|
|
|
| Authored by: mcinsand on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 01:02 PM EDT |
Given that all of this was done very publicly, particularly condoning forking,
Oracle's grounds to sue are even more concretely ridiculous. Given the
well-based baselessness of Oracle's rights to reclose opened-up Java, could
Google countersue?[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: jvillain on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 01:05 PM EDT |
You forgot the part where Oracle did slip shod due diligence in the purchase
missing the finer details of how this all worked.
I have been working on a theory that since Oracle spent 8.5 billion dollars and
got nothing this law suite was kind of a way to keep the share holders from
suing Leisure Suit Larry. If so I don't think it is working out.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 03:21 PM EDT |
The but is:
You still have prove and argue for that defense in a Court of
Law sufficient that a Jury will reasonably find for such a
defense.
Why?
Because Oracle will never - in a million years - admit
they actually are held to Sun's behavior on such grounds.
If Oracle was
willing to do that... they wouldn't even have raised the Lawsuit to begin with
due to the simple fact they already knew - and had originally been pushing for
more - of the open sourcing relationship of Sun with Java.
RAS[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 09:23 AM EDT |
1. Apache accepts as donations / finishes developing a class library and some
JVM pieces, when a suspicious and careful reading of the specification license
might have suggested that such an assemblage could never be accepted for TCK
testing and other validation. (announced May 2005; "top-level
project" October 25, 2006)
2. Sun announces they will open-source Java within 30 to 60 days (October 25,
2006), releases a small piece under GPL a couple weeks later, releases
virtually all of the class libraries under GPL by May 2007.
3. Google releases Android Beta 5 November 2007, using Apache, not OpenJDK or
a licensed commercial version of Java.
Of course that still leaves open the question of why it took so long until...
4. Sun (now part of Oracle) sues Google, mostly claiming patent infringement,
August 2010.
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: newbury on Tuesday, April 24 2012 @ 10:04 AM EDT |
Very good point. And we may see a Motion for Judgment/Directed verdict from
Google at the end of the trial. I would think that an equitable estoppal defence
(plus or minus a claim of laches arising as an effect of the GPL'ing of the
code) would be entirely within the judge's purview as a matter of law, not a
matter of disputed fact (depending on how much of the underlying factual
evidence Oracle has presented and which is thus *undisputed fact*).
And the jury (which has far too many opportunities to mis-understand what is
actually being argued about) will be cut out of the picture. Even if the jury is
required to decide disputed facts, the Motion could ask for a jury determination
of certain questions (as we see in other cases), at which point a judgment as a
matter of law might become available.
Google probably has nothing to lose by doing this. It would get to prepare a
targeted set of evidence which would cut the grounds out from under Oracle's
argument and present that evidence to the person who probably now knows more
about the technical aspects than any of the jurors do at this point.
Plus it applies to the patent parts of the claim too.
Plus it creates a nice point for an appeal record. And there is little doubt
that there will be an appeal whichever way this goes.
It is very interesting that the judge has continued to ask for clarifications of
the positions of the parties. He is clearly unsure of the ramifications and is
demanding that the parties cut through the fluff to particularize exactly what
they are claiming. This hurts Oracle most I think, since Oracle have
consistently played a shell-game with the concepts of what is covered and not
covered by copyright.
It is also interesting that Google, to me, does not seem to have presented a
coherent matrix of factual and legal structure regarding its position. I really
expected a better picture of what the case is about, from their opening, and
more pointed structuring of cross-examination to put pieces of the jig-saw into
place. But then again, the notes we get (THANKS TO THE NOTE-TAKERS!) are always
produced in haste and often miss nuances if inflection and emphasis, which even
a proper transcription cannot capture. (And sarcasm is a dead letter in a
transcript: it never lives through the transcription process.)
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
