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The dependency graph may help Oracle | 104 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
The dependency graph may help Oracle
Authored by: jbb on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 11:48 AM EDT
If any of the 37 depend on any of the classes not provided by Android in the same way that java.lang depends on the 37, then Oracle can use that to say that if Google could do without the ones it did not copy, it could do without the 37 too.
Correction: if any of the 37 depend on any of the classes not provided by Android in the same way that java.lang depends on the 37, then Android is broken. It has to be the same or it won't work.

But even if it an incompatible implementation didn't break Android, your argument makes no sense legally. Of course Google can do without the 37 APIs. They could do without Android if they had to. As Larry Page said it is important but not crucial (critical? vital?). The idea of what Google can "do without" does not enter the picture. The only thing that matters is if Google has a right to use the APIs without a license from Oracle.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The dependency graph may help Oracle
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 12:47 PM EDT
The point is not whether you can implement them in a different way. Of course
you can. But Google's position is that they relied on Sun's statement (which
Oracle concedes) that the Java language is free for everyone to use. If Sun's
implementation (which was public even before it was licensed under the GPL) of
the core classes implemented the core language in this manner, then it was fair
to assume that all these classes were included in what Sun referred to as
"Java language". Don't forget that it was ORACLE that invented this
API vs language split. There are no SUN documents (at least none that I remember
being presented in the filings) drawing a clear line between "Java
language" and "Java APIs". Oracle is trying to retroactively
change the meaning of Sun's words. And IMHO the dependency graph of the
implementation contradicts this by giving clear evidence that when SUN talked
about the Java language, it is unreasonable to assume that they meant to exclude
all these classes which they relied on to implement the core language. If it had
ever been Sun's intention to draw a clear line, then - knowing that their own
implementation contradicted this - they would have made clear statements to the
effect that "Yes, if you look at our code you see all these dependencies,
but they're not meant to be part of the language and if you want to implement
the language, you must do it differently."

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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