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Found this while poking around | 342 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections
Authored by: Kilz on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 02:51 PM EDT
Please mention the mistake in the title of your post.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic
Authored by: Kilz on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 02:52 PM EDT
For All posts that are not on topic.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Newspicks
Authored by: Kilz on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 02:53 PM EDT
Please mention the news story's name in the title of the top
post.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes
Authored by: Kilz on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 02:54 PM EDT
Please leave all transcriptions of Comes exhibits here for
PJ. Please post them as HTML in plain text for easy copying.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 03:08 PM EDT
Who decides if API's are copyrightable?

What happens to the statements from Oracle and Google Debate: Can You Copyright Computer Languages, APIs?

I don't really understand why this question (are API's copyrightable) isn't answered first. Anything until now was (more or less) useless if they weren't. Or am I missing something?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Owning Java
Authored by: The Cornishman on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 03:19 PM EDT
Q: Nobody owns the Java language? A: I'm not sure.

Trick question. I imagine Mr Ellison is confident that his company owns the relevant copyrights in the Java softwares; as we've said a hundred times, the GPL depends on copyright. "Nobody owns" seems to me to be a fuzzy sort of definition of 'public domain', which the Java software clearly is not.

That ownership, though, isn't equivalent to owning the language, which the jury might think meant having a right to control anything and everything expressed in that language. In the case of that interpretation, Mr Ellison indeed mightn't be sure (but wishes Oracle did).

---
(c) assigned to PJ

[ Reply to This | # ]

Larry - Ellison says writing APis is 'arguably one of the most difficult things we do at Oracle.
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 03:22 PM EDT
When Larry said:
"Ellison says writing APis is 'arguably one of the most
difficult things we do at Oracle".

Being difficult does not make it special. A farmer plows
many acres of farmland, harvest many bales of hay (often
having to move the bales by hand), gets up
early in the AM to milk cows... all difficult, and most
likely more difficult than Larry's APIs.

So, He deserves protection just because it is hard to do?
Or, because he his who he is, and needs protection because
he want's it (as life is understood in one's alternate
universe).

[ Reply to This | # ]

When do friend of the court briefs get submitted
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 03:50 PM EDT
Are these mostly used in the appeal process, or should this have been done
during the original proceedings? And do courts care about implications of their
rulings, or do they leave that problem to the legislature? One would hope that
when making new law (such as whether API "arrangement" is
protectable), that the effect it has on industry would be relevant.

Whichever way this case is decided, there will be 3rd parties who disagree with
the findings, and will hope to get the appeal decided in their direction.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj
Authored by: tknarr on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 03:59 PM EDT

I think Oracle's trying to confuse the jury. In Sun's (and Oracle's) Java, there's a sun.* namespace. That's the vendor-private API namespace for all the Sun-specific functions that Sun's implementation of the java.* API uses. It isn't neccesary to use the sun.* APIs to run Java, in fact it was assume that other vendors would place their own implementations in their own namespaces (to the point that the Java language spec defines how to create your own namespace: take your DNS domain name and reverse the order of elements, so that Groklaw could use the net.groklaw.* namespace and know it wouldn't conflict with anything or anyone else). But that doesn't change the fact that it's necessary to use Sun's java.* APIs to run Java.

I can see setting up a shell game here, talking about the sun.* namespace and then switching to talking about all the APIs Sun defined for Java without clarifying that you're talking about two different things.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Springboard doesn't need APIs
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 04:06 PM EDT
I'm interested to hear of this Springboard platform that
apparently proves it isn't necessary to use Java APIs to
"run the java... whatever"

I think the badly phrased question was probably intentional,
not to confuse the Jury, but to allow Ellison to say it is
possible without lying. If the question were phrased in a
straightforward way, I think the answer would have had to be
different.

I'm familiar with Java, Android, and some web frameworks
using different languages, but am not familiar with
Springboard at all. Googling it suggests it's a web
framework, in which case perhaps it dodges the "output"
problem by handing it off to a webserver & browser. Whether
they coded around all the APIs, including java.lang /
object etc is another issue, and frankly I doubt it.

If anyone has specialist knowledge about this framework,
perhaps insight may be had.

It is absurd to claim that Java can be used for anything
meaningful with no APIs, and the fact that APIs are used
even in a "Hello World" app means that there is clearly no
bright line between the language and APIs.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Picture Camera Metaphor Is Recent
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 04:26 PM EDT
All,

Back in the day, taking a picture with a camera was only
the first step.

Next came developing and then printing.

Both developing and printing could be done different ways,
different solutions, different time lapses, etc. that could
materially affect the picture.

In those cases, the camera did a minimal amount of work --
it opened a shutter for a time period and exposed a piece
of film. Focusing, lighting, etc. were all done by the
photographer (or assistants).

Just Saying.

jcjodoin ... not logged in ...

[ Reply to This | # ]

LarryCodeSpeak: “I’m not sure" == “That’s correct”
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 04:28 PM EDT
Link

On cross-examination, Google came out firing and the room got tense quickly. "Do you understand that no one owns the Java programming language?" lead counsel Robert Van Nest asked.

Ellison began a longer answer, but Judge William Alsup interrupted him and said it was a "yes or no" question. Finally Ellison said, "I’m not sure."

"And anyone can use it without royalty?" Van Nest followed up.

"I’m not sure," Ellison said again.

Then Van Nest showed a video of Ellison receiving the same question on a deposition video and answering "That’s correct" to both.

And the Footgun keeps on working.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oh, Video Please
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 05:06 PM EDT
I would just love to see Mr Van Nest demonstrating the relationship
between language, APIs and application source code, using his
metal filing cabinet, like an old fashioned chemistry professor...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Did Oracle violate Sun's copyright before their acquiring Sun?
Authored by: mossc on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 05:15 PM EDT

I was just pondering Oracle's Unbreakable Linux (OUL) and thought of something that had not occurred to me before. Perhaps Oracle is in the same boat as Caldera/The SCO Group was in their case as far as distributing what they claim is being infringed under the GPL.

As a company they have distributed a recompiled version of RHEL for a while. I think there have been various java options in the distribution since they launched OUL. Currently I show libgcj and java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-javadoc packages available for RHEL 5. I would bet they are on OUL as well.

From the gnu website http://gcc.gnu.org/java/

GCJ is a portable, optimizing, ahead-of-time compiler for the Java Programming Language. It can compile Java source code to Java bytecode (class files) or directly to native machine code, and Java bytecode to native machine code. Compiled applications are linked with the GCJ runtime, libgcj, which provides the core class libraries, a garbage collector, and a bytecode interpreter. libgcj can dynamically load and interpret class files, resulting in mixed compiled/interpreted applications. It has been merged with GNU Classpath and supports most of the 1.4 libraries plus some 1.5 additions.

interesting quote from the FAQ

2.8 What features of the Java language are/aren't supported. GCJ supports all Java language constructs as per the Java language Specification. Recent GCJ snapshots have added support for most JDK1.1 (and beyond) language features, including inner classes.

I would think this includes APIs and is licensed under the GPL

A few questions for Larry Ellison:
1. Was Oracle in violation of Sun's copyrights before they were acquired?
2. What license did they rely on to distribute libgcj and gcj?
3. Did that include the APIs?

Chuck

[ Reply to This | # ]

Hard work & copyrights
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 05:51 PM EDT
To further pj's argument I would add that the Supreme Court has already
addressed the issue of hard work and copyrights.

In particular, the ruling in which they addressed the matter related to an item
in the public domain. The item had been digitized through a significant amount
of work and copyright was claimed on the digital copy.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that the digital copy was still that... a
copy... and not a creative work.

In the ruling they acknowledged the difficultly involved in digitization, but
very clearly stated that level of effort had absolutely nothing to do with
copyrights.

As a result, they ruled that the digital copy of a public domain item remains in
the public domain.

--- nyarlathotep

[ Reply to This | # ]

critical intellectual property in a standard
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 06:22 PM EDT
Like Rambus ?


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

On The Value of Sun
Authored by: sproggit on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 06:34 PM EDT
I find myself particularly annoyed at the specious mis-representation, by Oracle, of the value JAVA in their transaction to purchase Sun Microsystems. This is a blatant attempt to wow the jury with big numbers in the hope of a substantial damages award.

It is extremely frustrating to see the difference between what the jury are being told and what was reported by Oracle at the time of the purchase.

For example, if you look hereyou will see a press release from April 2009. In this article, you will find comments such as,

“The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability and security go up.”


Well, he's wrong, of course. IBM have been doing that for years... So did Honeywell-Bull for that matter.

In fairness, that same article then goes on to describe Solaris and JAVA as Sun's most important assets, but the truth is that they were not the reason that Oracle made the purchase. The reason, quite simply, was that Sun was at risk of going bankrupt, and if that happened Oracle would have taken a big hit. Whilst Oracle is available on many OS platforms, it sells more licenses on Solaris than all the others combined. The failure of Sun would have seriously hurt Oracle's bottom line. In that sense the purchase was protective/defensive rather than a traditional "growth through opposition" deal.

There is lots of evidence to suggest that Oracle really didn't understand what they were getting into, especially with the loss of many of their best hardware people shortly thereafter.

There is also evidence to support my statement that Sun were in a bad way. Witness their 10Q filing for Q1, 2009, which includes news of the proposed Oracle deal, but adds:

"Other key financial metrics for the quarter ended March 29, 2009, as compared to the quarter ended March 30, 2008, include the following:
• Total revenue decreased by $652 million, or 20.0%.
• North American revenue decreased by $211 million, or 16.8%.
• European revenue decreased by $265 million, or 23.8%.
• Gross margin as a percentage of net revenue decreased by 2.2 percentage points.
• Research and development expenses decreased by $64 million, or 14.0%. • Selling, general, and administrative expenses decreased by $146 million, or 14.8%. "


Does anyone see any good news in those 10Q statements? Other than the reduction in R&D expenses [which were cut because they simply could not afford to spend money they weren't earning, not when revenues were down 20%] everything was on the slide.

At the time, Sun probably had 2 more quarters, at best, before they tanked. IBM had looked and decided that there was nothing of value there and had walked away. Ellison did the deal in order to get Sun hardware and MySQL.

I went hunting the 10Q because I was interested to see if the revenue split out that generated for JAVA. Whilst it doesn't do that, exactly, here's what it does say:-

Net Revenues and Gross Margins(dollars in millions)
Server Products: $1,094
Storage Products: 425
Systems Net: $1,519

Support Services: $ 853
Professional Svcs: 242
Services Net: $1,095

Total Net: $2,614


Obvious question: can anyone show me, in here, where it lists out all the vast sums of money that Sun were making from JAVA? No. Because they weren't making vast sums from it, plain and simple. If you look at the total numbers, the only place that JAVA licenses could be accounted for in the above 10Q statement would be in the detail line, "Support Services". That's an amount of $853 Million in a Gross revenue of $2.6 Billion.

The problem is, of course, that Sun licenses lots of other things in addition to JAVA. Every Sun Server sold ships with the Solaris Operating System, for which Sun charged a license. In addition to the license, Sun charged a maintenance and support charge for the software that covered things like bug fixes, second and third tier support and so on. This would have been included in "Support Services". They would also, of course, charged hardware maintenance fees on all their servers.

All of those things appear to have been bundled in this one number for 10Q purposes.

I haven't followed discovery closely enough to see if Google discovery questions went to the topic of "JAVA Revenues", but I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that it's probably significantly less than 5% of the annual revenues being realised by the company.

Quite how Larry Ellison can turn around and try and claim that JAVA is the reason that Oracle bought Sun is beyond me. Especially when surveys at the time were suggesting that JAVA development was on the *decline* in the big development shops...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Anyone else think that Larry would make a great Lex Luther?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 07:34 PM EDT
Ellison Flustered as Google and Oracle Argue Over Java.

Anyone else think that Larry would make a great Lex Luthor?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 07:42 PM EDT
Where is the list of these 7 APIs that Oracle says Google
stole? I've not seen them listen anywhere. Inquiring minds
want to know.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Ars: Ellison, Page both take the stand as Google argues "Java language is free and open"
Authored by: SilverWave on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 08:59 PM EDT
Ellison, Page both take the stand as Google argues "Java language is free and open"

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

Boies Career Goals
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 08:59 PM EDT
Does anybody else get the feeling that David Boies grew up watching "Perry
Mason", but idolized DA Hamilton Burger? I can just hear him telling his
mom "When I grow up I'm going to be an attorney who only takes cases where
I lose and end up looking like a fool!".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj - Updated
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 10:02 PM EDT
PJ (in the first(?) update):
And Google's lawyer Robert Van Nest did explain to the jury about the emails, that they were in a context, from back in 2005 and 2006, when the two companies were trying to work out a work partnership to co-develop Android, which fell apart when Sun insisted on charging for Android, which Google wasn't interested in doing.
That was also mentioned in the Guardian article, immediately after the paragraphs PJ quoted from it.

It is certainly true that Van Nest "tried to persuade the jury." No one should read that as just "spinning a tale" as PJ put it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Found this while poking around
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 10:37 PM EDT
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Interviews/gosling_os1_qa.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

ogg file
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 10:39 PM EDT
Re the ogg file that you wanted to get your hands on, is this
the one you meant?

http://web.archive.org/web/20090319020102/http://mediacast.sun
.com/users/~tmarble/media/Sun_Opens_Java.ogg

[ Reply to This | # ]

dealing with elephants in the room
Authored by: mcinsand on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 10:50 PM EDT
If I was a juror, how BSA/Oracle handles certain elephants
in the room would be critical to me, with one key example
being Project Harmony. Harmony is a lynchpin to this case,
particularly since Google is arguing that they used Harmony
as a source, rather than Java. If I were a juror, the way
Oracle handled the opening slides would be a very bad start.
Oracle's slides seem very clear, to say that there is Java,
Google copied Java, and that is that. When Harmony comes
into the discussion, I don't see how a juror could help but
notice the omission.

When there is an elephant in the room, how it's handled is
very important. In a case like this, the handling makes a
huge difference when it comes to credibility, and Team
Oracle's behavior isn't helping. The topic may be
important, but, by not taking the time to explain their
position of it not being relevant, they made a mistake.
Whether it is relevant in their view or not, I would view it
as lying by omission. If they honestly see Harmony as
irrelevant, then they blew a key opportunity for presenting
their side... in addition to sacrificing credibility.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial BSF being BSF?
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 11:30 PM EDT
I have to wonder how much of the exhibit "confusion" was to purposely
confuse witnesses who had been prepared for different exhibits..

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

Open Sourced Java SE?!! That is the 37 APIs right there...
Authored by: mjscud on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 11:42 PM EDT
The difference between Java ME, Java SE, and Java EE is exactly what APIs they
include! And the 37 APIs at issue are in the Java SE package.

If you open source the API implementation then you have open sourced the API!

It is exactly what the good judge warned against, Oracle which succeeded Sun is
trying to take back what Sun gave away.

---
Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise. Proverbs 17:28

[ Reply to This | # ]

Major thanks to the groklaw reporters!
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 11:49 PM EDT
No, seriously. Thank you!. The reports coming out from Groklaw are the best out there. Very detailed and cover the whole thing in a way the others don't quite reach. I love the near word for word transcript and how the breaks are included as well!

Notice how Ellison gets caught off guard repeatedly? I counted at least 3 statements of his that google was able to practically "impeach".

Also amusing how Oracle's lawyers had a hard time with case numbering. Why would they mess that up, incompetence? Sure annoyed the judge (reading between the lines). No mention of this in other news on the case. A fine example of the quality here!

Thank you!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Larry Ellison 2010 talk
Authored by: kds on Tuesday, April 17 2012 @ 11:54 PM EDT
If you listen to the highlights of his January 27, 2010 talk about Sun and Oracle being one company, it is interesting to hear where Java is placed amoungst the list of things they got from Sun:

  • That huge patent portfolio
  • Fabulous Sparc chip
  • High-end Unix Operating System Solaris
  • Java - the industry standard middleware
  • A very popular database - MySql
  • ZFS / Sun 7000
Later during the highlights the only other mention about Java is:
The Java business is gonna grow.
Doesn't sound to me like he thinks Java was worth the entire $7.4 billion, but that may just be me.

I haven't had time to listen to the entire 59 minute webcast so feel free to post any other tidbits. My main point is if Java was what they bought Sun for, why is it only 4th on the list of 6 items mentioned and why do they only give a footnote of one sentence about it in the "Highlights" video?

(I'm still trying to locate the .ogg clip mentioned in the update but found this instead.)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj - Updated 3Xs
Authored by: Rubberman on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 12:09 AM EDT
Great recap - wish there was a video of it! As for the
Wayback postings of the Java open-sourcing event, from the
links I found, the Wayback Machine didn't save/cache the
videos... :-( There's no there, there it seems.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge: Encourages Oracle to get their act together on their exhibit numbering. Oh Dear.
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 12:18 AM EDT
How much are these guys getting paid?

This made them look bad..

Not as bad as Ellison did but, still :-O

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does it take a smart company to make a smart phone?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 01:07 AM EDT
But (in the doc) you (Oracle) had problems… you didn't have the internal expertise to be able to make smart decisions.

If this is a correct quote, I vote for this as the Barb Of The Day...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj - Updated 4Xs
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 02:37 AM EDT

Video of Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy where they talk about Java being free - giving Java to the world.

http://www.youtube.co m/watch?v=_Dtqe1e0tXg&feature=youtu.be&t=6m15s

[ Reply to This | # ]

API
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 02:49 AM EDT
The analogy of an API comparing to nouns may be helpful for a non-tech juror.
This is in a way correct. But it lacks a critical point. No one, even Oracle,
can successfully launch a programming language that doesn't offer a broad help
to programmers to deal with their tasks.

It would be like baking bread by starting to invent a new well, mill and stove.

In fact, a programming language is successful if there is a good environment for
programming, to ease the repetitive tasks of a programmer. And this environment
has to offer a library, where the programmer can use predefined functions and
procedure. No one, even at Oracle, starts from scratch. Everyone starts from a
base that was build by a myriad of programmers and mathematics that done basic
and hard stuff before. In research and development. Without anyone paying for
it. Like using an algorithm for sorting. This isn't astounding, it is business
as usual. If R&D has to guaranty to be cost effective, it is production, not
R&D.

The success of a programming environment depends on the library. That has to
offer all that basic stuff that other programming environments already offer.
And some things that go further. That doesn't mean they copy it. You can get
coffee everywhere, but all is different, it isn't the same at all. You don't
steal from Starbucks when you make your own coffee at home.

If Oracle succeeds, doesn't that imply that every author needs to define and use
his own set of figure of speech?

Wolves and Lamas moisten your face. Because I'm not allowed to use "It's
raining cats and dogs." I invent my new and set of figures of speech. Get
used to it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is the judge being a little cavalier here?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 03:09 AM EDT
Google: Issue with trial exhibit TX431. It has proprietary Google information.
Judge Alsup: I will allow it to be used. This is a public trial.
Google: But this has strategic information to 2013 in it.
Judge Alsup: This is a public trial. Request denied.
Google is in this situation as an involuntary defendant, certainly not by any choices they made. Just because it is a public trial, it does not mean that any of their private and confidential data can be exposed to the general public willy nilly.

Whilst he seems very competent and in control, asking for clarification where necessary, I find that occasionally some of the decisions made by this judge to be abrupt and lacking in deeper analysis. It is like a hot button has been pushed with him and he sometimes reacts automatically without looking at the merits of the argument.

Does anyone else agree?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Wayback has the APIs!
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 03:11 AM EDT
Using the Wayback link in Update 2 to the Sun opening announcment, on the live page, follow the Open JDK link in the right side box.

On that page, follow link Core Libraries link on lefthand side column.

On that page you'll find lots of java library links, for example: java.lang [Described as

java.lang
Provides classes that are fundamental to the design of the Java programming language such as String, Math, Enum, and the wrapper classes for primitive types (e.g. Boolean, Float, Character).]

If you click the java.lang link, you'll get into all the definitions of what it does, and deeper links that describe the interfaces/APIs, and what they all do down to excruciating detail.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Reminiscent of SCO trial reports
Authored by: Jimbob0i0 on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 03:30 AM EDT
This reminds me so much of the SCO/Novell trial....

Staying up late to catch the first reports... waking up in the morning and
hurrying over to groklaw to read the later reports on the train to the
office....

Thank you reporters for providing the view into the court room....

[ Reply to This | # ]

Am I missing something here?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 03:53 AM EDT
Oracle touts their nine/thirteen lines of code found in
java/util/Arrays.java rangeCheck() as proof positive that
Google misappropriated their code.

Leaving aside the fact that that's a rather small proportion
of the Java classes (and that there's not that many ways to
write it efficiently), the top of that file in the OpenJDK
(as released by Oracle) states that it's covered by GPL2.

Why do they then think that Google is not allowed to use
that file?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Big Honking Smoking Gun
Authored by: s65_sean on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 07:41 AM EDT
I'm sorry if someone has already noticed this and posted a comment, but I didn't see it in the comments section and when I read it in the article it just blew me away:
Google: [Moving onto the meeting with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google at the time.] What was the business proposal to Google?

Ellison: Google would take (a license for) Java from Oracle and put Java into Android.
Emphasis added.

Oracle wanted to PUT JAVA INTO ANDROID!

Doesn't this imply that Oracle was admitting to Google that up to that point that they felt that JAVA WAS NOT IN ANDROID?????

Why would they need to put java into Android if java was already in Android? And if java was not already in Android, then why are they suing Google?

Why didn't Mr. Van Ness jump all over that one? Can they recall Mr. Ellison and wipe the floor with him over this?

[ Reply to This | # ]

What's Google's Plan B if they Loose?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 09:37 AM EDT
Why doesn't Google just rewrite Android apps in Ruby?

Look, morally I think Google's right. But if the Google looses at trial, can't
they switch languages?

The cost is large but Google has plenty of financial resources. It seems to me
that they could port the entire ecosystem to something else with $2 to $3
billion -- 10,000 developers for two years.

In fact, it seems to me that Google should already have two competing hidden
projects to do just this.

I've heard that Ruby is the best 5th generation language.

-Anon

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OpenJDK Legal Docs
Authored by: hAckz0r on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 10:37 AM EDT
The Legal Docs are here, such as the GPLV2 with classpath exception and the assembly exception.
GNU General Public License, version 2, with the Classpath Exception

[...]
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
[...]

OpenJDK Assembly Exception

The OpenJDK source code made available by Sun at openjdk.java.net and openjdk.dev.java.net ("OpenJDK Code") is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only ("GPL2"), with the following clarification and special exception. Linking this OpenJDK Code statically or dynamically with other code is making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of GPL2 cover the whole combination. As a special exception, Sun gives you permission to link this OpenJDK Code with certain code licensed by Sun as indicated at http://openjdk.java.net/legal/exception-modules-2007-05-08.html ("Designated Exception Modules") to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of the Designated Exception Modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under GPL2, provided that the Designated Exception Modules continue to be governed by the licenses under which they were offered by Sun. As such, it allows licensees and sublicensees of Sun's GPL2 OpenJDK Code to build an executable that includes those portions of necessary code that Sun could not provide under GPL2 (or that Sun has provided under GPL2 with the Classpath exception). If you modify or add to the OpenJDK code, that new GPL2 code may still be combined with Designated Exception Modules if the new code is made subject to this exception by its copyright holder.

---
DRM - As a "solution", it solves the wrong problem; As a "technology" its only 'logically' infeasible.

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Judge's question "Did Sun develop the methods themselves, or were they developed by some 3rd pa"
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 11:16 AM EDT

A few weeks ago, someone anonymous posted here stating,

From a programmer's perspective, syntax is integral to a language, most APIs are not. A few are: it's hard to imagine C without printf() and malloc(), [...]. I tend to think of those things as a single API - "the standard library." In the case of Java, the trademark requires a whole bunch of libraries, some of which I'd argue aren't crucial. I can't remember my Java package names at the moment, but generally I'd say that the system stuff is crucial [...] as are basic programming utilities (regular expressions, sorting, data collections like vectors

An aside, there certainly are situations where someone uses C without malloc() or printf() ... Linux kernel development, 16-bit Windows development, Postgres user-defined functions... although whatever the environment is, it generally provides a memory-allocator and a varargs-based formatted-output function or macro.

But as one answer the judge's question, look at java.util.logging and java.util.regex, and compare them to Apache Log4j and Apache Jakarta Regex. Sun probably did not use any third-party code for their logging implementation (although there are adapters to run Log4j on top of JUL, or vice versa), but they took the overall library design that Apache had already made popular and defined an API for it in the java.util hierarchy.

Log4J is still popular even after the introduction of JUL, and still runs just fine on Java 1.7; it would probably run fine on Android, haven't tested it myself. If Android couldn't use j.u.r for some reason, an Android app could probably switch to Jakarta Regex without too much rewriting; but Jakarta Regex depends on the following classes from two of the other 36 accused packages based only on its own API Javadocs:

  • java.lang.Object
  • java.lang.String
  • < tt>java.lang.StringBuffer (private field, perhaps that doesn't count)
  • java.lang.Throwable
  • java.lang.Exception
  • java.lang.RuntimeException
  • java.io.Serializable

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Kurian: Sun was constantly trying to get Apache to take a license.
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 02:43 PM EDT
Just a reminder, Sun contracted with JCP member, Harmony, to allow them to
create their own clean room implementation of the entire Java API Specification
and to allow them to run the TCK which, if passed, would allow Harmony to call
their implementation, Java.

Sun breached their contract term to allow Harmony to run the TCK.

As long as Sun remain in breach of contract by refusing to allow the running of
the TCK they are refusing to allow Apache to take a license. Only Sun are
preventing the Harmony project from being licensed.

How would you characterise Kurian's statement to the court and the jury that
'Sun was constantly trying to get Apache to take a license.'?

Yes, so would I.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

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"Mine our source" line still on Oracle website
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 07:06 PM EDT
Nice find in Update 8. Helpfully http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/javas e/gosling-os2-qa-136546.h tml is still available and includes the "They'll certainly be able to mine our source for stuff to incorporate into their projects" line.

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Day 2 of Oracle v. Google Trial ~pj - Updated 8Xs - Google's Opening Statement Slides
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 08:09 PM EDT
That Final Update - the one with the comment by James Gosling ¨Q: How do you
think this move will affect other open-source implementations of the Java
programming language -- for example, Apache Harmony or GNU Classpath? Gosling:
It's hard to know. They'll certainly be able to mine our source for stuff to
incorporate into their projects.¨ really drives home to me HOW SIMILAR this is
to the SCO case

New Management comes along and changes the rules and (tries to) rewrite history
with a wild dream for billions of dollars - and then slowly reality kicks in
SCO is now synonymous for many bad things in IT. DO ORACLE really want to keep
going down the same path and the thought of as kind of company as SCO ended up
as ???

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"Thank you, Internet Archive, for keeping the world's players more honest."
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 20 2012 @ 08:04 AM EDT
Did you type that with a straight face?

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"mine" our source for stuff
Authored by: Rook on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 04:58 PM EDT
Gosling: "They'll certainly be able to mine our source stuff
to incorporate into their projects."

PJ: "In other words, Gosling told the world that Apache
Harmony and GNU Classpath could "mine" the Java source code
and "incorporate" that code "into their projects"."

Gosling's "stuff" doesn't necessarily mean "code." What
else could it be? Ideas, functional methods, etc. --- all
that stuff that copyright does not cover (and Patents may or
may not; if it's something that others can incorporate, that
suggests that Gosling thinks that that "stuff" isn't patent
encumbered).

If Gosling generally understands the GPL (I'd guess yes),
then he'd know that GPL Java code released by Sun cannot be
incorporated into an Apache-licensed code base because of
the incompatibility of the licenses. For that reason, I'd
guess that he didn't mean copyrightable-code when he said
"stuff."

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