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Oracle Sues Google For Infringing Java Patents
Bruce Perens writes "Oracle has brought a lawsuit against Google claiming that Google has infringed patents on the Java platform in Android. Scribd has a copy of the complaint. But there's a patent grant that should allow Google to use Java royalty-free. Has Google failed to meet the terms of the grant?"
There's more info on en.swpat.org at:
It's a publicly-editable wiki; feel free to help out.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Not for MySQL (to kill) or their overpriced shitty hardware (to commoditize). They bought Sun for Java - you know how many other companies Oracle might have by the short and curlies now?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Patent Minefields - helping drive innovation forward!
There are so many laws and twisty parts, that I'm sure everyone violates some law every day, it is only the lack of incarceration space and your own unimportance that keep us out of trouble. While Oracle sueing over Java is the surest way of destroying the language so people won't want to use it, at least Oracle is pulling its SCO moment against a peer like Google, and not building up a case against small companies that can't fight back.
If it wasn't for Jdownloader I wouldn't allow that shit anywhere near a computer. Let's hope Google delist Oracel from their Index and the saddos disappear for good.
And I am NOT an anonymous coward, I am an Anonymous PIRATE
"PJ: Well. It's for patent and copyright infringement. And guess who is representing Oracle Morrison & Foerster and Boies Schiller. I take it the latter have decided to learn from the masters. But this is really, really sad on so many levels. Also puzzling. Since Sun released Java under the GPL, how can anyone be sued for anything like this? The complaint doesn't make that clear, saying just that Google has no license, so for sure we'll be watching this litigation. So we'll have to wait until Google answers the complaint to get a clearer picture."
Groklaw
You're retarded
No, really. Whose idea was that? How's that MBA called? Ok, then Google says, "ok, here's your billion dollars, go away"
Or Google can absolutely block Oracle with its patents and other dirty tricks.
And then MS will have a field day with this.
Of course, Google in using Java in the first place for android, is debatable, still
how long until
I wonder if this could be as big and as interesting(for the geek community) a fight as SCO v Novell
There's an interesting comment on James Gosling's blog http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/the_shit_finally_hits_the
"Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle"
And yet more money get syphoned out of the IT industry into the lawyers pockets. Sigh
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
> The text of their lawsuit isn't available
Yes it is. I put it here:
Other info:
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Oracle don't care. They are in it for the money, even more than IBM.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That the first competing VM to be throttled by the patent holder would be a Java-based one, not a .NET-based one. I bet Steve Ballmer is laughing his ass off right now saying, "even I'm not that stupid."
Did you miss the part where SUN has (succesfully) sued Microsoft for the exact same thing?
God, it's like SCO & IBM again.
Stepping on the toes of just one the world's largest corporations not enough for them?
> maybe it's time to show that each of these patents wasn't new
Ever heard of 1-click?? The review took five years (!) and the end result was that it was upheld and just narrowed. I wonder how much is costs to hire a lawyer for five years... please tell me in 2015 when you've done what you suggest :-)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The link mentions both patent and copyright infringement. Is that accurate?
I'm far more interested in alleged copyright violations in an open-source ecosystem than patent violations. What does it mean for other players trying to build on Java if you're going to get done for copyright infringement by doing so ?
How about Microsoft with the C# VM? Or perl with Parrot, and python?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Isn't this exactly what Stallman warned when he suggested that Open Office should be forked because it used Java?
just because Oracle did it first, doesn't mean MS won't. We need wait to see if this has any merit too. It may not stick.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
But isn't that if you call it java? I don't know that google do that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The summary and article both misuse the word "grant". The quoted text is not from a patent grant but rather a patent licence (or "license" in the US). A patent grant is something issued by the government to an inventor or his employer, not something issued by a patentee to anyone else.
The "of the current version" clause is interesting: It actually means that as soon as a new version is published, all those distributing the previous version cannot distribute anything until they changed the implementation to match the new specification. Change versions fast enough, and no one will have a real chance to comply.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Boo Oracle! This could spell the end for Java.
...not to use Java.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
So much for all the people who said that Java was open, free, and not patent-encumbered. The Java patent grant set up conditions that you can essentially not meet unless you use Sun/Oracle's version. And the fact that Sun was going to be taken over was obvious for years. I had just hoped it was going to be IBM, who wouldn't have done this sort of thing.
...I would immediately make a large donation to PostgreSQL - the arch enemy for all Oracle database solutions. Just to spite them.
A few days ago, I was checking the .Net Micro Framework (for embedded systems, not the regular one). Apparently (almost) the entire stack is open source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Micro_Framework
"available along with the source code as a free download under the Apache 2.0 license at the Microsoft Download Center.."
And Microsoft is actually encouraging people to port it (thus .Net is used on more platforms). Given their patent pledge (which is now more open than Java's) there is almost no risk.
Oh the irony!
Android has its own VM called Dalvik. You use Java tools to compile to JVM bytecode and then there's a translater to Dalvik bytecode.
I don't think mono's been sued over patents yet. Maybe it really is the safer choice despite what everyone had been saying?
- Software patents are not considered valid in the majority of the world, precisely because they get in the way of perfectly reasonable actions.
- Software patents on an "open" standard might not be enforceable if those patents are required to implement that standard, and are the only sensible way to do so. Interoperability with an existing product can't be protected by a patent if that patent is the only (or only sensible) way to do things.
- All the mentioned patents have prior art except one, which is so far worded towards Java only use that it falls foul of the previous statement (I didn't think you *could* patent something that specific to a particular product).
- The Oracle patents are particularly weak, most of them re-iterating 1980's knowledge of programming.
- Google probably has one of the largest patent profiles ever, especially in the area of collating huge amounts of data into a database - this is commercial suicide for Oracle who could well see a retaliatory attack that they just can't afford to defend against (yes, THAT many patents). Google's patents are likely to be MUCH more substantial than these Oracle ones.
- Sun never had a problem with IP protection. You don't need to protect your IP when "Java" is in everything from mobile phones to servers - basically Sun *WAS* Java and not much else before it was taken over, and saw no need to sue anyone at all substantial over patent infringement when it could have done at any time for even more cash.
- Going for Google first is commercial suicide - there will be other, smaller, players using third-party Java VM's.
- Suing immediately is a sign of desperation. Much more conducive to receiving compensation would have been quiet negotiations (there hasn't been ANY time for that since the Oracle takeover) and/or asking them to work around the patent at least. The path chosen is the most stupid and expensive.
- The lawyers here are Boies, Schiller & Flexner - the same ones that handled the SCO case's IP side. That went well for them. *fall into fits of derisive laughter*.
Much more likely is a quiet settlement involving cash, or Google saying "Go for it" and filing a counterclaim for a whole host of patents they own. Google can pretty much take Oracle to the cleaners if it wants. It makes me wonder why Oracle has set itself up to be that target.
Apparently (almost) the entire stack is open source ... there is almost no risk.
you wrote that and yet still failed to spot the really important word, in brackets, twice! :)
Just bloody buy Oracle! Last I saw there was like 120million oracle shares trading at around 25$ so the price for buying every share is about 3billion$. Didn't Google make 6.5billion net in 2009?
Yes these are rough figures from a minute or so of googling and I make no claims of them being 100% correct.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
Microsoft and Sun signed a broad patent cross-license for this stuff long ago.
It was Sun who never submitted Java to ISO or ANSI, it was Sun who created a dual-licensed Java, it was Sun who filed hundreds of patents on Java-related technologies, and it was Sun who created the limited patent grant under conditions that nobody could meet.
And it was predictable that Sun would eventually fail and get bought by someone who might start to enforce those patents; in fact, the reason Oracle was willing to outbid everybody else was probably because they realized that these patents hadn't been placed fully into the public domain.
I had been warning about this for years, but all the Java fanboys were arguing that Sun was the good guys, that they would never sue, and that Java was a free and open platform.
Do your homework people: what has happened was predictable, and the evil seeds were sown by Sun itself.
That's an interesting way of looking at things, except historically there's never been a problem creating your own compiler or interpreter for an existing managed language. This is precisely why Microsoft's C# is an ISO/ECMA standard, because it means other people can create their own implementation for the standard language hence spreading it's use and adoption leading to net benefits for the company.
For example, in developing Android apps that connect to a web server someone may then go on to pay for and use Sun's enterprise products which makes sense as you're keeping the technology the same. They might even have gone on to use one of Oracle's database solutions too.
The irony now is that it seems Google would've actually been no less safe in creating a C# VM and having that as their development language. Although, from what I can tell of this case the issue is the VM itself rather than the language itself- this means that if Oracle wins this case then any other technology almost certainly including all Microsoft's .NET languages running on the CLR (in other words the CLR itself) are at risk of also infringing these patents.
This is bad all round, if Oracle isn't careful not only do they risk killing interest in Java, but also stifling all modern programming language development too and we'll all be worse off for that, whichever side of the fence we sit on. Look at the things covered in this post:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1752790&cid=33237368
Some of them are important advances in modern programming languages that make all code written using them better off.
Patent Infringement != Theft How do you "steal" a method for doing something? Further, if you cannot implement basic java functionality, then why why why is it an "open" language in the first place... Its like if I tell you to read a paper before writing your own, then I get mad when the paper I had you read influences your writing.. software patents are absolutely the devil.
If you looked up "pyrrhic victory" in the dictionary it'd probably make reference to Sun vs Microsoft
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
That was a contract dispute, it was not about patents. And besides it was a different era, Java was young still and Sun was afraid that Microsft would damage the "eco system". Nowadays they probably wouldn't have cared except for the fact that you can't call it Java if it doesn't adhere to the specs or fails the tests.
It will be hard to find out whether Oracle planned this kind of aggression when buying Sun, but it can certainly be stated that the free software/open source community hasn't benefited from the acquisition.
There's a number of important questions that Oracle's patent attack raises:
This is a patent dispute with very wide-ranging implications.
or Google saying "Go for it" and filing a counterclaim for a whole host of patents they own. Google can pretty much take Oracle to the cleaners if it wants. It makes me wonder why Oracle has set itself up to be that target.
This might make me a jerk but I would love to see this happen.
No, it isn't. I know right off the top of my head that AWT and Swing were left out intentionally.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
When DEC sold RDB to Oracle the price for support went up by almost a factor of ten. There was no intention to develop the product. They wanted the cash.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No. Sun sued Microsoft because Microsoft was not implementing the JVM to spec, thereby violating the trademark agreement they had with Sun that allowed them to use the Java name for their JVM.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
This is going to get down voted to hell. But anyway.
Here is Miguel's opinion on this development.
I hope the Mono hating will finally stop now.
Life is just a conviction.
They did. Sun licensed it to everyone. Read the grant in the specification. > ...not stolen it.
It is impossible to steal an idea.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Just for the record: What Sun said (now Oracle still says) about reading Oracle Java source code and creating a clean room implementation: JAVA RESEARCH LICENSE FAQ Question 18
18. Does the JRL prevent me from being able to create an independent open source implementation of the licensed technology?
The JRL is not a tainting license and includes an express "residual knowledge" clause which says you're not contaminated by things you happen to remember after examining the licensed technology. The JRL allows you to use the source code for the purpose of JRL-related activities but does not prohibit you from working on an independent implementation of the technology afterwards. Obviously, if your intention is to create an "independent" implementation of the technology then it is inappropriate to actively study JRL source while working on such an implementation. It is appropriate, however, to allow some decent interval of time (e.g. two weeks) to elapse between working on a project that involves looking at some JRL source code and working on a project that involves creating an independent implementation of the same technology
No, I don't; I do remember fully supporting their decision to sue Microsoft due to their breach of the licence though.
If Google truly have breached the licence, then they deserve to lose. If they have not, then they will beat this and Oracle will suffer (bad press, financial loss, etc). Given Google's size I'm really not seeing the problem here, beyond the potential that one company or the other has acted poorly.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Oracle may win in court or force a settlement, but I don't think in the long view they will "win" because of this. Potentially they get some money out of "owning" Java, but they make that property less valuable in the process. Java having been picked for Android development is currently breathing a lot of life into the language -- for a while now Java has been one of the top choices for business app developments, but how long has it been since Java was associated with something cool? And what are the odds it'll be picked for something cool ever again now that people see how litigation-happy Oracle is about it?
Being used for cool, high visibility projects buys language mindshare in a way few things do.
*chop* *cut* There, take that, nose! That'll show my face.
Actually, didn't Sun sue Microsoft for their usual Embrace, Extend, Extinguish tactics when they added proprietary extensions to their Java version and claimed it was still Java, thus violating Suns patents/trademarks/copyright/license terms/whatever?
They didn't sue just because MS created their own runtime/JVM, they sued because MS distributed an incomplete Java implementation, and then passed it off as the Java, something which only Sun had the legal right to do.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
See this thing here? I promise to let you use it. No charge. Go ahead, be my guest.
Unless you make a billion dollars with it. Then my lawyer is going to look up "promise" in his big dictionary of wiggle-room words and sue the crap out of you.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I did not want to go into details. The missing parts (from open source release) are the TCP/IP stack and crypto routines:
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/11/16/microsoft-to-open-source-the-net-micro-framework.aspx
TCP/IP stack code was licensed from another company, thus MS does not have the right to open it. Crypto has all sorts of export regulations, thus they did not want to go there (you can always find replacement from somewhere else).
On the patent side, the community promise is pretty clear:
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/07/06/the-ecma-c-and-cli-standards.aspx
MS cannot sue you for implementing core C#/.Net. The only risk (almost part) is either if you sue them (when you lose the license), or another totally irrelevant party claims patents on the code (e.g.: Alcatel mp3 issue). But this risk is on any language. You can never know Borland (or whatever is called right now) will not sue you for using gcc c++ compiler, since they might have a patent on a specific optimization.
Is it possible that the purpose of this whole action was to attack the concept of software patents itself? I realize that Oracle is evil by any reasonable definition, but could it realize that even an evil business could still prosper far more in a world without software patents than one with them? It chose an apparently very weak attack against a very powerful foe. It really doesn't make sense to me unless I'm missing something big.
Nonaggression works!
Why did they choose the Java language? Because they needed a safe, statically typed, garbage collected language that people had experience with and that there were tools for. There is little else out there that fits the bill (C# wasn't an option at the time they started).
Objective-C on iPhone is a pain to learn, but at least the iPhone will not go down in flames from companies fighting over rights to language, runtime, tools and access to application markets.
They could have used python, and even reused Sugar.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Java should have been avoided, same goes with the Javascript.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html
Extra points for doing it with a plush penguin?
By the way, who/what will resemble Google's ChromeOS, when they'll launch it? "Colored pill" doesn't look good next to window/penguin/apple/imp. Hmm...
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
The chilling effects from the case might discourage Java use from here on new stuff.
As someone pointed out on Reddit, Java is now "radioactive".
Back to C/C++ I suppose, no one ever got sued for using those, C# is probably in no better shape patent minefield-wise.
Its not the language that infringes the patents. Its the implementation. Its common to develop applications for the JVM in languages other than java.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
- The lawyers here are Boies, Schiller & Flexner - the same ones that handled the SCO case's IP side. That went well for them. *fall into fits of derisive laughter*.
Did they fail? Novell isn't going to get any money, the lawsuits cost all sides far more than the value under contest, and most of them are still going on.
They failed if you believe that SCO was trying to really win. If their only tactic was to make the case as painful and expensive as possible (ie, to make it as attractive as possible for the defending party to settle), then Boies, Schiller & Flexner were massively successful.
You are doubly wrong.
First of all, Sun sued Microsoft, because Microsoft's Java implementation contained the proprietary Windows only extensions, thus the software written for "Microsoft" Java would not be compatible with the true original Java implementation.
Secondly, Google doesn't promote Android as a "Java platform", Android SDK just has a lot of common with Sun's Java implementation (Java syntax, a VM, byte-code, classes, etc.).
And thirdly, this dispute/suit is not about Java/Java VM per se, it's about software patents which apply to Android as a software product.
OpenOffice.org does not implement the JVM and java compilers and libraries. The law suit in question here is all about someone making something that claims to be Java but isn't.
Let's simplify this completely. Let's say I invent a coffee cup with a lid and large handle, so it's portable and can be held by anyone. I call it Java. And I license my invention, so anyone can make a portable coffee cup, but to call it Java it must have a lid and a large handle.
What Google has done, they created a coffee cup without lid, small handle and they want to call it Java, but it's not by definition.
So, Google has 2 options. Make their implementation have all requirements of Java or stop calling their implementation Java.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but this could be the very best thing to happen for programmers and computer science, since the switch statement.
Software patents have hindered developers and companies for decades now. When SCO sued IBM it brought into public view the horrendous state of our patent system. But SCO is just a piddling little company that destroyed itself financially in one of the greatest self delusions of the last decade.
But now we have 2 industry titans going at it, that will I'm fairly sure bring to light, how asinine IP and it's patentability can be. The down side will be, if software patents and such are finally set free. It will burst the bubble with such force it will unsettle a great number of industries.
Just a thought.
DS
Java is a spec and NOT an implementation. You are free to make your own implementation of the spec (IBM, Apple and many others do). So, you don't have to rely on Sun/Oracle version or implementation.
There is only one latest version of Java (i.e. only one spec). You can be on a Java spec. committee and vote on what goes into next Java version specification, and everyone who wants to make the next version of Java (the language and JVM) has to implement all the same things agreed to be able to call it Java.
This is all to ensure Java's philosophy, write and compile your code once and run it on any platform. This does not mean just different operating system, but java virtual machine implementation from another vendor.
This can work precisely because of the fact that Java is a spec. and to call something Java you must implement the spec fully. This allows me to write my Java code on Windows, compile it on Windows using Sun's JVM implementation and run the compiled code on Mac OS X, with Apple's implementation of the JVM (with no need for recompile or anything on OS X).
This would not be true if Apple cheated and did not implement some part of Java spec (which is the case with what Google did).
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
"Most are saying that they are going after google's jme which is quite interesting since google built (Dalvik) themselves to get around these licensing issues"
Oracle/Sun actually make money licensing JVM for mobile use. Google trying to use a technical exploit to escape licensing does seem like a dick move to me. I have no sympathy for Google on this one.
It was clear from the beginning that Sun was agaisn't this, but likely lacked the resources to do anything about it. Sun tried to work with Google in 2007 to clear things up. Google thinking they had found a loophole to exploit, told Sun to go pound sand:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9817048-39.html
Sun wants to work with Google to nip any problems in the bud. "We're really interested in working with Google to make sure developers don't end up with a fractured environment. We're reaching out to Google and assuming they'll be reaching out to us to ensure these platforms and APIs will be compatible so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible," Green said.
Google unrepentant
Google didn't adopt a terribly conciliatory tone in its response, arguing that when it comes to Java fragmentation, Android is the solution, not the problem.
To me it looks like Google said screw licensing. We are Google, we can do what we want...
If you know C and understand basic OOP, neither Java nor Objective C is harder to learn than the other. I suppose if you learned Java first, unlearning all the bad parts of the language might make Objective C seem harder.
So you are saying that instead of developing Android Google should have bought Apple?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"I wonder if this could be as big and as interesting(for the geek community) a fight as SCO v Novell"
Nope because this one is much more grey.
I am on Oracles side on this one. Google tried to exploit a technical loophole to get around licensing. Dirty pool IMO.
Every other mobile implementation is licensed, but Google thought they were special and could get around it.
Sun tried to resolve this in 2007 and Google told them to go pound sand.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9817048-39.html
Java is a spec and NOT an implementation. You are free to make your own implementation of the spec (IBM, Apple and many others do).
IBM and Apple have not "made their own implementations"; they have licensed Sun/Oracle's implementations and created derivatives.
You are not free to make your own implementation of the spec; you need to pass Sun's compatibility tests if you don't want to get hit by patent lawsuits because Sun hold essential patents for creating a conforming implementation.
For years now, there has been no implementation of Java conforming to the Java spec except for those derived from Sun's source code. That's not an accident: it's pretty much impossible to meet Sun's compatibility requirements without licensing their source code.
This would not be true if Apple cheated and did not implement some part of Java spec (which is the case with what Google did).
Google didn't "cheat", Google implemented their own platform and runtime; they just happened to use the Java language to do it. In principle, Sun/Oracle couldn't have done anything about that: Sun doesn't hold a patent on the Java language itself. But it appears as if the Android designers may not have been careful enough to avoid all of Sun's patents.
Did Oracle try to resolve this amicably with Google (by way of a license deal) or is Oracle pursuing purely destructive objectives?
Given Ellisons hatred of anything with the word "cloud" in it, i assume he wants google dead worse then ballmer.
Given how much google uses java for all sorts of stuff, they were idiots not to buy sun. With ellison at the helm of oracle/java, google might actually make a safer bet by moving all their stuff to .net... ballmer might be hell-bent on their destruction too, but contrary to oracle, microsoft has some incompetence to make up for the malevolence
People, what a bunch of bastards
They could have used python, and even reused Sugar.
They *can* use python, have you heard of Jython? Or http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ ?
Larry E.'s new Java slogan... :-)
because the only implementations that could meet those criteria were the ones passing their compatibility tests and (in practice) only those based on their licensed source code. That makes Java a highly proprietary platform.
There are alternate implementations - you are complaining because they have to pass a test suite? Come on, how else can you be sure the VM works!! It's not like any aspect of how the Java VM is supposed to work is not well documented.
Two licensed (meaning safe from lawsuit) implementations:
Harmony (From Apache)
Goldencode - J2SE for OS/2
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It wasn't the exact same thing. Microsoft was passing off a bastardized version of Java as Java so they were sued for trademark infringement and related matters.
Google doesn't claim their platform is Java and never has. Oracle can't sue them for the same reasons so they've pulled some generic patents out of their ass and are suing them for those. Google will probably pull a bunch of generic web patents out its ass and countersue. After a big noise both sides will settle.
The irony now is that it seems Google would've actually been no less safe in creating a C# VM and having that as their development language.
I wish they'd do that now to spite Oracle, because I generally prefer to work in modern C# over modern Java, but I don't have a lot of faith in the success of Windows phones.
Android is actually the thing that spurred me to get my home desktop set up for Java development again. I've done (and sometimes still do) professional work in Java, but there hasn't been anything that seems like fun that I'd want to do with Java for a long time. (YMMV, lots of people like to play around with tech in their spare time that bores the hell out of me and more power to them, etc.)
The difference is that Android's Dalvik VM doesn't claim to be a JVM. Microsoft claimed that it did implement a standard JVM when, in fact, it violated the IP licensing agreement by corrupting the standard API with non-standard functionality.
There not getting sued for using java. they're getting sued for not using Java.
The Tech world should be behind this what it is really about is using open standards technology to damage the standard. Java is useless if its not universal. Thats sort of the whole point of the language.
Android is built almost entirely on Java but doesn't run it.
I would like to thank Oracle for one thing. They sued Google directly. They didn't go after HTC, or Motorola, or some other user of Android, like some other companies have done.
Scott Carr
The sad part is that sun was just a little less evil then most tech companies, Larry Ellison however, must be steve ballmers evil twin.
I just hope to god Google burries oracle six feet under, and if it all possible, rescues java from the flaming wreckage
People, what a bunch of bastards
except that android does not have an acutal java implementation. It has a dalvik VM, which runs non-java bytecode.
The fact that the de facto standard syntax for writing code that gets compiled into dalvik bytecode happens to be java, does not mean an android phone has any java on it.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Allow me to draw your attention to
on Google's What is Android? page (emphasis added by me).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Is Oracle saying this? Anyone who writes and distributes a JVM, cannot provide just a JVM, but must instead provide the accompanying Sun libraries. or this? If you are providing the Sun libraries with your JVM, you must provide all of them.
No it takes about 20 minutes to learn objective C not that you ever have to use any of it I write nearly all of my iphone code in C and others in C++. There is nothing earth shattering new about objective C. More to the point it lets you take full advantage of the minimal processing power of these devices.
Got Code?
Oracle is also alleging the Google violated its copyrights. So, if that is true (though I doubt it), it would invalidate the patent grant.
Was Google making use of the JAVA RESEARCH LICENSE?
How does this apply to today's story?
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I SAID THAT
The code itself is written in java syntax, which is then compiled to DALVIK bytecode (rather then java bytecode) and run on a DALVIK vm, on a phone which has no java on it what so ever.
If Google built a C# compiler that output dalvik compatible bytecode, the end result would be the exact same, and does not mean android phones suddenly run C#
People, what a bunch of bastards
A powerful, mean and hateful man - who's wealth and power have brought no comfort to his cramped and ugly little self. The paucity of his humanity is demonstrated with every pathetic grab he makes.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This is between two US companies, so what the rest of the world does is irrelevant in this case. And yes, I think software patents are stupid, but if it wasn't for patents, Oracle would use something else to go after them... possibly even copyrights over the interface classes source code, which are essentially the same between every Java implementation, since they are just method signatures.
Java isn't an open standard. It has a GPLv3 implementation, but Google didn't use that and thus aren't covered by the GPLv3 protections.
It really matters how the courts interpret it. Some patents that should be thrown out (Amazon one-click business patent) haven't been.
Oracle has a lot of pals with deep patent portfolios, including IBM. And given the marketspace we're referring to, you may be able to count Nokia, Apple, and Microsoft too. After all, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Oracle cares about Android, because Android directly cuts into Oracle's JavaME licensing. This is one of Sun's profit centers, and now Android is cutting into that.
Most other, non-open source Java implementations are licensed from Oracle.
On the desktop/server, Oracle doesn't care about the open-source implementations.
Reading between the lines of what James Gosling said, negotiations had already been going on between Sun and Google before Oracle bought Sun.
You mean the company that successfully sucked millions out of a sinking ship before it sank? And you think they're stupid?
Whether Oracle actually has a case with these patents is debatable, but Oracle no doubt has other ammunition against Google should these fail.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
A sincere question: why not fully embrace Python? It's not as popular as Java, i.e. one of the main of the main reasons to make it the primary platform, but it's still widespread, especially within Google itself. Maybe performance issues; even when the interpreter is reimplemented with a subset of libraries? I'm curious...
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
What follows is a short association to each patent where I already heard of it (so like 10 minutes / patent .. something the patent office
obviously wasn't able to do .. )
The legal standard for denying a patent application isn't "I totally heard of something like this, here's a mention of something that may possibly be related, but I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine."
The legal standard is that:
(i) a claim is anticipated under 35 USC 102 if each and every limitation as set forth in the claim appears, either explicitly or inherently, in a single prior art reference; or
(ii) a claim is obvious under 35 USC 103 if a combination of prior art references teach or suggest each and every limitation as set forth in the claim.
The reason it takes longer than 10 minutes is you have to through every word of each claim and find it in the prior art.
So, looking at your first one:
-- cut 6,125,447 / 1997 -- 1. A method for providing security, the method comprising the steps of: establishing one or more protection domains, wherein a protection domain is associated with zero or more permissions; establishing an association between said one or more protection domains and one or more classes of one or more objects; and determining whether an action requested by a particular object is permitted based on said association between said one or more protection domains and said one or more classes. -- end cut -- -> This is C++ private / protected -- cut evidence 1983 -- C++ (pronounced see plus plus) is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as a "middle-level" language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features.[2] It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell Labs as an enhancement to the C programming language and originally named C with Classes. It was renamed C++ in 1983.[3] -- end cut --
I don't see "protection domains" in your quote, nor do I see each protection domain associated with "zero or more permissions". I also don't see any associations between those protection domains and classes. I also don't see any determinations based on the associations.
If your answer is "but that's how C++ works," that's fine, but you have to actually show each and every element in the claim in the reference... Not just mention that the reference exists. That's why it takes more than 10 minutes.
Reading a bit further, I don't think this is relevant. Here's the only mention of patents, and it's saying there's *no* grant:
B. Residual Rights. If You examine the Technology after accepting this License and remember anything about it later, You are not "tainted" in a way that would prevent You from creating or contributing to an independent implementation, but this License grants You no rights to Sun's copyrights or patents for use in such an implementation.
Am I missing anything?
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It does seem strange that Google, rather than using Python, whose creator (Guido van Rossum) is employed by Google, they chose to use Java....
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
tl;dr summary since I got pretty long-winded: The problem is that Java was never open in the first place. Users of FOSS need to learn to decide for themselves when technologies aren't really open, and avoid using them.
It will be hard to find out whether Oracle planned this kind of aggression when buying Sun, but it can certainly be stated that the free software/open source community hasn't benefited from the acquisition.
There's a number of important questions that Oracle's patent attack raises:
* Did Oracle try to resolve this amicably with Google (by way of a license deal) or is Oracle pursuing purely destructive objectives?
Does this really matter? It would have been good for PR, but is anyone really under the illusion that Oracle wants to play nice with anyone? Personally I'd rather companies make it clear when they intend to swing around the "government-sanctioned monopolist hammer" instead of pretending that they're really quite reasonable, but that you do owe them quite a bit of money for using that technology they insisted was really open. Regarding PR, this kind of activity does put companies in my, "prone to dangerous legal demands" category, but frankly, Sun and Oracle were already both in that category.
* Will Google solve this patent problem in a way that the entire Android ecosystem (including the makers of Android-based phones and the authors of Android apps) will be reassured, or will Google only take care of its own risk?
Valid and important question, but as a non-Android and non-Java developer, I'm not interested in the answer.
* Is Java less of an open standard now than C#? I don't really buy the argument that Oracle may only be suing because of deviations from the standards definition. This kind of patent attack is evil no matter whether Google adhere to certain specififcations or not.
I wouldn't say Java is "less" open than C#. I do and always have put them in the same boat, which is "IP minefield, never develop in these environments." Also, this action changed NOTHING. Java has ALWAYS been an IP minefield just as much as C#, it's just that Sun managed to fool quite a few more people about it than Microsoft could. The only good patents are patents that are effectively neutered by PERMISSIVE patent grants. Sun's patent grant has always been a joke.
* Isn't this now the ultimate proof that the Open Invention Network doesn't really protect the Linux ecosystem from patent attacks? This is case of one OIN licensee (Oracle) suing another (Google).
Another interesting question, OIN's license only grants acces to patents specifically related to the Linux System as defined by OIN. After a quick look through the listing, the Java SDK itself doesn't seem to be there. There are several components that rely on Java (ant, an eclipse java compiler, a gcc Java runtime), but if those packages don't exercise the patents in question, then Oracle is acting exactly as the OIN is designed to allow them to act.
I don't see this as a failing of OIN. The way I see it, the fact that the Java SDK isn't considered a part of the "Linux System" by OIN means that Oracle doesn't consider Java to be open, which means to me that I don't want to use or rely on Java. It's nice for PR to say things like, "OIN protects licensees from patent threats related to Linux", but if you're going to be doing business based on that assurance, you should definitely be checking the definitions and making sure that what you think is covered is actually covered.
After putting in a bit more thought before posting, I have to say that while my previous comments are valid, your point is also valid. The "Linux Ecosystem", a more broadly defined set of software than the quite narrowly-defined "Linux System" according to OIN, is not at all fully covered
I'm afraid that this story is going to drive FUD against Java, Oracle *AND* Google, and it's going to make things difficult for me at work.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
+10^1000000000
TRUDAT
NO SIG
So bye-bye, Java goodbye
Drove my Dalvik to the levee,
but the levee was dry
And them Oracle boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Larry Ellison was obviously really high
Singin', "this'll be the day that java died..
"this'll be the day that java died."
People will draw conclusions about Sun, Oracle and Google, about Android and Java, but this is all missing the point.
This is about software patents, which cannot coexist with a functioning software industry.
There are hundreds of thousands of them. No one can read them all, let alone remember them all. Not even Microsoft, Google and Oracle can do it, so they infringe thousands of patents at the end of each day of work. Even if the baby jesus came came down from heaven and granted them perfect knowledge of all patents today, there will be a thousand new ones filed by tomorrow. The entire thing is a money making scam for attorneys and an alternative to free-market competition for some of the larger, more unscrupulous companies. The scheme was invented in a courtroom rather than in Congress. It's so ridiculous on its face that the entire rest of the world refuses to recognize these types of patents, despite years of fevered bribery- I mean, lobbying, on the part of the scammers abroad.
Trying to keep score between Java and .Net on who's playing the patent game better is like arguing over who's burning brighter in a room where everyone is on fire.
If this stuff bothers you, donate time and/or money to the people doing the hard work of organizing a fix, and we can end this practical joke on the software profession. We have enough problems with our economy as it is.
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From what I'm reading, it could be python Syntax and it just wouldn't matter. It's the running of code in a bytecode virtual-machine where the patents seem to have bite.
Interpreted scripts are going to be a hard sell to developers, it either needs to natively compile or at least compile into a bytecode blob.
I personally would be resistant in investing hundreds of hours, or millions of dollars in marketing and development for a big title to only have Python scripts being passed around for the world to take and use.
Or at least, fully support native binary apps right now, at the same time as trying to clear up Dalvik's legal situation. Java is actually an idiotic choice for mobile devices. Running on an interpreter means it uses many times the battery power to get things done compared to native apps. Just expose a native app loader so folks who want to build native apps don't have to jump through demented JNI hoops.
Java may have its advantages - mainly, a garbage collector, which is also a disadvantage - but C++ apps run way faster, even if Java is JITted. And a JIT sucks battery life too, as well as introducing annoying, user-visible startup latency and imposing a huge memory footprint. Just take a deep breath and go native, it's the best solution for everybody.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Wasn't it supposed to be MS and .Net that was the trap?
Guy, literally every single one of your guesses is absolutely way out.
That is a wild exaggeration, for example his observation about copy-on-write process memory is absolutely correct and dates back to the dawn of Unix.
They're talknig more about classloaders and signed apps than ACLs and C++-style object models. Your SQL example is hilarious - no, they're not trying to count anything. They're creating shared class files originally comprised of greater than one class file, recognising where the byte blocks are identical. Think more VM or storage deduplication, not counting things.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. I would suggest running the byte code through rzip, which will deduplicate it even more effectively.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The problem with your theory is that you can probably violate most of MS patents that relate to .Net without cloning it. They didn't limit the scope to .Net in the patents.
Oracle does not play around when it comes to lawsuits if I was Google I would be careful about this fight. Oracle usually wins a lot of there lawsuits. Oracle has been buying up a lot of open source products to hurt there competitors this is not the first time this will happen with Oracle not with the way they are buying up companies.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Sounds like you could be describing half the CEOs in the industry.....
Sun initially developed Oak for embedded systems and failed. Then they targeted the desktop and failed. Then they targeted the server and succeeded. Eventually some embedded systems got boatloads of memory and Java succeeded there too.
Yer, leopards spots and all that. Basically, what he's trying to do is to get whatever is left of Sun making some money so that it doesn't drag Oracle itself down. Grabbing a slice of Android and the mobile market without having even entered into it seems like a decent idea. Sun never made enough money from Java. I'm not justifying what they're doing but needs must at the moment. The Sun takeover is taking its tole and it had more to do with Ellison's ego over going up against IBM than anything else.
Considering that there is very much PRIOR ART, that dates back to the 1966 and again in the early 70's on that act in question , I don't think that what Oracle's doing is a wise move on their part. They're taking on someone that can actually afford to litigate that position and win- with the end result of Oracle eating the expense of the lawsuit and losing a handful of patents in their portfolio.
I can't imagine what's going through Ellison's mind right now that he'd play this move this way.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A bit of a wishful thinking here, plus, what you say is just speculation. I'm sure people wish you are right, but there are nothing to discuss when we have no way to confirm such a hypnosis.
As I see it, this is simply Larry Ellison doing what he can to benefit his friend Steve Jobs. Totally underhanded and completely unprovable. Anything to stop, hassle, or hinder Android's momentum by threatening court action that is going to take years to resolve. Just what cell phone does Larry himself carry?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This is a "walks like a duck, talks like a duck, won't pay for the license for a duck" situation.
You don't even need a lawyer to read it. No supersets or subsets. "Java" on android doesn't implement the complete Java SE API so no grant. Google was trying to avoid having to license Java ME by only using the Java language and not a JVM. That grant clause is from the language spec so it's a pretty bone-headed move on Googles part to think they can repurpose the Java language. Microsoft didn't get away with making incompatible Java implementations with Visual J++, why should Google? If Google would have just licensed Java from the get-go, Android wouldn't just now be getting the speed boost of using a JIT.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Obj-C isn't especially difficult to learn but it's definitely not like working in something like Python. I'd like to see Apple offer a bit cleaner language to code in especially if they could make it interlink with C/C++/Obj-C well. (Something like built-in Prolog would be awesome too.)
I've experimented with my own pet Pythonic language that translates to Obj-C and it seems to not have any major issues over hand written Obj-C so I'm not sure why Apple would have any reason not to offer such a language.
Still learning to program for iOS isn't any more work than learning to program for Android.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
# 6,910,205 - Interpreting Functions Utilizing A Hybrid Of Virtual And Native Machine Instructions
- the 205 patent ... filed in 2002, granted in 2005
Pretyy much very interpreted language for decades does this. Additionally, back in the 60s people were writing programs to do exactly this to try to enable run-time decompiling/recompiling of binaries from other systems. Nothing much new under the "Sun" here ...
The programming language and the VM are completely differing entities. In fact you can have Python, Ruby and a few other languages running on the JVM, C++ actually included- because the JVM is a virtual machine, an artificial CPU under which things are executed against something of a common execution environment.
Don't munge the two concepts together- because they're not one and the same and the patents they're fielding have NOTHING to do with the Java language, only allegedly the JVM runtime according to the patents Oracle led with.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
On what basis do you base this on?
The claimed patents that have clear prior art? If you haven't been in the computer industry for anything less than 10 years, you wouldn't know that Oracle's patents might be running afoul of prior art.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No, they didn't fail in the sense they lost money. But the SCO vs. IBM suit hasn't been finished. This is just the SCO vs. Novell part you're talking about. IBM's going to be able to make Lanham Act violations stick and be able to pierce the corporate veil and be able to go looking for the corporations behind the action in question (and there should be little doubt about that one- they couldn't have lasted this long without someone big helping out in varying ways...) and be able to sue that party for the acts in question. Might be a financial win on BSF's part, but their client didn't fare very well- and the principals and the people that funded them may not fare well either.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It does seem strange that Google, rather than using Python, whose creator (Guido van Rossum) is employed by Google, they chose to use Java....
Python runs as slow as molasses in January. Mind you, not as bad as it once was but still very bad.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
They're taking on someone that can actually afford to litigate that position and win- with the end result of Oracle eating the expense of the lawsuit and losing a handful of patents in their portfolio.
Thanks. I've been going through post after post wondering when someone would mention this. No owner of software patents WANT to appear in court - it's just too risky.
it's in my head
I thought Android wasn't started by Google, but purchased from a small startup? (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm)
So it was logical to continue the startup's plan instead of, you know, commit suicide like WinMoPho7?
running of code in a bytecode virtual-machine
The first thing that springs to my mind when I read those words is the Infocom Z-Machine, which has been around since 1979 and I'm sure there are examples of lots of stuff like it even earlier than that.
In other words, this virtual machine stuff has been around and been well-known for quite a while.
Is this another 1-click style patent fight?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
The article was very informative - but said nothing whatsoever about Mono's own patent exposure from Microsoft.
If anything this whole thing should make you MORE wary of Mono.
Your post is clearly not flamebait.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Given how much google uses java for all sorts of stuff, they were idiots not to buy sun.
Or they realized they were safe using Java as they are now. They'll spend less defending this than they would buying Sun, and once they get a ruling on their side they're good to go. Oracle is just picking up the torch where SCO dropped it.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Wouldn't Larry like that?
They could have used python, and even reused Sugar.
They *can* use python, have you heard of Jython? Or http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ ?
Yes but I think jython would be a bad move under the circumstances.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'm not convinced that Google has more patents to sue Oracle over than vice versa.
If it were a contest of brilliance, innovation, or technical savvy I'd bet on Google over Oracle ten times out of ten. But in one of possibly-dubious patent ligitation? That's right in Oracle's wheelhouse.
Ellison owns the "Her" in "Herpes".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Members of the Java Community should protest this. I don't see this lawsuit doing anyone any good, not even Oracle. sign the petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/oracledropgooglelawsuit/
Python isn't ready in the same way that Java is. There is no really stable just in time compiler that I'm aware of (I might miss something here, though). Then there is the hampered threading support in CPython because of the nasty Global Interpreter Lock. At least on multicore CPUs you can't expect to get much out of a single Python process, even if you're doing multithreaded programming. And the CPython VM is sloooow compared to Java. Most of that comes from the extreme extreme dynamics that Python allows at runtime - they incur a huge overhead because any kind of static analysis on Python code is basically impossible and therefore optimizations are extremely hard to do.
I wish I wouldn't have to say any of this. I like Python.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
And it's only marginally about Android. It's not about any intellectual property Oracle acquired from Sun.
It's about the launch of Windows Phone 7 coming up in a few weeks. Bill and Larry are co-billionaires for charity now. They're playing on the same team - for the children, for their legacy. That doesn't mean they've given up playing dirty. Far from it: it gives them a moral certitude that they're working toward a worthy end that justifies almost any means. Bill may not be CEO of Microsoft any more, but that's where the bulk of the billions he's giving to charity come from so that's the lever he's got to work.
Microsoft needs to sow some Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the mobile and tablet markets so that they can market their products as being free of that taint and so gain an opening that frankly isn't there otherwise. If they can't get a leg up here they're facing barriers to entry that are insurmountable. People Luurve their iPhones and iPads - 95% of owners would recommend the product and they sell them as fast as they can make them. Android is swinging up with a market share growth that defies gravity and owner satisfaction ratings that are nearly as high. Android is utterly crushing everything that isn't an iPhone - partly because it's got a diverse manufacturer base that's spread out so people have choices and it's harder to block the supply chain for diverse hardware platforms. Without a rash of IP suits against iOS and Android, some legitimate security disasters there, a puppet press that takes minor antenna issues hyperbolic and so on, Microsoft has just got almost nothing going for it with WP7. It's just a product that on its face would have been really cool four years ago, that doesn't have any apps or developers, that lacks features that are not optional on a modern device.
The Virtnet lawsuits are about the same thing, by a different route. Given a near certain loss in the lawsuit but the potential for a long delay, it's easy to see the negotiating team work out a settlement that goes something like "Look, we could tie this up in the courts with appeals and whatnot for another decade or so... or we could settle for a decent figure NOW as long as you agree to go after our preferred target next." The settlement was probably cheaper than their ad budget for Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft is not one to shy away from pouring money on the bonfire in the name of strategy. So now we have Virtnet suing block Apple and Android from using VPN over wireless - and so preventing them from being enterprise worthy.
There will be more of these suits filed from every angle. And the puppet press will cover each one from the same "Evil Google, Evil Apple" point of view. They're all bunk. Larry will of course get some reciprocal backscratching in return, though of course it will likely be indirect. An Oracle optimized Windows Server cluster with special flex licensing? Who knows. At least Virtnet is already paid in full.
Windows Phone 7 is still crap. None of these lawsuits change that. Most everybody who buys it will regret it. But because of these suits more people will buy it than would have otherwise.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Larry Ellison's a Oraclarian. Internet petitions don't work on him, only money.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Interesting information. I don't trust MS and I don't trust MS but it appears from that that for micro applications the .net framework is just as "free" or more "free" than the java me framework.
Eh ... sorry I meant "I don't trust MS and I don't trust Oracle".
The lawyers here are Boies, Schiller & Flexner - the same ones that handled the SCO case's IP side. That went well for them. *fall into fits of derisive laughter*.
Actually, I think the whole purpose of that battle was to create FUD and on that front they had some success. That's why they keep appealing it and dragging it out. They want to create an environment where people in high places making decisions involving a lot of money are at least going to wonder about the legal implications.
Google has recently started its foray into services for governments: Google Apps for Governments. Oracle is quite well entrenched in the market. Oracle would rather have the place and time of their choosing for that fight than allow Google (or anybody with half a brain) fight them where it actually counts.
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
The fact that Google is so closely copying their method means that *whatever*
patents Sun had on the Java VM, could easily be said to be infringed upon.
Except that they're not. Android has its own VM - Dalvik - that has more in common with .Net than with Java, its own security model, and its own API. About the only things it shares with Java are the language syntax and a small subset of the runtime library API.
Sorry for the rather late reply, I don't tend to hit /. all that much on the weekends.
My understanding (not a ridiculously well-founded one, so I'd advise looking around some more as well) is that C, C++, Perl, PHP, Python, Lua, TCL... in other words pretty much every major language with the exception of Java and the .Net family, are substantially* free of this kind of problem. Personally I recommend C and Python, but I keep trying to grok lisp because of how awesome people keep saying it is ;)
*I say substantially because I do know that there are fully proprietary implementations of some of these languages, there are many compiler writers with a long history of "Embrace, Extend, ..., Profit!" in the C and C++ family, and some of the others may be subject to this as well, but the languages I listed, unlike Java/.Net have standard compilers and/or interpreters that ARE fully open.
Begun, the clone war has.