ask the question about whether a software is 'free' or not in the way that Stallman defines it, the correct question to ask is whether the software is open source. If one is hung up on the 'principle' of the user having the full freedom to do everything he or she likes, then ask whether the software is liberated, or GPLed, or something along those lines.
In short, stop bastardizing the word 'free'!
Re:Free? (Score:5, Interesting)
The language was not released under the GPL--a particular implementation of the compiler and VM was released under the GPL. The language is an abstract thing that happens to have multiple implementations of varying quality (Kaffe, gcj, etc., etc.). Sun's implementation is the only one that can use the trademarked name "java" (so far), but it's not the only implementation of the language.
Note that Oracle has been trying to confuse the distinction between Java-the-abstract-language and Java-the-virtual-machine since they started this case. This reminds me of the way that SCO tried to confuse the distinction between UNIX, SYSV and Unixware in their case. Of course, the fact that Oracle is using the same lawyers as SCO did may be related....
Re:Of course the language itself is free. (Score:4, Interesting)
So you agree with SCO that anyone who uses Linux should be sued for violating the UNIX copyrights?
Dalvik has no more to do with Java than Linux does with Unix.
(And note that Oracle is using the same lawyers that SCO did.)
Re:Good answer (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always pondered about yes/no answers in court. I've seen judges demand either a yes or no answer on many occasions, yet to me it seems to conflict with a fundamental principle, at least in the UK justice system.
When you give your oath to the court in the UK it's "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
I remember being taught in history class of all things that it used to simply be "I promise to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth". The whole truth section was added later to prevent people giving answers that whilst true, only paint half the picture due to missing vital information or context.
So I've often wondered in this context how a judge can push for yes/no, as in many circumstances it betrays this fundamental principle in that either answer only tells a partial truth and not a whole truth. Has this principle ever been tested? To me being forced to give a yes/no answer would mean that I was betraying my vow to tell the whole truth as either answer would only be a partial truth in a more complex situation.
This is one of those circumstances where such an answer would in my opinion, violate such a vow, and as much as I want Oracle to lose I do also sympathise with the difficulty of just answering yes/no to that particular question.
Re:Yah You Know, CEOs (Score:5, Interesting)
Stock compensation will require an immediate tax payment ONLY if it is without conditions. If, for example, the company granting the stock to you puts a two year period in which you must maintain employment before you can sell the stock then you can avoid immediate payment of taxes and it gives you time to take advantage of some benefits (though it gets pretty hairy from that point trying to claim value reductions or reduced value for the limitation of liquidity).
In response to your other comment about being able to take a like amount of cash and buy the stock at fair-market value to achieve the same tax rate that is not true because you would expose yourself to double taxation (which is the reason most people put a before-tax investment into their 401k). If you received a million dollars in cash you would end up paying your income taxes on that amount and then capital gains taxes on the stock as well.
As a side note, if a company is trying to reduce tax liability themselves they can compensate employees in stock, treat it as an expense akin to cash payouts, and reduce their overall burden. Corporations always win on matters like that.
One of the real brilliant things these billionaires do is, after covering basic taxes, not sell the stock at all. If you don't sell it you avoid tax consequences. Larry Ellison "borrowed" against the value of his stock to buy his giant yacht and doesn't pay a dime in taxes. If he keeps them for his whole life he can pass them to his heirs and the income tax will never have been paid (heirs only pay a tax on appreciation of value since the death of the owner, often a fraction of the true value of the stock).
-Not To Be Taken As Professional Advice, Consult A CPA/Lawyer before making any decisions.-
Google anti-open source. (Score:5, Interesting)
A Google engineer, Tim Lindholm, said in a February 2006 e- mail that the company was in negotiations for a Java license. Google didn’t agree to the terms of a type of license that allows companies to use Java code and write new code on top of it which “you have to give back to the open-source community,” Jacobs said.
“You can’t keep it for yourself,” the Oracle lawyer said. “They broke the basic rules of the Java programming community.”
So I don't get why the open source crowd is all pro Google on this.
Re:No one knows for sure anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
Java is a bit of a special animal. Sun conceived and promoted it as a community resource, but with a "branding" committee to ensure compatibility across deployments (one of THE primary goals of the Java ecosystem.)
I've never heard of anyone being charged for a Java runtime or compiler, so in the sense of beer, it's free.
But in terms of theoretical software freedom ala GPL? No, it's not free -- it's managed by the consortium.
I'm ok with that, even from the theoretical perspective. Because when the primary goal is portability, there has to be a steward of some sort to test compatibility and ensure portability.
That said, Oracle seems to be determined to try to seize the product line back as a proprietary thing, and I don't believe that's going to work. Even if they prove they have the necessary copyright/patent control in court, there are a lot of OTHER companies who contributed THEIR patents and copyrights to the Java framework, such as HP's patents on springs-and-struts layout managers that are used by the GUI framework.
Personally I believe Oracle is pushing the question of copyright on Java as a means of getting it clarified by the courts that languages are not copyrightable, rather than in any actual hope of winning such a claim. Because if they win such a claim, they're immediately subject to the copyrights of the C/C++ like syntax from which Java derives, and would effectively kill Java completely. Oracle and the rest of the consortium members won't want that, so it has to be a case of "we want to make sure no one ever tries to copyright a language again."
Ideas are not copyrightable, implementations are (Score:2, Interesting)
You're confusing patents with copyrights. Only ideas can be patented (not specific implementations), and only specific implementations can be copyrighted (not ideas).
The idea of Git cannot be copyrighted because it's an idea. In contrast, implementations of Git can indeed be copyrighted. What's more, any given implementation of Git will have its own copyright, and those multiple copyrights held by various Git implementations can be all different to each other.
Note that there is an important exclusion in respect of Git APIs: they cannot be copyrighted as that would prevent interoperability between differently licensed implementation of Git. This is the practical reason why APIs have been excluded from copyright protection for some 5-6 decades, and it applies to Java as much as to everything else.
So that's why you are dramatically wrong. The fact that ideas can require much creativity is undeniable, but ideas cannot be copyrighted.
Re:I don't trust Google any more (Score:4, Interesting)
Sun basically said that anyone could use the code so long as they DIDN'T call it Java. It's like the IceWeasel / Firefox thing. They have no choice. So not illegal, and not really immoral.
You have to decide. Either they could not use the Java name, and in this case they are MASSIVELY infringing, as their code / documentation / web sites contain thousands of times the word "Java", including the Android frontpage [android.com], or they can use it, and your justification of Google's sneaky behaviour does not hold.
Of course they were circumventing the need to have a Java ME license. That's not the issue, and not illegal. The question is, did they circumvent it properly, or did they get caught on the snags of not doing a proper job of it (i.e. can ANYONE make something Java-like or even use Java code without stepping on things that are IMPOSSIBLE to work around?). This is within the realm of reverse-engineering and IP-skirting. You don't want to pay for their patents, so you work to AVOID them instead. Again, hardly illegal or even immoral.
The fact is, that they knew they needed a Java ME license (Java SE didn't have licensing problems, but it wasn't technically appetible for them). Java ME's licensing model is of course designed to be impossible to work around, as the company that created it had this crazy aspiration to make money out of it. And Google decided NOT to pay for the license. "Immoral" does not belong to my vocabulary; a judge will decide if this is illegal.
The GPL thing? They didn't want to use GPL code. Simple as that. Nor do quite a few huge companies. That's their choice. And rather than that just plain infringe GPL code or get the GPL taken down in a court. Again - they didn't want to do something, their only legal avenue was to find an alternative and work around the problem. They can licence their own code under whatever license they want and they can start from ANY licence or licenced code that they choose as a basis to start from. Not illegal, not immoral.
My point never was that Google had to use GPL code or that not using GPL code is illegal, you're creating a magistral straw man argument. The point is that Google, a company that builds for itself an exterior image of an open source supporter, who has made billions by leveraging GPL-licensed code, calls the obligation to release a product's source code "an infection". Just like Microsoft. This is not illegal, by all means, it's just disappointing, hypocritical, or, in Google-speak, "evil".
Now, if it were Microsoft? I think they'd avoid the GPL like a plague too. Google didn't make up their own "open" licence though, that's basically useless for anyone trying to contribute, which Microsoft have in the past. And MS have DEFINITELY avoided using certain trademarked names (and tried to enforce trademarks on things like Windows in the past, etc.) and DEFINITELY worked around patents that others owned rather than licence them (their Office suite comes to mind).
(In your comparison, you forgot getting fined for impeding investigations and for privacy violation.) Are you trying to convince me that Google have become as "evil" as Microsoft? That was the main point of my post, actually.
The question really is, where's your bias come from?
I get called "a shill", "a sockpuppet", "a astroturfer" after almost any post I write on Slashdot. I got accused of being paid, among others, by Apple, Nokia, Sony... and Google. I take it with pride as I think it means that I'm doing something minimally useful to prevent Slashdot from becoming an useless echo chamber. Most people understand what kind of communities accuse the dissenters of being "the enemy".
Re:Free? (Score:5, Interesting)
What, precisely, does it mean if you say a programming language is free?
as in beer
Is there really any other definition?
a) You can use programs written in the language without anyone expecting you to pay them.
b) You can write programs in the language without anyone expecting you to pay them.
c) You can write a compiler for the language without anyone expecting you to pay them.
d) You can use the source code for someone else's compiler without anyone expecting you to pay them.
e) You can modify the language definition without anyone expecting you to pay them.
f) You can use the name of the language without anyone expecting you to pay them.
g) You can make conformance/compatibility claims about your compiler for the language without anyone expecting you to pay them.
[...]
z) Some combination of the above.
Re:No one knows for sure anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Groklaw, Google's lawyer was kind enough to show Mr.Ellison a tape of his deposition where he answered the same questions "That's correct." Alzheimer's perhaps?
Re:No one knows for sure anymore. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that Oracle is saying that although the code is GPL, the API is proprietary, so by writing code while referencing the API Google has violated copyright and needs a license for all of their code.
The interesting thing is that if Oracle won this argument, one could presumably argue that Oracle's database on Linux is dependent upon the Linux kernel API, and hence must fall under the GPL.