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Google Says 3rd Parties Would Be Liable For Java Infringement
angry tapir writes "Third parties, not Google, would be liable for any Java copyright violations in the Android mobile OS, according to a filing Google made in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Oracle sued Google in August over a number of alleged Java patent and copyright violations in Android."
I wonder how Oracle will go suing Android integrators in Korea, Taiwan and China?
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Microsoft promises to take legal responsibiliy in the case of patent lawsuits resulting from use of their platform. Interesting times we live in...
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Mayber some of the following paragraphs from tfa would have fit in the summary:
"""
"Any use in the Android Platform of any protected elements of the works that are the subject of the Asserted Copyrights was made by third parties without the knowledge of Google, and Google is not liable for such use," Google attorneys wrote in one of 20 defenses to Oracle's amended complaint.
Another defense states that Android was "created independently and without reference to any works protected by the Asserted Copyrights."
Elsewhere in the document, Google discusses the formation of the Open Handset Alliance, the coalition of vendors, including Google, that worked together to develop Android.
The filing also notes that Android can be freely downloaded and developers are free to modify the source code to suit their needs.
In addition, Google states that Oracle's patent claims should be denied under the doctrine of misuse. "Oracle has come to the Court with unclean hands due to its practice of requiring licensees of its purportedly open software to pay for licenses to items not covered by Oracle's alleged intellectual property in order to receive a license under Oracle's alleged intellectual property."
"""
?
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
From TFA, Google filed 20 defenses taking an 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach. In other words, they listed every defense they could conceive of, so that Oracle has to defeat each individual defense. If one fails, Google will then rely upon the others.
Furthermore, it's a strategic move - if the others were responsible, Oracle could find itself in the position of trying to sue either companies with much smaller bank balances like the Open handset Alliance or some 20 year old student. That's a lot less attractive than a bumper payday from Google.
I think it may be Oracle that's left "twisting in the wind". Google is a huge target, but suing several dozen developers instead is probably not going to be nearly as easy or lucrative.
Caveat Utilitor
I think it may be Oracle that's left "twisting in the wind". Google is a huge target, but suing several dozen developers instead is probably not going to be nearly as easy or lucrative.
Does it have to be lucrative or just effective at preventing anyone from using it without a licensing fee?
Here's what the article actually says:
"Any use in the Android Platform of any protected elements of the works that are the subject of the Asserted Copyrights was made by third parties without the knowledge of Google, and Google is not liable for such use," Google attorneys wrote in one of 20 defenses to Oracle's amended complaint."
That is, "we are not responsible for any violations added by the third parties". Well, duh.
Rent seeking the last refuge of the truly un-innovative.
For actual coverage of Google's counterclaims, I suggest Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101111114933605
"what" do you mean "by" that?
It's been widely reported that there's a duplicated file, and indeed it there is something close to that. BUT! One thing you'll find missing in Oracle's Exhibit "J" are the package headers at the top of the file. There's a good reason for that. On the Android side the file is in package org.apache.harmony.security.tests.support.cert, in directory support/src/test/java. You can see this in the git repository for android. It's sitting in a directory of test support classes.
So the matching file that we have here is part of the test suite to ensure compliance with the interfaces. It is NOT part of the implementation itself. So the real question is, is it OK to have this kind of file sitting in the test branch, to ensure that the real implementation of it complies?
The fact that the package headers have been removed and that this file is from the test suite can't be anything other than a deliberate attempt to deceive, well, someone. ;)
It's rather unbelievable that with thousands of stories out there on this file nobody is talking about WHERE it fits into the android tree.
Microsoft promises to take legal responsibiliy in the case of patent lawsuits resulting from use of their platform
What does that have to do with copyright claims?
Answer: absolutely nothing.
The headers haven't only be removed - which is a GPL violation by itself - there's a *new* header:
This is a blatant copyright violation, because you can't re-licence GPL code as Apache.
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I read and re-read tfa and just coudn't see Sun *ever* doing this level of crap. Larry may be a "great capitalist" but he's a failure as a human being. Bad Larry! Baaad! (smacks Larry on head with rolled up newspaper)
Organization? You must be joking..
Oracle just got $4B from SAS so they have cash to spend on lawyers. I imagine Oracle will make this part of their standard business practice now. Sue everyone, sue big, demand license fees even on stuff you don't own. :)
Perhaps you mean SAP.
If Oracle goes after users, they're making 200,000 enemies a day.
Uh, sorry about your phone, dude, but Oracle says you can't use that Android stuff. I think they have their own version, but you have to get it at the Oracle App Store. Have a nice day. Oh, and there's this URL where you can jailbreak your Unbreakable Oracle Phone....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
If you don't want to do the research to verify that I am correct, at least read this part from Groklaw:
I must have pointed out about 20 times here on Slashdot that Android is not Google's OS any more than Linux is a Red Hat OS. It is an OS produced by 78 different companies who are members of the Open Handset Alliance and also has numerous unaffiliated contributors.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Which Larry?
Larry of Oracle or Larry of Google?
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If Oracle sued Red Hat claiming Linux violates their patents, would you say that Red Hat was acting in a "low" fashion for pointing out the fact that Linux is not Red Hat's OS? Of course not. So why would you expect Google to take the hit when Android is not their OS? (Hint: It is FOSS, and is an Open Handset Alliance OS)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The objection is, to my understanding, that "Exhibit 'J'" doesn't consist of any of the actual source code at all. It's got nothing to do with the headers or locations. Exhibit "J" is a decompile. To that end it has all the expressive part stripped. It may be that both halves of the comparison are decompiled from their respective objects using the same tool.
This would naturally strip the result of any indicators as to whether any code was copied because the _tool_ would pick the variable names, and the indenting style and so on.
So consider two implementations of some function "int add_two_integers(int, int)".
One guy goes in for the one-liner: "int add_two_integers(int l, int r) { return l+r; }"
Another guy does the long haul: /* giant copyright notice */ /* motivation for writing code */ /*specific integer sizes selected to constrain results within 32 bits for sure */ /*with comments and everything */
int32
add_two_integers(int32 Left, int32 Right)
{
return (Left + Right);
}
In no way did either party "copy" the other.
But you compile both on a 32-bit platform, then decompile them both, and then say look, that second guy just stole the first guy's code.
The outcome of the above would be different code were both compiled for, say, an amd64. The intent is clearly different. The amount of effort clearly different again. The actual act of copying isn't even in question when the source is examined.
But cook it right and use decompiles and whatnot and you produce a misleading sense of similarity.
So don't go looking at the files from the two distributions and how similar or different they are. The objection is to the particular details of an exhibit we don't have that has, according to Google, been produced or redacted or just plain old manipulated to remove the obvious dissimilarities in a way that Google thinks the court should see as dishonest or biased against a correct finding of fact.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Nope. Microsoft modified Java's platform and still called it Java. It wanted to add incompatible features and extend Java to its liking, ruining the write once run everywhere.
There was already a Sun/Oracle lead platform (and strategy) for Java on the phone, it was JavaMe and it wasn't good enough.
Google is thus taking the result of the compilation of a Java program and making it run on a phone in a different platform. It never clamed dalvik to be a Java VM, it just uses the Java language. That's very different from what Microsoft did.
Google has no interest in destroying the Java language and platform. It uses it in several places, including Google App Engine.
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Try rereading what you wrote with C in place of Java. You cannot patent or copyright a language. All Google did was write a different infrastructure for the language.
> very much the same thing that Microsoft did
Let's clear this up a last time. Microsoft and Google did _very different things_.
As you agree, Java is a language (syntax) _and_ a platform (the API and the VM). (actually there are 3 platforms from Oracle: ME, SE, EE)
Google is using the _language_. Google never said it was using a _platform_ from Oracle. Check http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html
Microsoft on the other hand was implementing a JVM for Windows, under a license to do so from Sun. Microsoft extended the platform in a non cross-platform way (against the license) in order to "Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market." Doh !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#Antitrust_trial
This is *very* different!
So now back on the android/dalvik google/oracle suit.
> Dalvik shoots Java ME and probably also JavaFX in the head.
First JavaFX is for the desktop. Nothing to do with the mobile.
Second JavaMe has had its success (2B devices) but isn't technically adapted to compete on smartphones. It's a 10 years old platform. The programming model for application developers is outdated. The licensing scheme (and fees) is not adapted, and the amount of work for implementors is too large. Android seeks and manages to alleviate those issues.
Third, Google is under no contractual obligation to not compete with Sun on providing a _platform_ for mobiles.
> That is not in Sun's interest, not in Oracle's
> interest, and generally not in the development
> community's interest.
It's not in Sun's interest, it's not in Oracle's interest but who says it's not in the community's interest ? You ? Based on what ?
As a developer, I say: JavaMe doesn't work for everything, there's a better technology out there, let's use it.
The manufacturers say: this allows us to focus on building and selling a phone, not a VM and software stack. Great !
Only Oracle is unhappy because their expected revenues on JavaME are potentially reduced.
> Google/OHA should not be allowed to fragment the Java platform [...]
JavaME and JavaSE are already different platforms you know ? There's no such thing as a unique Java platform.
Google isn't thus fragmenting _the platform_.
> Google could have worked with the community to
> fix JavaME and JavaFX, but Google doesn't foster
> than kind of an environment internally.
You can't fix an inappropriate platform. You replace it: the VM, the class libraries, everything had to be modified in a non compatible manner.
So why would Google help Sun/Oracle create something that only one compagny had control on ? No one wanted that. Hence the OHA.
Given the patent wars risks & the market complexity, with its reuse of the Java language, development environment and developer pools, the reuse of Apache code, the OHA, Android is one of the smartest move in the industry in the past years. Sun couldn't pull that. Google did. Oracle is pissed because it kills their revenue forecast. But there's a big chance Oracle cannot do anything about what Google did. Google carefully thought their plan, and Sun/Oracle's patents/copyrights/license&strategy may not have protected them against Google's move. That's called business.
Now instead of working hand in hand to make the language and the platforms more universal, Oracle seems to have taken a step against, alienating some of their best supporters (developers and FOSS community). That's a very very bad long term move for the platforms that Oracle present.
To me, the one who is damaging the most the platforms, isn't Google. It's Oracle.
Er vi enig ?
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