|
|
| Oracle v. Google - Look What The Cat Dragged In (to Oracle) |
 |
|
Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:00 AM EDT
|
Okay, first things first. What does the expression "Look what the cat dragged in" mean in this context. Well, any cat owner (guilty) will tell you that outdoor cats (not guilty) will gladly catch, kill and deposit all sorts of formerly living creatures on their owner's doorstep. This can be a disgusting practice, but one you learn to live with if you have an outdoor cat. The expression is meant to convey an unhappy surprise.
In this instance the unhappy surprise is for Oracle and the missing Sun website. One of our readers (Keith) has been busy on Wayback seeing what he could find, and he has come up with quite a collection. We are not suggesting that all of these apply in the immediate case, but it is interesting to see the mixed message of Sun (pre-Oracle) and Oracle America (formerly Sun).
Sun's Press Release for Opening Java
(11/13/2006)http://web.archive.org/web/
20080515151929/http:/www.sun.com/2006-1113/
feature/story.jsp:
"GNU/Linux distributors can add no-cost Java implementations to their
distributions, while customers with stringent open-source
requirements can deploy a free, reliable Java software stack on most GNU/Linux
distributions."(emphasis added)
Here is an amazing blog post by Greg Papadopoulous (Sun's Chief Technology
Officer)
http://web.archive.org/web/
20080430075650/http:/blogs.sun.com/
gregp/entry/
are_software_patents_useful
in which he advocates for software patent reform and remarks that Sun would only use their own patents defensively. He also praises Richard Stallman and Larry Lessig. Since Java is released under the CDDL, take a look at
this:
"Some of the most effective of these are "patent peace" grants, such as what
>> we have done with CDDL: you get a grant to our patents as long as
you follow the copyright license, including that you won't prosecute for any
patents that you might have."
This passage is directly from his post as well (no emphasis added). Since
Java is licensed similarly, I (Keith) assume this relates to Java as well as ZFS:
"Certainly, we (at Sun) feel like we have put some serious coin into
developing things like ZFS and dtrace, which we have published under
a FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) license (CDDL for now), and for which we have applied for patents. We will *never* (yes, I said *never*) sue
anyone who uses our ZFS codebase and follows the terms of the license: they
publish their improvements, propagate the license, and not sue anyone else
who uses the ZFS codebase. And look at the innovation not only with ZFS in OpenSolaris, but its adoption by Mac OS X and BSD.
But under what conditions would we enforce our patents? How would we
feel if someone did a cleanroom version of ZFS and kept the resulting code proprietary?
We wouldn't feel good, to be sure. But I'd put the burden back on us (certainly as a large company) that if such a thing were to happen
it was because we were failing to *continue to* innovate around our
original code. Being sanguine about patent protection as an exclusive right would
result in less innovation, not more.
Our licensing of our Java implementations under GPLv2 are a
case-in-point. The early returns are that we are seeing renewed interest and
vitality in the platform and a real acceleration of innovation --- both from us
as well as others."
Here is another blog post by Greg Papadopoulous, where he explicitly states
that states that the CDDL (which again, I (Kieth) believe Java is licensed under)
will never be considered infringement either by copyright or patent.
http://
web.archive.org/
web/20080312184510/http://blogs.sun.com/
Gregp/
entry/my_views_on_open_source:
"Open software is fundamentally about developer freedom. We want developers to freely use any of the OpenSolaris code that we developed for their purposes without any fear of IP infringement of Sun: either patent or copyright.
We chose a license -- CDDL , an improvement of MPL -- that clearly and explicitly gives that freedom.
In fact, the license is MORE liberal in its IP license than even GPL, because it gives a clear patent license and doesn't demand the same
viral propagation...
. . .
What have we done? We have given away enormous intellectual property rights (the code and about 1600 patents that might read upon it) to any developer who wishes to use our code. The only thing we ask in
exchange --- as is the only thing that Stallman and Torvalds and every other open
source developer have asked in exchange --- is that you honor the license.
Period."
Here is a blog post from Mike Dillon (Legal Counsel for Sun), in which he
specifies that Sun's patents would only be used defensively, and in the
defense of
others
http://web.archive.org/web/
20080908120311/http://blogs.sun.com/
dillon/entry/
the_patent_arms_race#comments:
"Unlike some companies, we don't have a corporate goal for revenue
derived from patents (and patent litigation). Instead, we invest in patents to support our customers and the communities in which we participate. This support can be in the form of a defensive response to an attack on a community or in the form of the assurance provided by the patent
licensing provisions of the CDDL or GPLv3. In the end, it's about delivering innovation to our customers and communities."
If you are interested in looking for more such examples, consider the following:
Sun Company
Blogs
http://web.archive.org/
web/20080416013436/http:/www.sun.com/
aboutsun/
media/blogs/index.jsp
Sun's Java
page
http://web.archive.org/
web/20080517091130/http://www.sun.com/
opensource/java
|
|
|
|
| Authored by: fredex on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:21 AM EDT |
| bring'm on! [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sirwired on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:23 AM EDT |
Actually, when an outdoor cat deposits a small creature on your doorstep, it's
giving you a gift. (It uses poop or urine for displeasure.)
Why? To answer this question, you must remember that cats largely
"self-domesticated" themselves into a symbiotic relationship with
humans. (Unlike dogs, which where bred into docility, subservience, and
obedience. Obviously docility, subservience and obedience never happened with
cats, which any cat owner can tell you.)
Cats originally started hanging around humans because their dwellings and farms
were rich sources of concentrated food stashes (i.e pantries, granaries, root
cellars, etc.) Concentrated food stashes attract varmits (birds and rodents.)
Cats "discovered" that if they proved themselves useful around farms
and houses, they would get fed and sheltered when prey was not in abundance,
kittens were protected, etc. (This kind of evolution could be termed
"self-selection"... domestic cats haven't displace wild ones, but did
multiply more due explicitly to humans letting them do so.) Your cat, when it
drops off a mouse or bird that it wasn't hungry enough to eat, is telling you
that it is a useful cat and therefore should be taken care of when the current
varmit infestation is extinguished.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- Actually, the cat is giving you a gift! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:32 AM EDT
- Actually, the cat is giving you a gift! - Authored by: artp on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:55 AM EDT
- It can also evolve into an economic exchange - Authored by: OmniGeek on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 10:00 AM EDT
- I so adored these comments from cat lovers - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 10:37 AM EDT
- Actually, the cat is giving you a gift! - Authored by: DaveJakeman on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 10:38 AM EDT
- Actually, the cat doesn't think you can hunt - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 11:33 AM EDT
- To avoid the problem - Authored by: jpvlsmv on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 11:48 AM EDT
- Dog diary and cat diary - Authored by: jbb on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 01:41 PM EDT
- I have a completely different theory - Authored by: betajet on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 03:01 PM EDT
- Besides - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 03:46 PM EDT
- Oh you romantics... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 06:09 PM EDT
- Returning to the case at issue - Authored by: cricketjeff on Friday, August 12 2011 @ 06:41 AM EDT
- ACTUALLY its telling you that you are... - Authored by: BitOBear on Saturday, August 13 2011 @ 08:18 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:24 AM EDT |
I think this is a clear indication of why we *can't* trust words like that from
companies.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: belzecue on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:44 AM EDT |
www.sun.com currently has no robots.txt file. I guess
because it redirects to oracle.com.
http://www.oracle.com/robots.txt is large and thorough, but
currently has no exclusion for Wayback Machine. If it did,
it would look like this:
User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /
And anything currently archived on Wayback Machine would go
poof. (They retrospectively respect robots.txt directives.)
So what's the bet we soon see a non-redirecting
www.sun.com/robots.txt containing the sole disallow shown
above?
Spoilation of evidence?
Oracle's current presence on Wayback Machine is broad:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.oracle.com/
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sgtrock on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:47 AM EDT |
| Don't forget links if you've got 'em. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sgtrock on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 09:48 AM EDT |
| And links, too, please. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Yobgod on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 11:24 AM EDT |
Oddly, I've never heard the phrase "look what the cat dragged in" used to
refer to an unpleasant surprise.
The usage I'm familiar with addresses it to
a person who has just shown up looking particularly dishevelled, beat up and/or
hung over, implying that their appearance is similar to that of a small mangled
corpse. "You look like death warmed over" is used similarly.
Here's a Reference that supports this as the common usage. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 12:02 PM EDT |
One of the things I expect within the next couple of days
will be a set of DMCA takedown notices against the "WayBack"
machine by Oracular Sun in order to revise history.
I sometimes think that it may be *important* to keep control
of historical materials out of the hands of those who have a
profit motive to revise them... or we'll have an InterNyet
instead.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 12:37 PM EDT |
Sun
Java Desktop, Sep
2003
"Australian telco Telstra will be one of the first major
customers to roll with Sun's Mad Hatter Linux desktop,
according to a report
in The Australian"
'Here, you have a choice between one that's
"open, runs
on every OS," i.e. Java Web
Services, or one
that isn't and doesn't, i.e. .NET`,
Scott McNealy July 2003[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- yanked... - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 12:47 PM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 12:57 PM EDT |
I think if any corporation can do the wayback web stuff it would be google.
Step 1: ask Oracle to produce it all.
Step 2: see what Oracle brings in
Step 3: dump all the stuff google has in the meantime aligning it with stuff
Oracle produced in Step 2.
Step 4: ask Oracle to verify/refute the stuff google added
Step 5: show the lack of documentation Oracle has produced
Step 6: attempt to link the lack of documentation to a direct change of position
by Oracle and an attempt to erase the record
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 01:18 PM EDT |
No wonder Oracle is having trouble reproducing the old web sites. They haven't
figured out how to clean them up nor how to use the fifth amendment to avoid
having to give Google all of this incriminating detail.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 05:41 PM EDT |
While it's clear that the sentiment expressed by early Sun comments about
patents seems inconsistent with current Oracle actions, the underlying words are
not completely irreconcilable.
Sun wanted to promote the adoption of
Java, and saw open sourcing the code and granting explicit patent grants as a
means to accomplish this goal. But they were also protective about maintaining
the integrity of Java, illustrated by their going after Microsoft over attempts
to extend MS versions of Java with incompatible features. The goal wasn't to
make the technology free and open just for its own sake, but to promote Java and
Sun's vision for Java in particular.
Even in the passages quoted in the
main article, there is an emphasis on obeying the license terms set by
Sun.
"Some of the most effective of these are "patent peace"
grants, such as what >> we have done with CDDL: you get a grant to our
patents as long as you follow the copyright license, including that you
won't prosecute for any patents that you might
have."
We will *never* (yes, I said *never*) sue
anyone who uses our ZFS codebase and follows the terms of the license:
they publish their improvements, propagate the license, and not sue anyone else
who uses the ZFS codebase.
Concerning the CDDL, it's worthwhile to note that the patent grant was limited to code
that was provided under the license. Any modifications to the code would not
necessarily be covered under the patent grants.
2.1. The
Initial Developer Grant.
Conditioned upon Your compliance with Section
3.1 below and subject to third party intellectual property claims, the Initial
Developer hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive
license:
(a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or
trademark) Licensable by Initial Developer, to use, reproduce, modify, display,
perform, sublicense and distribute the Original Software (or portions thereof),
with or without Modifications, and/or as part of a Larger Work; and
(b)
under Patent Claims infringed by the making, using or selling of Original
Software, to make, have made, use, practice, sell, and offer for sale, and/or
otherwise dispose of the Original Software (or portions thereof).
(c)
The licenses granted in Sections 2.1(a) and (b) are effective on the date
Initial Developer first distributes or otherwise makes the Original Software
available to a third party under the terms of this License.
(d)
Notwithstanding Section 2.1(b) above, no patent license is granted: (1) for code
that You delete from the Original Software, or (2) for infringements caused by:
(i) the modification of the Original Software, or (ii) the combination of the
Original Software with other software or devices.
2.2. Contributor
Grant.
Conditioned upon Your compliance with Section 3.1 below and
subject to third party intellectual property claims, each Contributor hereby
grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license:
(a) under
intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable by
Contributor to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and
distribute the Modifications created by such Contributor (or portions thereof),
either on an unmodified basis, with other Modifications, as Covered Software
and/or as part of a Larger Work; and
(b) under Patent Claims infringed
by the making, using, or selling of Modifications made by that Contributor
either alone and/or in combination with its Contributor Version (or portions of
such combination), to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have made, and/or
otherwise dispose of: (1) Modifications made by that Contributor (or portions
thereof); and (2) the combination of Modifications made by that Contributor with
its Contributor Version (or portions of such combination).
(c) The
licenses granted in Sections 2.2(a) and 2.2(b) are effective on the date
Contributor first distributes or otherwise makes the Modifications available to
a third party.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 2.2(b) above, no patent
license is granted: (1) for any code that Contributor has deleted from the
Contributor Version; (2) for infringements caused by: (i) third party
modifications of Contributor Version, or (ii) the combination of Modifications
made by that Contributor with other software (except as part of the Contributor
Version) or other devices; or (3) under Patent Claims infringed by Covered
Software in the absence of Modifications made by that
Contributor.
Google never adopted any of the licenses from
Sun for Java. They never claimed to be part of the Java community. They don't
claim that Android is derived from Java. So Sun's earlier statements about
supporting Java and the Java community don't seem to really apply to Google in
this case.
Keep in mind that despite all the nice words from Sun about
openness and freedom for Java, Sun always made sure they kept a certain degree
of control over the whole show. Their grants of rights always contained some
fine print that limited them in ways that prevented others from simply going off
and doing whatever they wanted. A clear example was the Apache Harmony project
being stalled when Sun refused to license the (practically) required Java
Compatibility Kit unless Harmony agreed to specific restrictions on fields of
use for the project outputs that Sun demanded. From the brief glimpses we've
been given into the negotiations between Google and Sun over incorporating Java
into Android, it seems to me that the main sticking point wasn't financial, but
it was the degree of control that Sun wanted to keep over the form that Java
might take in Google's hands. Sun likely didn't want an Android Java to be
markedly different from other official Java implementations to avoid fragmenting
the Java community, while Google likely wanted maximum freedom to mold Java into
the kind of application development platform that worked best on their concept
for mobile computing.
Oracle coming in and taking over Java seemed to
shift corporate emphasis even more to the side of wanting to maintain tighter
control over the Java ecosystem, but it wasn't a completely radical departure
from earlier Sun behavior. Anyway, whenever there's a major change in
management, then expectations about a company have to be adjusted accordingly.
Sometimes those adjustments are severe, such as the transition of HP from the
days when Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard ran the company to what HP eventually
became under Carly Fiorina, for example.
--bystander1313 [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: sproggit on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 06:30 PM EDT |
I hope you'll forgive me for not putting this under "Off Topic" - I
hope you'll think this relevant.
I got to wondering about the cost to business of all the patent litigation that
has been fought in the US since the USPTO first accepted a patent application
for a software patent. I am specifically excluding any damages awards, voluntary
license fees paid and so on. I am thinking exclusively of the expense
associated.
I think overheads potentially break down into a number of categories. Please let
me know if I missed any:-
1. For filing patent applications, or buying portfolios
2. Legal fees for patent disputes that go to court
3. Costs researching potential infringers of held patents
These expenses quickly add up and they are not inconsiderable. This interests me
because the companies who prosecute patent infringement claims clearly believe
that they get an overall financial benefit from doing so. Sums of money running
into billions of dollars are changing hands for patent collections.
In commercial software development (a lucrative market given the very low costs
of scaling a business) these expenses run into billions of dollars.
Sad but true: the only way that the world is going to step back from the madness
will be if the major players in the software patent arena believe that the costs
outweigh the benefits. Change will not come from an epiphany in the legislature,
or a policy shift at the USPTO. Change will not come from a change of government
or the election of a new President.
So what - if anything - is going to bring about a seismic shift that will
persuade the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Nokia, Samsung, et al, that
software patents are a bad idea?
Whilst there are a number of potential events, there is potentially only one of
sufficient magnitude to deliver the desire effect. It's going to be necessary
for a major trading partner of the US to refuse to acknowledge software patents.
That partner could be the European Union or China, as examples. Should this
happen, we could likely see a shift of software development and innovation away
from the US into any other regulatory framework that did not back software
patents. If this were to happen, it would create a potential environment in
which software innovation could take place, free from those constraints. That
market would have the potential to innovate more freely, to foster new ideas and
paradigms and let them grow. If such an environment were to come into being,
there is every chance that it's innovation would eclipse the US software
industry, rendering the major US players irrelevant.
Companies in the US - and therefore the US Government (who take a lot of
lobbying money - ahem) - are not going to like the idea of this, for the simple
reason that if the US can impose it's view of software patents on the wider
world, then the US companies with huge software patent portfolios can dominate
software development worldwide.
What avenues do US agencies have to influence this?
Well, the obvious ones would be the World Trade Association and the World Bank.
It's going to be relatively easy to encourage a country to sign on to software
patents in return for overseas aid, or a World Bank loan...
It's an interesting conundrum.
Bottom line, uncomfortable as it may be, is this: if the European Union or
China, or India, or Brazil, or Japan, want to retain their domestic software
development industries, the safest thing that they can do, right now, is to
actively work against software patents. This may be counter-intuitive to many
people in those countries, particularly the legislators.
Thing is, if they don't, it's too late. US companies have already staked claims
on so many of the high level principles of software development that it would be
practically impossible for any newcomer to wriggle past existing claims and get
to a piece of truly innovative software development. The existing software
patent portfolio in the US alone is more than sufficient to stifle any new
innovation in the industry.
A mechanism that was intended to foster innovation - the patent - has been
corrupted so completely that it has now become the tool of choice to block and
smother that innovation. How very sad. [ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 11 2011 @ 11:47 PM EDT |
From the first blog:
We paid almost $100M to Kodak to
immunize the entire Java community
from infringement claims on mechanisms that
Kodak themselves don't use
--- they acquired the patents from a third party.
This was pure insanity, but
we felt like we had to pay this in order to
indemnify the whole Java
community.)
If Google has no
compunctions being "inspired" by Java without a license
from Sun, the least
they could also be inspired by is doing the same things
Sun did to indemnify
the developers using their platform.
BTW bystander1313 nails all the
relevant points, as usual.
[ Reply to This | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 12 2011 @ 05:40 AM EDT |
Spoliation of evidence.
I wonder if Google can get Oracle nailed for "shredding"
these prejudicial comments by Sun on the eve of trial.
I suspect Oracle nuked the site on purpose in an attempt to
dodge promissory estoppel.[ Reply to This | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
