Oracle Tells Supreme Court Google Copyright Breach Knocked It Out Of Smartphone Market (crn.com) 290
Joseph Tsidulko, writing for CRN: Oracle asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to not review an appellate court's decision finding Google violated Oracle's copyright of the Java platform when building the Android mobile operating system. In that opposition brief, Oracle's attorneys said Google's copyright violation shut Oracle, the Java platform owner, out of the emerging smartphone market, causing incalculable harm to its business. The complex case pitting two Silicon Valley giants against each other has raged on since 2010, and already saw many twists in turns before a circuit court last year reversed a jury decision in favor of Oracle. That prompted Google's appeal to the nation's highest court. Oracle notes Google had previously asked for a writ of certiorari -- the legal term for review by the high court -- in 2015 without success in an earlier phase of the case, and the company argues nothing has changed in the time since.
Oracle believes Google destroyed its hopes of competing as a smartphone platform developer with the Java platform, which enables development and execution of software written in Java, including through APIs that access a vast software library. The lawsuit alleged Google copied those APIs without a proper license. Java was developed at Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2010. "Google's theory is that, having invested all those resources to create a program popular with platform developers and app programmers alike, Oracle should be required to let a competitor copy its code so that it can coopt the fan base to create its own best-selling sequel," Oracle's brief states.
Oracle believes Google destroyed its hopes of competing as a smartphone platform developer with the Java platform, which enables development and execution of software written in Java, including through APIs that access a vast software library. The lawsuit alleged Google copied those APIs without a proper license. Java was developed at Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired in 2010. "Google's theory is that, having invested all those resources to create a program popular with platform developers and app programmers alike, Oracle should be required to let a competitor copy its code so that it can coopt the fan base to create its own best-selling sequel," Oracle's brief states.
When evil battles evil (Score:2, Funny)
Who do I root for?
Hopefully this will be a very long, messy, and expensive legal battle for both companies.
Re:When evil battles evil (Score:5, Informative)
Oracle is trying to trick the courts into allowing the copyrighting of interfaces. Before it was mostly limited implementation. Thus, Oracle is potentially doing more damage to the legal system.
What stopped Oracle forking Android? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it would have had to rebrand it. e.g. Orafix, Mava (mobile java),..., what have you.
Nothing stopped Oracle from pulling a CyanogenMod move, but backed by Oracle's money.
Nothing except lack of willpower, imagination, and skill.
Re: What stopped Oracle forking Android? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you lay people off regularly to maintain an environment of fear, the truely talented go elsewhere, or avoid you entirely. Meanwhile those left are more concerned with survival than innovation.
Re:What stopped Oracle forking Android? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the bigger question is:
If Google was able to bring out a Smart Phone what stopped Oracle from doing the same before Google in the early 2000's? Seems like Oracle is whining about not being able to ride on the coattails of a competitor AFTER the fact. Notice how Oracle bought Sun AFTER Android was released.
Timeline for those that forgot the details:
*Java came out in 1995.
* Google announced Android in 2007 and shipped the first device in 2008.
* Oracle bought Sun in 2010.
--
The Lie of Islam: God commanded his children to kill one another.
Re: (Score:2)
And a good way to make money. Google makes money off android with data gathering, use of google services for more data gathering and then ultimately advertising. What is Oracle going to do? Charge phone manufacturers for use of their OS that is identical to googles? They aren't set up to make money off of something like android.
Re: (Score:3)
Oracle didn't want to be in the smartphone market. They just wanted to get X% of all smartphone sales by requiring fees of everyone who uses Java.
Re:What stopped oracle from "competing"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not Oracle, but Sun has a lot of history in closely related spaces. The original Java platform (back when Java was called Green) was the 7*, a handheld computer that ran a modified Solaris that supported execute in place and ran happily with a 32-bit SPARC and 1MB of RAM. The vast majority of pre-iPhone smartphones and featurephones included J2ME, which (unlike J2SE) required a license fee from each phone maker.
This is the main reason that Sun was unhappy with Android. They'd been receiving royalties from pretty much every phone to be able to use Java and then suddenly Google came along with a Java implementation that didn't require anyone to pay Sun. Worse, as with Microsoft's J++, it wasn't a fully conformant implementation of Java - it did both subsetting and supersetting, so arbitrary Java code doesn't work on Android and arbitrary Android Java code doesn't work on other JVMs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is this ANY different than the MS Java case?
Microsoft agreed to abide by Sun's licensing terms in exchange for being allowed to call J# an implementation of Java. Microsoft violated those terms by making J# incompatible with Java.
Google copied the interface specification, wrote its entirely own implementation, and made it quite clear that it was NOT Java; but rather had a high degree of compatibility with certain parts of Java.
These cases could hardly be any more different. They are nearly polar opposites.
Given that, Google was really stupid about the whole thing. It should have started with the GPL'd Java, stripped out the parts not wanted for Android, then GPL'd the whole thing. Tada! A clean and completely unassailable (through copyright) Android. Plus many millions of litigation dollars saved.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dammit! Why the hell doesn't Slashdot provide a preview feature before posting!?
Oh, wait.
This is how it should have looked:
How is this ANY different than the MS Java case?
Microsoft agreed to abide by Sun's licensing terms in exchange for being allowed to call J# an implementation of Java. Microsoft violated those terms by making J# incompatible with Java.
Google copied the interface specification, wrote its entirely own implementation, and made it quite clear that it was NOT Java; but rather had a high degree of compatibility with certain parts of Java.
T
Re: (Score:2)
Google copied the interface specification, wrote its entirely own implementation, and made it quite clear that it was NOT Java; but rather had a high degree of compatibility with certain parts of Java.
These cases could hardly be any more different. They are nearly polar opposites.
Given that, Google was really stupid about the whole thing. It should have started with the GPL'd Java, stripped out the parts not wanted for Android, then GPL'd the whole thing. Tada! A clean and completely unassailable (through copyright) Android. Plus many millions of litigation dollars saved.
That's not strictly true. Google did more than that. They copied much more than just the interfaces. Then all they had to do is NOT remove Oracle's name from the source code. Somehow that's the one thing that Google did. The secondary issues here are big but the core issue is one of utter stupidity (and seemingly ego) on Google's part. Other companies do this all the time without violating the license of the original code. Somehow, Google was unable to do that and scrubbed out Oracle's name everywher
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. It's funny because it's a repeat of the battle over Java vs J++ over 20 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. It's funny because it's a repeat of the battle over Java vs J++ over 20 years ago.
Its not. MS was making an intentionally incompatible version of Java. Google wasn't trying to do and didn't do that. This is about Google not being able to follow basic legal advice. Its also a pretty damning indictment of problem's in Google's management as this is caused by simple ego and not some complex legal trip up.
Re: FALSE (Score:2)
You have it reversed. With the new standard tht APIs are copyrighted, it will kill open source software.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
With the new standard tht APIs are copyrighted
Minor correction, can be copyrighted. Not every API that comes into existence automatically becomes copyrighted unless the author says so and even then if they only enforce it.
I don't agree with the idea that APIs can be copyrighted, but, what I do and don't agree to means nothing in the legal system. That said, I don't see this as something that kills open source software. Not giving something a legal definition leaves it in murky waters. With APIs being something that can be copyrighted, it's easy for
Re: FALSE (Score:5, Informative)
Minor correction, can be copyrighted. Not every API that comes into existence automatically becomes copyrighted unless the author says so and even then if they only enforce it.
Your correction is incorrect, at least in the United States. Creative works are automatically protected by copyright from the time they are created; no additional action by the author is necessary. Unlike trademarks, copyright (as well as patent) protection is not lost for failure to actively defend it.
Re: (Score:2)
Your correction is incorrect, at least in the United States
You are correct on this. That is Trademark that requires legal defense and Copyright requires overt act to release to public domain.
That said, in the United States, I believe the majority of what I said still applies. Modern APIs are more explicit about the licensing requirements for the API and GPL et al convey an open agreement for the APIs. Additionally, Copyright in the US permits fair use as well. While I wouldn't want to attempt playing within that domain, new projects convey fair derivative use o
Re: (Score:2)
That's a physical, hardware interface. This story is about purely software interfaces.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's patented.
Patents are only good for about 20 years. Any patents on the original x86 instrutions would have expired long ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What we need is the shakespearean punishment.
First we kill ALL the lawyers.
Re:When evil battles evil (Score:5, Insightful)
In this particular case, you root for Google. Not because Google is in any way "good" or "not evil", but because Oracle is trying to ensure that no company can ever make anything interoperable with another company's stuff ever again. There is no accusation that Google copied code, only that they re-implemented the API. A strict interpretation in favour of Oracle would mean that you could never use anyone's API to interface with them without violating their copyright (or paying royalties, etc) This would be a very dangerous precedent.
Re: When evil battles evil (Score:5, Interesting)
You may not like Java, and that's perfectly fair, but that's not a reason to root for Oracle in this case.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course it makes it an active act that tends to go against shareholder interests, vs a passive act that's for the betterment of society as a whole, so the odds of it happening in most cases is very small.
Re: (Score:3)
A company is still free to explicitly give those rights to the public domain
Why don't you look that up and see what lawyers say before you state it as fact?
Stated it as a fact without a "some people believe" or other weasely caveat makes it into a straight lie.
The very comment you replied to informed correctly that the Berne Convention says you gain copyright when you create the work. That is not in dispute.
And which law says you can place a work into the public domain? There isn't one. There isn't one, so according to the Berne Convention, there the copyright sits with the creator
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Look up the legal debate on the issue, Dunderhead. Don't just assert opinion as fact, on the hope that you're right.
People have said those words. That doesn't mean their words overrule the Berne Convention. It doesn't mean their works are "in the public domain." They advertised an impossible promise. That doesn't guarantee you shit, but it sure as hell isn't a law that can supersede anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who, you called me a name, that MUST make you right! You don't need to do actual research, you can insult people!
I never said they could overrule the Berne convention, there's no conflict between being given copyright, and allowing the world to use it for free with no strings attached.
You're unable to continue thinking, because I called you a name. That calls for another one! LOL
You don't seem to comprehend that "Public Domain" isn't a name you can call something, it is an actual legal status of the work, and you can't use words to cause that legal status to magically appear; doing so, if successful, would violate the Berne Convention.
Insisting you're doing it for a good cause doesn't cause it to be the law. Only a fucking idiot would think that. See how easy it is to prevent you from th
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, repeating falsehoods.
Sure, have it your way. All record labels, all movie studios, and all software companies will go out of business immediately. It is 100% impossible for them to make money as doing so relies on licensing their work to others, which as you clearly state is impossible under the Berne convention
Until you can show me the actual text of law that shows the exact minimum payment legally allow
Re: (Score:2)
You can't change the Berne Convention by calling it false. The United States Congress joined it in the 1980s. It is the Law.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't seem to comprehend that "Public Domain" isn't a name you can call something, it is an actual legal status of the work, and you can't use words to cause that legal status to magically appear; doing so, if successful, would violate the Berne Convention.
Based on a brief search on Google, the last bit isn't true. It looks like a country can have a mechanism for releasing a work into the public domain (e.g. The Netherlands [wikipedia.org]) without violating the Berne Convention. I don't know, however, how many countries have such a law; for example, I didn't find anything that says the USA does.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:When evil battles evil (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully this will be a very long, messy, and expensive legal battle for both companies.
But then the lawyers win, and as terrible as Oracle and Google may be nothing justifies the lawyers winning.
hard to believe Oracle = smartphones (Score:2)
for instance, how's it going to work putting an antenna on a SunServer and carrying it on the bus to talk to your significant other.
Could you imagine.... (Score:4, Funny)
A smartphone developed by Oracle?
I've been fortunate enough never to have crossed paths with Oracle's infamous licensing terms, but I could picture it now:
Every time you used your phone for any purpose whatsoever, you'd have to pay a fee to Oracle.
Re: (Score:2)
A smartphone developed by Oracle?
I've been fortunate enough never to have crossed paths with Oracle's infamous licensing terms, but I could picture it now:
Every time you used your phone for any purpose whatsoever, you'd have to pay a fee to Oracle.
This was my first thought also. WTF would by an Oracle phone? Google, for all their faults, at least provides some value. Oracle is just a douchey company with little redeeming value at all.
Re: (Score:2)
A smartphone developed by Oracle? I've been fortunate enough never to have crossed paths with Oracle's infamous licensing terms, but I could picture it now:
Every time you used your phone for any purpose whatsoever, you'd have to pay a fee to Oracle.
This was my first thought also. WTF would by an Oracle phone? Google, for all their faults, at least provides some value. Oracle is just a douchey company with little redeeming value at all.
Hahahahahaha, no...If I want my data lost and my queries to fail, I look to Google. If I actually want performance and accuracy of the result, then I use Postgres or Oracle. Google is a good search engine and once upon a time they made great software. 2008 was a long time ago and almost everything coming out of Google these days is crap. As bad as dealing with Oracle business folk is, at least I won't get hung out to dry by their software (well maybe but far less than with Google). Something I absolute
Re: (Score:2)
> Java licenses are free to developers, but companies incorporating the technology into their platforms are required to pay, Oracle said.
> But Google rejected a deal for the proper Oracle license because it didn't want to meet Oracle's demands for Java compatibility—it didn't want Android apps to run on other platforms, Oracle said in the brief.
> That strategy ultimately prevented Oracle from licensing and competing in the developing smartphone market.
But seriously, what was their phone strat
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A smartphone developed by Oracle?
I've been fortunate enough never to have crossed paths with Oracle's infamous licensing terms, but I could picture it now:
Every time you used your phone for any purpose whatsoever, you'd have to pay a fee to Oracle.
Also, for not using it when they thought you should have.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you realize how parallel a human brain is?
Oracle would figure out a 'reasonable' core count for the human brain and charge license fees based on that number times the (number of people your address book can hold + 1).
Then after a year, they would 'realize' they had 'made a mistake' and triple that core count.
Woe to the user that exceeded their max address book size without informing and paying Oracle, and don't forget to pay double or triple for any schizo people you know.
patent troll (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So it's devolved to the level where Oracle is little more than a gigantic patent troll so Larry can have a bigger sailboat.
They're a lot more than that. They also have a bunch of lawyers just for suing their customers.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's devolved to the level where Oracle is little more than a gigantic patent troll so Larry can have a bigger sailboat.
Did you fall asleep in 2005 and just wake up?
Re: (Score:2)
they should team with MS (Score:2)
I must have missed it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oracle was in the smartphone market?!? When the heck was that?
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oracle's argument is: I couldn't go to the party because Google was already there wearing the dress I wanted to wear?
Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oracle should thank Google. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And by "qualities" we're talking about, millions of jr. level programmers around the world already know it, and so they can spew out Appy Apps.
Oracle purchased a poorly managed technology, JAVA (Score:5, Interesting)
But somehow we are to expect, or the judges are, that it was all Google's fault? Java on mobile phones, back when phones were not very smart, was a mess with many different layers of API's to follow. I forget what they called that mobile version of JAVA but each phone vendor had different application stores and different application requirements.
Apple showed that the market for downloading applications on mobile devices was viable again( remember Palm did it years before ) and Google just followed their lead. Had the phone vendors considered their Sun JAVA mobile API's sufficient they could have competed but they were stuck with what Sun provided and it was not really so good for the rich smartphone OS which was becoming the norm.
Oracle purchased Sun thinking they'd leverage JAVA everywhere but Sun left the mobile market and focused on the server side and browser...
LoB
Re: (Score:2)
I forget what they called that mobile version of JAVA
I believe it was, oddly enough, Java ME (Mobile Edition)
Re: (Score:2)
Sun was in financial trouble.
Oracle had to buy it out to stop their competition acquiring Java. All their corporate products are built using it or embed it.
Having to call their flagship product "Oracle Database, powered by Microsoft Java" would be bad for them.
Dog ate my homework (Score:2)
No seriously, that might as well be the excuse from Oracle. They are pretty much saying "since Google used this language/API that we wanted to patent troll AFTER they forked it and already had Android all rolling, we pretty much can't be on that market, because the way we WOULD be on that market was to do nothing more than demand royalties from Google by using this technology that we simply purchased without actually thinking through that it was OPEN SOURCE BEFORE".
I could say this is funny. But it is actua
Re: (Score:2)
Oracle's Java is actually just open source OpenJDK compiled with Oracle's name on it.
Yeah, right. (Score:2)
We all remember those beautiful sleek end-user friendly and exciting products from Oracle, before evil Google came along and destroyed de poor liddle Oracle and their beautiful consumer products lineup.
Sooo mean, sooo sad.
Oracle?! (Score:2)
I'd be more inclined to buy a phone branded Etch-A-Sketch than Oracle.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice!
Android running on SPARC? (Score:2)
Absurd argument (Score:2)
No one stops Oracle to take Android (or would they need to pay a license fee?) and sell their own Android device.
However if they put their Oracle database on it, I would ski :P
Re: (Score:2)
You dont understand. Google has used Java contrary to license terms. ...
No they have not
If you think otherwise give an example.
Phones by Oracle? Gods preserve us! (Score:2)
And I say that as an atheist. Oracle is the proverbial Evil Inc. that only cares about fucking its customers over.
Thanks, Oracle! (Score:2)
Those bastards at Google! (Score:2)
They did the same damned thing to my company. I tell you, if it weren't for them and their Java rip-off, everybody would be making cell phones.
What utter bullshit (Score:2)
If Oracle had the vision at the time, Google using the same platform for app development would have helped them significantly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fascinated to hear what products Oracle had in the works that Google wrecked by re-using Java library headers.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Well while I don't agree with Orcacle's theory that interfaces can be subject to copyright. I would agree with the assessment Google by creating their own JVM essentially drove Oracle out of the mobile market place. J2ME Was pretty widely used in what we think of as the pre-smartphone era.
I don't see any reason why it would not have become the defacto application platform going forward, except for entrants like Google with resources enough to implement their own JVA not wanting to pay Oracle for theirs.
Remember when blamer said "developers..developers..developers.." same thing applies here its not like Google chose Java as their implementation language for Android because the syntax is so sexy and everyone love it. They picked it because a lot of people know it. J2ME would have probably continued as a force without Davlik and just got some sexy new interface libraries to bring all the existing mobile phone developers and desktop java developers over.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
J2ME's UI options and system services were terrible for mobile.
Android, for all its warts, was substantially better. Java just happened to be a decent language for the time that could be hooked into the Android stack.
If it had been Swift or Python or Ruby it still would have pantsed any J2ME phone offering. Java isn't all that special. Look at iPhone - lots of people learned Objective-C just to use its mobile stack and in that case Apple itself showed how non-optimal a language that is by developing Swift.
Oracle is attempting to mislead the Court.
Re: (Score:3)
Apple did not make native apps a choice for iphone until after the product was released. The chose obj-c because that is was OSX was being built with and that is what all the smart people they had pulled in from Next knew. So the choice of obj-c was very much one about developers..developers..developers it just so happened to be internal developers when that call got made.
Re: (Score:2)
Oracle is attempting to mislead the Court.
No shit Sherlock ! Understatement of the year. Anybody with 10 minutes of reading on the subject can see that, so why haven't they been thrown out yet, with prejudice ?
Re: (Score:3)
Careful. You may be committing the common and understandable error of thinking that J2ME = J2ME CLDC. There was a less stripped down framework called CDC which had a couple of profiles with UI based on AWT. IBM had an implementation for PocketPC. It would have been a suitable basis for something which went beyond feature phones if a company with the right vision had taken it on in about 2003.
Re: (Score:2)
Tough luck. The courts are not there to make sure one company's profits are protected at all cost. Even if it is true that Google drove them out of the mobile market, it still doesn't mean APIs can be copyrighted. The case in court is not about whether Google hurt Oracle's feelings or not.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Did I say it was? Oracle is not entitled to the mobile market. Like you I disagree with the premise that interfaces can be subject to copyright. If the court however finds otherwise; than damages will have to be figured. If we are forced to presume by the courts finding that interfaces can be copyright; than all I am saying is Oracles argument that Google cost them the mobile space probably does follow, and Google will in that instance be required to pay dearly.
Re: (Score:3)
I would agree with the assessment Google by creating their own JVM essentially drove Oracle out of the mobile market place.
That's utter horse shit. Google adopting Java was the one thing that kept Java alive and growing. Java was well adopted on the server side, but that was it.
The JVM had a half ass implementation on dumb flip phone mobile devices before the smartphone market took off.
If anything it was Oracle's idiotic move to sue Google for using Java that killed Java as an option on other platforms. Why would other platforms use Java if Oracle is just going to turn around and file a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Oracle
Re: (Score:3)
Java was the most popular language for mobile apps before Android came along. Nokia's Symbian OS in particular had many Java based apps, and the industry could see where things were going: apps that run on phones, TVs and laptops, basically everywhere.
Symbian was crap though and apps were generally terrible. Android quickly took over, and how Android apps so in fact run on phones, TVs and laptops.
Oracle is arguing that they could have been a major player if Android hasn't used their API, but in reality Java
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Well, "most popular language for mobile apps" is misleading. C was the most popular language for mobile code.
But C didn't have sandboxing capabilities, etc. Fault isolation and data protection in native code relies on a memory protection unit, which was too complex/expensive to be included in dumb phone processors.
So downloadable "apps" mostly used Java which had some inherent security features based in a mandatory type-safety system.
But "smartphones" have always had better hardware, and in particular they've had MPUs, so there was no reason to use (slow, bloated) Java except for portability. And in the early days of smartphones there were only 3 or 4 processor architectures in use, and any OS that had more than one had enough smarts built into the app deployment systems (for example, ActiveSync for WinCE) to pick the right binary for the phone.
So Java never had a foothold on honest-to-God smartphones before Google introduced Dalvik and Android -- only on feature phones. So you may be able to make the statement true by adding enough qualifiers -- "the most popular language for MMS-downloadable applets on feature phones" -- but that was a doomed niche.
Re: (Score:2)
Java was the most popular language for mobile apps before Android came along.
It still is. Android is an operating system not a programming language.
Oracle is arguing that they could have been a major player if Android hasn't used their API.
The case in court is not about which player is major or minor or how much profit Oracle would have made if Android did not exist. The case is about whether APIs can be copyrighted. If you are allowed to copyright APIs then you are also allowed to copyright a file format.
If they had a patent on it, it would be a different discussion but I don't see how it can be copyrighted.
Re: (Score:2)
Android is an operating system not a programming language.
And it might actually be just a Linux distro.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know Symbian native development but I work with developers who say it was pretty decent at the time.
However, in my experience J2ME on phones was a horrible developer experience. The implementations were terrible, incompatible, incomplete, hard to get decent documentation for, even harder to get developer support for, easily crashed some phones (hey Siemens) etc. Write once, work nowhere. Nokias Symbian phones were the most pleasant ones I got to develop J2ME apps for. Yeah, it was still crap.
J2ME (Score:2)
Funny thing is, J2ME was pretty big business pre-iOS and Android. Probably had the largest market share of any mobile platform, at least up there with native Symbian apps. Oracle did basically nothing with it, as they bought Sun primarily for enterprise Java and server hardware. Then, when Android blew up, Oracle finally realized they could make some money off of a mobile Java platform, but it was too late. They had done nothing with J2ME and it was so far behind anything else as a platform the only way the
Had an actual Java phone at one point (Score:2)
It was dog slow. Unplayably so. I mean, I know it's a cheap phone and all, but come-on. It's a clone of Atari breakout.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm a bit confused here. I don't recall Oracle or Sun ever trying to break into the smartphone market.
And frankly knowing Oracle I'm so incredibly glad they didn't.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You hire lawyers and politicians to make it legally impossible for people to go with a competing product, then you launch your own inferior product and wait for the money to roll in.
THAT's how it works.
Competing on actual merit is so last century.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought I covered that with hiring politicians.
Re:API... not code (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry IBM are quietly rubbing their hands in glee. Should Oracle succeed, they should expect to find themselves in court for ripping off IBM's SEQUEL back when they where Relational Software. It's a bit of a silly game for Oracle to play IMHO.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically IBM through the sub Red Hat, came out for Google. Microsoft I think is coming out for Oracle to be evil. IE don't use java because Oracle will sue you, use .NET instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Too many companies that made abysmally bad strategic IT decisions and not cannot get rid of Oracles crap. My students tell me they expect Java to be dead within a few years (due to the upcoming fees by Oracle), but it will be decades until all legacy stuff is gone.
Re: (Score:2)
Except Google started using Java when it was still owned by Sun Microsystems.
Oracle is still around because it has lots of money. Money from entrenching itself in a lot of large companies.
Re: (Score:2)
Slowlaris on a phone? Could the ideas get any worse?
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the problem was that it was slow on x86, but worked fine on RISC platforms? Phones are mostly ARM.
That wouldn't be the problem. The problem would be, where would apps come from, and where would security come from?
Re: (Score:2)
Solaris is pretty slow on anything. And it has a really bad network stack and that is after it was cleaned up.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't Oracle already have the old BSD network stack, though?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What are you talking about?
All Google did was build their own platform using the Java language and API. They didn't take or change any code.
Re: (Score:2)
eBay would just do an Amazon and migrate away from Oracle.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, they'd let you use it as much as you want, but every year they'd come in an audit your usage and send you an invoice.
Their database licensing model is to let their customer install it on as many machines as they want, when ever they want, without asking for permission. They then send an invoice based on how many cpu cores you're running it on.
Kind of like a loan shark or a drug dealer.