Oracle Ordered To Lower Damages Claim On Google

CWmike writes "Oracle has been ordered to lower its multibillion-dollar claim for damages in its patent infringement lawsuit against Google and its Android operating system, court papers show. Oracle's expert 'overreached' in concluding that Google owed up to $6.1 billion in damages for alleged infringement of Oracle's Java patents, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said Friday in a sternly written order. The 'starting point' for Oracle's damages claim should be $100 million, adjusted up and down for various factors, he said. At the same time, Google was wrong to assert that its advertising revenue is not related to the value of Android and should therefore not be a part of Oracle's damages, the judge wrote. He also warned Google, 'there is a substantial possibility that a permanent injunction will be granted' if it is found guilty of infringement."

Comments

Language

[Threni]

What are the chances that Google will:

1) alter the way the Dalvik VM works such that the same source will execute differently, although producing the same results, so that app developers code continues to work, or

2) launch a new language for developing Android apps, but with a conversion tool to take existing source and turn it into whatever the new language looks like (some other variant on c/java/whatever...lets face it they're all practically identical nowadays)?

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already a "new language". It's called Go (www.golang.org).

Re:Language

[PickyH3D]

And it's terribly slow by comparison to the other options. Even according to their own research.

Re:Language

[fuzzytv]

Yes, brainfuck is much faster [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck] and it's not bloated with the useless stuff (objects, classes, letters, digits).

Re:Language

[IrquiM]

Buy Oracle - it's cheaper!

Re:Language

[JamesP]

I'm not sure Go fits the bill...

Apparently it's more high level than C , but lower level than Java.

Sure, iPhone apps do ok with ObjC, I'm thinking Go has the same level of abstraction

Of course, the main Google mistake was using Java (not to be a Java hater here, but I think that the whole model around Java, as opposed as, for example, running mainly native code, or something else, came as a detriment).

Even with JNI, the main problem is all apps depend on JVM/Dalvik.

Re:Language

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Apparently not so bad once it's been optimised though.

Re:Language

[robertl234]

Google had no choice. They needed applications to be able to run on different types of hardware.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy Oracle - it's cheaper!

Wow you are really smart!

Re:Language

[Dragonslicer]

Yes, brainfuck is much faster [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck] and it's not bloated with the useless stuff (objects, classes, letters, digits).

Dude, seriously? Are you kidding? Brainfuck is horribly, incredibly bloated. For a real language without all the ridiculous bloat of Brainfuck, there's only one reasonable choice

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

They needed applications to be able to run on different types of hardware.

I still have to wonder why this isn't addressed at the publication point, e.g. native code downloads that come from a common intermediate-language image on the server. As someone who appreciated whole-program optimization in school, I guess I never understood why people were so fixated on VMs and just-in-time compilation. It seems obvious in a mobile scenario that you want to pre-compute the common analysis and optimization rather than having hundreds of thousands of mobile units repeating the same damn work.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't! They all run on ARM. Plus apple has had no problem making C, C++, Objective C, and Objective C++ binaries work on PowerPC, PowerPC 64, i686 and x86_64. Google shouldn't have any problems either.

Re:Language

[ulzeraj]

Because of XNU's Mach-o fat binaries. Linux and therefore Android uses ELF right?

Re:Language

[fuzzytv]

Oh my gosh, I'll show that to our customers on Monday. I bet we can switch all our apps to this language by Tuesday. It's so easy!

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

You're neglecting that Google already has it's own language, "Go", developed by Rob Pike.

Re:Language

[armanox]

I'd mod you up if I had points, was thinking the same thing.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason why ELF couldn't be extended to support fat binaries. But it's a moot point. All android phones run on the same arm instruction set. There is some new vector extensions in the newer processors but the base instructions are still the same.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't at the mercy of 3 chip makers each with their own set of bugs/quirks at the NDK & platform level. Native Android dev is like native Windows dev... it works... except when it doesn't.

Re:Language

[glebovitz]

Wouldn't it be funny if Google started supporting Qt Quick / QML as an alternative to Davik and then encouraged QML app development? Google would end up fighting Nokia and Microsoft in the market using Nokia's technology.

I know it isn't going to happen, but there is a QML implementation supported on Android.

Re:Language

[node 3]

When has Google ever successfully done something like this? Their products consist almost entirely on either products they bought (like Android) or by utilizing the works of others (Linux, WebKit).

Coming up with a drop-in replacement for Dalvik (or significantly altering it) is nowhere near as easy as your question implies, nor is it something Google has shown themselves proficient at doing.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

This isn't about the language at all, this is strictly about VM at this point.

And my understanding is that, if Oracle's patents are valid, it is very hard to create a high-performance VM without trodding on them - one patent in particular is pretty much a patent for JIT-compiling bytecode.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

x86 is an officially supported Android platform since recently (they've added NDK support for that, so you can put x86-compatible NDK apps into the Market, for example).

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, writing a VM that is as good as Dalvik (which isn't particularly impressive today, as far as optimizations go - nowhere near JVM, for example) is not hard. The problem is doing that in such a way that it doesn't infringe on Oracle's patents. That is very tricky.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

Of course, the main Google mistake was using Java (not to be a Java hater here, but I think that the whole model around Java, as opposed as, for example, running mainly native code, or something else, came as a detriment).

Even with JNI, the main problem is all apps depend on JVM/Dalvik.

I think the main reason why they used Java is because it let them piggyback on the existing Java infrastructure - not just the compilers, but, much more importantly, the very powerful IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans. Also, given how many Java programmers were out there already, they immediately had a wide audience for whom barrier to entry was very low (esp. compared to Apple's Obj-C/Cocoa combo).

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is where software patents fail. "Hey, I have an idea, but someone else had a remotely similar idea that I don't really know anything about, but I came up with this concept and wrote my code without pulling it from anywhere else, but somehow that's illegal." Software patents can (and need to) DIAF.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

And that is where software patents fail. "Hey, I have an idea, but someone else had a remotely similar idea that I don't really know anything about, but I came up with this concept and wrote my code without pulling it from anywhere else, but somehow that's illegal."

All patents work like that, not just software patents. That's one of their crucial differences from copyright - the work does not have to be derived to infringe on a patent.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrelevant! Apple shows that you don't need to resort to a vm to support multiple processor architectures.

Re:Language

[node 3]

That's exactly my point. The OP is talking about them completely replacing it with something new (or altered significantly), not just making a new-but-compatible VM.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

But this isn't an issue of compatibility. Even if they replace it with something very different, so long as it has a "virtual instruction set" (i.e. some form of bytecode) and JIT compilation, it'll be infringing. And I find it hard to come up with a VM design without bytecode - it's been around for several decades for a good reason - and I don't see how it could be made efficient without JIT.

About the only workaround I can think of is to AOT-compile to native code, either on the phone (e.g. when app is installed from the Market), or even by the developer. And they could do it in a back-compat way by automatically compiling all existing Market apps (from Dalvik to native).

Re:Language

[SuperKendall]

I think the main reason why they used Java is because it let them piggyback on the existing Java infrastructure - not just the compilers, but, much more importantly, the very powerful IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans.

I totally agree, it was a huge win to be able to fold things like simulators into Eclipse and give people an instant modern IDE for Android development from the outset.

I think it was a smart choice, even with the issue they have now.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

Go ?

I'm pretty sure they made that in-house.

Re:Language

[toriver]

It's not rocket science to write an Eclipse plugin that supports a non-Java language. There are plugins for C/C++, PHP etc.

What they really wanted to piggyback on was the multitude of Java developers, as you also noted.

Re:Language

[node 3]

I don't think simply being JIT is the basis of Oracle's claims against Google.

Re:Language

[node 3]

And Go is successful?

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

It's not rocket science to write an Eclipse plugin that supports a non-Java language. There are plugins for C/C++, PHP etc.

It's only not "rocket science" if you don't compare the features of those plugins. I'm not aware of any other language plugins that comes even close to the refactoring capabilities provided by Eclipse Java support, for example.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

I've already posted this link in a comment in another thread, but let me repeat this - it's one of the patents in question:

http://www.google.com/patents/about/6910205_Interpreting_functions_utilizing.html?id=U-4UAAAAEBAJ

What is claimed is:
1. In a computer system, a method for increasing the execution speed of virtual machine instructions at runtime, the method comprising:

receiving a first virtual machine instruction;
generating, at runtime, a new virtual machine instruction that represents or references one or more native instructions that can be executed instead of said first virtual machine instruction; and
executing said new virtual machine instruction instead of said first virtual machine instruction.
...
8. In a computer system, a method for increasing the execution speed of virtual machine instructions, the method comprising:

inputting virtual machine instructions for a function;
compiling a portion of the function into at least one native machine instruction so that the function includes both virtual and native machine instruction;
representing said at least one native machine instruction with a new virtual machine instruction that is executed after the compiling of the fuction.

It goes on to detail the claims, but altogether this describes the standard way of making a JIT-compiling bytecode VM: replacing bytecode with native code prefixed by a single "native JMP to following" bytecode pseudo-op. Other claims also add the ability to store the original bytecode elsewhere, such that it can be recompiled differently later (e.g. when additional classes are loaded later invalidating assumptions such as inferred virtualness of methods).

It's not the only patent, of course, but I suspect it's the one that is hardest to sidestep.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a good idea that it would never ever happen. I don't know why Google decided to use crappy Java based technology in the first place.

Re:Language

[Kalriath]

No you don't. You just need to resort to compiling the executable once for each of the supported processor architectures then sticking them all in a folder with ".app" at the end of its name, hiding its real implementation specifics from the user.

Re:Language

[DrXym]

Android is just a modified Linux kernel and BSD user land. Assuming Google supplied the APIs, developers could write in C, C++, Ruby, Python, Go, Forth, Brainfuck, Java or anything else. They already can of course via the NDK which is gcc + libc + opengl + audio and other foundation libs. You could stick anything on top.

It just so happens at the moment that Java is the development language of choice and most of the layout APIs are tailored to that environment. Despite some cruft Java is an excellent language so using that is a sound choice and also allows devs to benefit from wealth of tools.

While I doubt Sun / Oracle would care to admit it, it is obvious that J2ME is an antique better suited for programming dimmer switches these days. Its no wonder that developers were deserting it in droves, technology moved on while the J2ME environment stood still. This lawsuit is little more than a cash grab and if Oracle end up with some paltry pay off (and $100m would be) for their efforts then it will serve them right.

It would be interesting to see C++ / Go or something become something more of a peer to Dalvik though. QT is being ported to Android, so it's entirely possible that Dalvik will end up being just one way of many to write apps.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that Oracle isn't cheap - yet.

Re:Language

[leenks]

That's because those kinds of refactorings are either impossible due to the language (PHP) or extremely hard to the point of being impossible (C, C++).

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

C is actually quite easy to refactor; C++ is a bitch (but possible; VS has 100% faithful code completion for it already - accounting for macros, templates etc - refactoring is the obvious next step).

Even so, while you're generally right in that refactor tools need an easy-to-work AST, and Java supplies it - it's much easier for Google to reuse that, then to reimplement the entire set of available refactorings (some of which can still be pretty advanced) for whatever new language they might devise. I'm not saying that they couldn't do it, but it's not trivial.

Re:Language

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong. It produces only one binary. This is how you do it.

gcc -o hello -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc -arch ppc64 hello.c

This produces a single executable that that houses the all code to run on four architectures. The OS then chooses the part to run. No ".app" required. If you look in a ".app" you will find that there is only one excitable inside it even if it's universal.

Re:Language

[cduffy]

Sure, but not all claims are actually *defensible*. Just because the patent is granted doesn't mean that its scope isn't narrowed by the acknowledged prior art -- and a good number of claims have already been struck down or narrowed by the ongoing PTO review.

Oracle does have some claims that may have a chance of standing up, but anything so broad as to cover all bytecode+JIT combinations isn't going to be among them.

Re:Language

[Threni]

Yeah, I'm not aware of Microsoft (.net), VMWare (various virtual machine runners) getting sued for this.

Re:Language

[Daniel Phillips]

This isn't about the language at all, this is strictly about VM at this point.

And my understanding is that, if Oracle's patents are valid, it is very hard to create a high-performance VM without trodding on them - one patent in particular is pretty much a patent for JIT-compiling bytecode.

So don't JIT it, compile to native code at application install time. This would likely improve the user experience anyway. I don't know about you, but I would happily accept a longer install time in return for a faster application start and snappier execution.

Re:Language

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, that is the only reasonable approach that I can think of that wouldn't break backwards compatibility in an unacceptable way.

It won't really give you significant perf improvements, though, because the problem with Java perf isn't the compiler so much so as it is the language itself. Its semantics imply gratuitous heap allocation and virtual calls; the optimizer can do escape analysis and other tricks to figure out where this is overkill, and allocate on stack or call directly, but that detection isn't perfect. There is a product on desktop, Excelsior JET, which does AOT compilation for Java with some very impressive optimizations, but it is very slow, and that of course on a much more powerful machines.

Re:Language

[poetmatt]

Estoppel could stop the case entirely, as sun and oracle have written "We're damn glad for android" articles which have recently and quietly been taken down.

I don't know that google will have to go anywhere near it if the judge accepts estoppel as the main answer.

Re:Language

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

More importantly if they do change Dalvik's byte-code format do Android devices stuck on 2.1 or even 1.5 get the patch, and if not do they at least get to keep the Apps they already have installed?

Sun

[nicholas22]

And THAT is the answer to the question "why did Google not buy Sun". It is cheaper to just some nickels and dimes now. And I guess they didn't need Solaris.

Re:Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

They just reduced the cost of a settlement. A permanent injunction is still pretty bad. If they though there was a threat or wanted to pay that much, they could have just taken sun offer at the time for a 100mil.

Re:Sun

[robertl234]

It cost Oracle $5.6 billion to buy Sun. I guess Google thought it was cheaper to deal with the lawsuit.

Re:Sun

[Johnny Doughnuts]

Think about how Sun would have taken a totally opposite direction if Google bought them. Instead of Sun starting to suck they're be pretty awesome by now.

Re:Sun

[williamhb]

Given the effort Google have gone to to hire across an awful lot of Sun's staff since the transition, it does seem very strange they didn't just buy them in the first place, getting the staff, patents, and getting rid of the need to try to create a split between Dalvik and Java. I guess they just balked at buying the hardware side, but as I understood it they could have resold that part to HP fairly easily.

Re:Sun

[node 3]

And THAT is the answer to the question "why did Google not buy Sun". It is cheaper to just some nickels and dimes now. And I guess they didn't need Solaris.

Not quite. The reason Google didn't buy Sun is that there's nothing of value for them that they would have gained other than Java. That's a lot of money to spend on just a small subset of Sun's value.

The rest of Sun in no way promotes any of Google's revenue streams.

Re:Sun

[Zuato]

It seems the judge is trying to force them to settle now instead of dragging it out. He is telling Oracle to lower the damages while looking at Google and telling them if they lose he will side with Oracle if they opt to force the stop of Android until the code is fixed which would obviously be a bad thing.

snafu...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle's expert 'overreached' in concluding that Google owed up to $6.1 billion in damages for alleged infringement of Oracle's Java patents, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said Friday in a sternly written order. The 'starting point' for Oracle's damages claim should be $100 million, adjusted up and down for various factors, he said. At the same time, Google was wrong to assert that its advertising revenue is not related to the value of Android and should therefore not be a part of Oracle's damages, the judge wrote. He also warned Google, 'there is a substantial possibility that a permanent injunction will be granted' if it is found guilty of infringement."

In other words: Stop acting like a pair of brats!!! ... now shake hands ...

Good lord.

[nametaken]

I'd just like to be the first to say, "fuck Oracle".

I hope those bastards fade into irrelevance. I mean, what haven't they done to piss everyone off recently?

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

considering everyone in the world uses their software, i doubt it. this is googles fault. they had the guacamole to buy sun but they didn't. in the end, google will owe they a lot cash and everyone will keep using their android phones and it will all work itself out :)

Re:Good lord.

[fuzzytv]

What would they get? A company that does not work well enough, with a lot of stuff they did not want/need. It's extremely difficult to rebuild such company and they've decided it's not worth the money and risk. For Google it's easier to build their engineering department, shaped to their needs. Right, the IP stuff might be interesting for them, especially regarding this battle with Oracle, but the game is not over yet.

Re:Good lord.

[scottbomb]

Interesting point. One could say that Google is doing Oracle a favor by using Java in the platform. I can't think of ANY software on my PCs that are written in Java but my Android device is chock-full of it.

Re:Good lord.

[gman003]

I use 2 major Java apps. The first is Minecraft, aka "game that became insanely popular for a few months but has kinda faded away now". The second is GanntProject, a free and open-source project-management tool.

Other than those two, the only Java apps I have are the ones I wrote for a college class, which I haven't touched since I took said class.

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope they will abandon java and make a real linux phone, or a python phone :)

Re:Good lord.

[Sique]

About 50% of the applications I use at work are java based. So MMMV (My Mileage May Vary).

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Oracle? No fuck google. Hopefully the judge rules for a permanent injunction. That will teach google no to steal other people's work.

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to bed, Larry.

Re:Good lord.

[igreaterthanu]

I'd just like to be the first to say, "fuck Oracle".

I'm sorry to inform you but you are too late.

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

Python? You want phone apps even slower than java?

Re:Good lord.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can mod me down all you want but the judge is gonna rule in favor of Oracle because Google broke the law. Google is gonna pay for this.

Re:Good lord.

[boorack]

Unforunately, Oracle lawyers could go after python as well. They have patent covering stack-based virtual machine after all. It is impossible to write any non-trivial piece of software without stepping into someone's software patents.

Re:Good lord.

[yahwotqa]

Oh java is being used quite extensively on big iron in enterprise sector. "IT" doesn't just mean "desktops and shiny smartphones".

But-but judge....

[Anonymous Coward]

My client's CEO has in his office, along with a half-model America's Cup yacht and 18th century Japanese furniture, a large sign that says "THOSE CROOKS OWE US BILLIONS AND BILLIONS!"

Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[countertrolling]

All parties are recognizing software patents...

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[icebraining]

Software patents do exist, so not recognizing them would be a sign of insanity. And unless they are unconstitutional, it's not the court's job to decide whether they should exist.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[robertl234]

Actually it is the court's job to decide what is and isn't patentable. See the NPR story that was posted earlier today. It was the result of two court rulings in the 90s that allowed the patenting of software.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is the laws that decide what is and isn't patentable. The courts just interpret the laws.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[Dachannien]

In the case of patents, actually, most of the US statutory principles behind patentability have their roots in judicial decisions stretching back almost 200 years in some cases, all of which stem from the Constitutional provision empowering Congress "To promote the Progress of... useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to... Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective... Discoveries."

Subsequent to various court decisions, Congress chose to codify most of those decisions in particular ways to further define certain requirements. There are a few cases where court decisions were countermanded by Congressional action, such as 35 USC 112, sixth paragraph, and the bit in 35 USC 103(a) about "patentability shall not be negatived...," but for the most part, when it comes to patentability, Congress has just gone along with what the courts have said.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[robertl234]

That's where you are wrong. In a common law system, which US civil law is largely based on, law is created by the decisions of judges rather than the legislature.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir, you live in a fantasy world, that is an insanity like you describe it.
Software patents are nothing more than made-up delusions that a couple of criminals try to impose on everyone else, since they found out, that there are spineless losers like you, who actually buy into lies if they are repeated often enough, and let themselves be blackmailed and milked for money like that.

And since those laws actually don't prevent harm (No, none whatsoever. That's the core of the lie/delusion.), but cause real harm and damage, they are by definition the actual crimes.

And as far as I know, it is the court's job, to decide that crimes should be stopped and the criminals be punished.

The problem in most cases: The judge has bought into the lies too, or is even part of the criminal organization himself.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[Hognoxious]

The UK has a common law system too, but when parliament passes an act (and that German woman with the gold hat signs it) then it becomes law.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[Grave]

I remember a few years back, before the software patent lawsuit wars really kicked off, reading that these type of patents were akin to nukes. Everyone is infringing on everyone else at this point, and if everyone sued everyone else, it'd result in injunctions or pay-offs for just about every piece of software ever. At the time, I think it was something about IBM vs. Microsoft, but frankly I wonder why Google is taking the approach that they are. The hands-off approach to the lawsuits from Apple against HTC and Samsung, Microsoft vs. every android device maker, and the half-serious bidding war for the Nortel patents all make me wonder if perhaps their intent is to allow this "nuclear war" to occur between enough parties that the entire consumer electronics/software industry collectively realizes that they need to eliminate software patents?

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[icebraining]

And since those laws actually don't prevent harm (No, none whatsoever. That's the core of the lie/delusion.), but cause real harm and damage, they are by definition the actual crimes.

No, that's not the definition of crime, so your argument is invalid. A crime is "An action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law."

And despite your cheap attacks, my argument has nothing to do with being a "spineless loser" (which I might very well be, but it's not relevant), but with defending a core principle of democracy, and one instituted by your constitution, which is the separation of powers.

Re:Like an election, doesn't matter who wins

[gbjbaanb]

To promote the Progress of... useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to... Inventors

and I think that's the problem with the patent system as it stands, the patents that are being legislated over don't appear to be 'inventions' but somewhat vague concepts.

Its just a good job we can't remember the fabulous ideas we come up with when drunk/stoned or the no-one would be able to do anything without infringing one :)

Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn.

MS is patent trolling Android implementers. Apple is in on the act too, with HTC getting the blunt of the lawsuits. (Why them? Who knows ... Small company?; I'm excluding Samsung, what they have pulled is BS, that shameless company can DIAF. Google really should avoid publicly associating with them.)

From the looks of it, if you want to use Android, you better have the Benjamins to defend yourself. Come to think of it, it's really no different from rolling your own. Same risk, same benefits + some.

So much for a "free as in beer", "public property" open source OS. Patents will put an end to that.

Patents aren't about justice anymore, assuming they ever were, they are just weapons now ...
IMO there are no innocent parties in these, they would all do the same if they had the patents and money - OK maybe Google, but who knows how long that will last.

PS: Before anyone posts/asks, no we can't get rid of the patent system. Who the heck then will invest for capital intensive research like medicine and semi-conductor fab tech?

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Dunbal]

Who the heck then will invest for capital intensive research like medicine and semi-conductor fab tech?

Perhaps you're looking at it backwards. With patents out of the picture, there will be a need to do things much, much cheaper and innovation will drive towards increasing efficiency rather than how to protect your monopoly. I love it when the drug argument is used regarding patents. I just answer sarcastically: yeah, because acetyl salicylic acid (more commonly known as Aspirin) which has been out of patent since forever is a real money-loser. You will never find generic/store brand painkillers containing this product. Here ends the sarcasm. Pharmacy companies complain about all the billions it takes to make a new drug and fail to mention that drugs still sell long after the patents expire. It's not like Lipitor has been pulled from the shelves (patent just expired recently). Yeah there's competition - so what? For every Coke there's a Pepsi, for every McDonalds there's a Burger King. Suck it up and earn your money like everyone else.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[AuMatar]

The universities, where most of the research comes from today. 99% of R&D budgets are pure D, research just doesn't happen in the private sector anymore.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, because acetyl salicylic acid (more commonly known as Aspirin) which has been out of patent since forever is a real money-loser. You will never find generic/store brand painkillers containing this product. Here ends the sarcasm. Pharmacy companies complain about all the billions it takes to make a new drug and fail to mention that drugs still sell long after the patents expire. It's not like Lipitor has been pulled from the shelves (patent just expired recently). Yeah there's competition - so what? For every Coke there's a Pepsi, for every McDonalds there's a Burger King. Suck it up and earn your money like everyone else.

At that point, why waste money on R&D in the first place?

Just wait for your competitor to do it for you, burning billions in the process, then manufacture it yourself at a cheaper price - you don't have R&D money to recoup - and undercut them to death.

Great idea heh.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[leoplan2]

I think software patents is the thing we should fix now

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[cavreader]

"Just wait for your competitor to do it for you, burning billions in the process, then manufacture it yourself at a cheaper price - you don't have R&D money to recoup - and undercut them to death." This accurately describes China's approach to saving R&D expenses.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Attila Dimedici]

Pharmaceutical companies do a lot of pure research. I work as at a pharmaceutical company in IT support for just the research labs. Of the labs my department support only a tiny portion do any development work. Almost all of the development work is done by labs in other divisions than the one supported by my department (actually this is changing as due to recent changes in corporate structure those divisions are finding out about us and starting to request our support).

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

R&D for prescription drug research is publicly funded and then handed over to big pharma to market. WE pay for the research. There's ZERO benefit to allowing drug patents to exist.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Then why do the companies hold the patents and not the government?

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[cavreader]

So companies should work towards creating advancements and innovations and rely on improved efficiency to cover R&D budget shortfalls?

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

I talked to an actual patent lawyer, double degree, engineering/law. His take on it is software needs it's own type of intellectual property protection And duration should be half that of true patents. In other words, you should have a software patent, but that's it, no patents no copyrights. His reasoning for software having much less protection than patents is that software is much more straightforward, in general, than hardware which is a physical thing. Nor copyrights which protect stuff that takes a vast effort to produce, but nothing to copy.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies will do whatever brings in money and nothing more.

If efficiency increases profit, they will do it - and keep it secret how it done if there is no patent protection to keep their edge.

Yes, they can profit from R&D for new products without patent protection, but they would rather just sit on their asses, save the money and let someone else do the dirty work for them - from which they can freely profit from. If it's more profitable this way, and this is what they would do.

It's all about money.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[AuMatar]

Pharmecutical companies spend more than twice as much on advertising as they do on research. And much of their research is on updating drugs about to move out of patent protection to get them another 20 year monopoly. And even then their total annual research is less than 30 billion. We'd get more bang for our buck by removing their patents and spending 30 billion on grants for targetted medicines. Then maybe we'd get cures for real diseases, and not another 13 erection pills and non-existant diseases like restless leg syndrome.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Attila Dimedici]

First of all, Viagra was developed to treat hypertension and heart disease. During Phase I testing it was discovered to cause penile erection. Only after it was concluded to have limited effect on heart disease did Pfizer decide to market it as an erectile dysfunction treatment. The other erectile dysfunction drugs were originally developed for treating heart disease as well (although they did not get as far into testing as Viagra before being re-purposed as erectile dysfunction treatments).
Additionally, there have been major breakthroughs in treating many major illnesses in the last 20 years. Unfortunately, most major illnesses of the developed world do not readily lend themselves to a cure. Diabetes is a perfect example of this. Type I diabetes is a result of the pancreas not functioning properly. Until such a time as medical science develops the ability to grow new organs, it will not be curable.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[mfwitten]

What does 'physical thing' even mean? People are always talking about software as though it's intangible and metaphysical. This is because most people don't understand what's going on; they can't see gears and levers and wheels that can be turned by hand, so they assume that some kind of magic is at work.

There is no fundamental difference between the Newcomen steam engine and Linux's latest execution scheduler.

Everything in this Universe is describable with Mathematics/Logic; everything is just information.

Either patents apply to everything or they apply to nothing.

In most cases, it's not copying that is at issue, but rather compensation for the arduous task of finding the original, and I think therein lies the solution: Should the inventor of rounded GUI elements be compensated in the same ways as the inventor of the LCD screen? The contemporary patent problem has to do with preposterously disproportionate entitlement.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Hognoxious]

Pharmacy companies complain about all the billions it takes to make a new drug and fail to mention that drugs still sell long after the patents expire.

Yes - after the development costs have been recouped. And given that anyone can now make it, the margins will be less.

If anyone could copy it right from the start, you wouldn't get the chance to recoup those costs, because you'd never have the high initial margin.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Hognoxious]

If efficiency increases profit, they will do it - and keep it secret how it done if there is no patent protection to keep their edge.

They can keep secret how it's done, but determining the chemical formula of a new drug is trivial.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Bert64]

Drugs and other medical research should not be performed by commercial entities in any case, there is far too much conflict of interest... For instance, it's far more profitable to keep someone sick and taking drugs than it is to cure them, so the research will be directed at temporarily alleviating symptoms rather than curing the underlying problem.
Medical research should be carried out by charities, governments and other groups who's goal is improving people's health, not making a profit.

When it comes to other products there are different rules... Virtual products like software are protected by copyrights so your competitors cant just create a straight copy... So these and other physical products will take time for the competition to copy, giving you a head start.
What you make of that head start is up to you, rip off the early adopters or earn yourself a reputation? If you earn a good enough reputation, people will still choose your product in future even when cheaper competitors become available as they will always be seen as cheap clones.

Also lets not forget, a lot of R&D is academic rather than commercial.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[LynnwoodRooster]

The universities, where most of the research comes from today. 99% of R&D budgets are pure D, research just doesn't happen in the private sector anymore.

Intel drops $4 billion a year on their research group. Microsoft drops $10 billion a year. A lot of that money goes for pure research that ends up not commercialized, and a lot of it is directed to universities to work hand-in-hand with the companies. Private funding of grants for university research is huge - it's the dominant share of university research funds. Companies may not do as much direct research as they did, but they still fund the majority of it - they just fund it through the use of universities.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Anonymous Coward]

SOME drug research is done by public institutions and is then LICENSED to private companies to bring it to market. The pharma companies then handle the actual challenging part of bringing a drug to market - clinical trials and FDA approval. The pharma companies then pay significant royalties to these public research institutions who make a sizable profit out of the deal. The cost of developing the compound is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of meeting regulatory compliance and these public institutions are not equipped to do this.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[limaxray]

You'd be correct, except you are totally missing the cost of regulatory compliance. Actually coming up with and manufacturing a compound to treat some ailment is cheap and easy. Proving to the FDA that it is safe for sale for some purpose is extremely costly. No one is going to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to perform these trials if, once approved, anyone can go out and manufacture and sell the same drug for $2/bottle. How the hell are they ever going to cover the margins of millions of man hours invested in clinical trials competing against people whose only operating expense is a small factory in Mexico or China?

What people such as yourself don't understand is the primary business of pharma companies is regulatory compliance. The gross majority of people employed by these companies, and the gross majority of their expenses go to making the FDA happy. If you want cheap drugs and to eliminate the need for drug patents, you either need to eliminate the FDA (dumb) or place the burden of testing these drugs on the government and the tax payer (also dumb).

The system we have now may not be ideal, but it works pretty well. It's efficient and promotes innovation. Yeah, drugs are more expensive when they're first released, but the patents are short lived and cheap generics quickly make it to market. If anything, this should be an example of how the patent system should work - patents last only long enough for the inventor/investor to make an ROI before expiring and entering the public domain.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Dunbal]

For the same reason everyone else tries to work a little harder and be a little better, be it in the construction industry, the retail industry, the service industry, and any other industry you care to mention. Monopoly encourages laziness, greed and entitlement. An idea for a product design alone should not be used as a club to beat a competitor who possibly offers far better service, distribution, quality, etc. If all we cared about was the bottom line and the price, then we'd all be eating at McDonald's. When you go to a nice restaurant you might consume the same amount of calories and pay far more per calorie. But if you don't see the difference between a candle-lit table and highly trained waiters and a room full of screaming children - not to mention the quality of the food, then I feel for you.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Dr_Barnowl]

I believe part of his point was that when you can make billions selling insulin (US market $1.4B anually in 2001, sales growing 10% a year, projected $7.5B in 2020), what incentive do you have to research pancreatic replacement?

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Attila Dimedici]

I understand the point. However, developing a pancreatic replacement requires the ability to grow new organs. Once that has been perfected, there will be years of research to develop the ability to replace the pancreas. There is a lot of research being done on growing new organs. The other thing about diabetes is that most of the most effective treatments for diabetes have been developed in the past 20 years.
The idea that pharmaceutical companies would rather treat illnesses than cure them is based on the assumption that they are working in collusion to not develop a cure. If Pfizer develops a cure for diabetes, not only is Merck not going to make money off of that cure, they are no longer going to make money off of their treatments. As soon as a promising avenue for a cure for one of these diseases is thought of, many of the pharmaceutical companies will be trying to develop it. There are two reasons why a pharmaceutical company would want to develop a cure for something like diabetes. One, they will make money off of it that they will not make if a competitor develops it instead. And they all want the PR from developing a cure for it.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[cavreader]

"determining the chemical formula of a new drug is trivial" Do you mean after the formula is created it is then easy for any one to take the finished product and figure out the formula? Or are you saying coming up with the formula in the first place is trivial? It is trivial to reverse engineer most products and formulas and while the current patent system is creating chaos there still needs to be some way to ensure that in some circumstances and product types the originator has the ability to at least recoup the R&D expense. These silly software patents being granted and fought over today are a perversion of the original intent of the patent system but that should just mean making changes to the patent process instead of eliminating it totally. The first change should be a rule that says the person or company holding the patent has to actually implement the patent. This should help knock out all of the patent trolls who hold patents that they never plan on actually implementing. Hoarding ideas and basically ransoming them to those capable of actually doing something with them should be deemed illegal with substantial financial penalties for anyone trying to do this.

Re:Under attack from all sides.

[Hognoxious]

Clearly, given the context, I meant the former.

But, but, but ...

[jvillain]

Mueller said they were gonna get that money. The judge must have gotten it wrong.

Re:But, but, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google is found guilty of patent infringement, doesn't that also make everyone who sells or uses Android-based phones also guilty?

And remember, Google was in negotiations with Sun over these very patents, so if (and it's a BIG if) Google is found guilty it will almost certainly be found to be willful infringement.

Because "negotiate for patents, can't come to a deal, use 'em anyway!" is going to go over really well, isn't it?

Re:But, but, but ...

[twidarkling]

If Google is found guilty of patent infringement, doesn't that also make everyone who sells or uses Android-based phones also guilty?

Er, I'm not 100% positive, but I am fairly certain that's not how it works. When a product is supplied to you, you are generally indemnified against all legal issues stemming purely from the provider. It's like how you're not charged with crimes if it turns out your car's engine exploded due to a manufacturing error, rather than you just didn't maintain it for the past five years. Generally, the worst that can happen is you're deprived of the right to use that product, but even that's pretty rare, and usually ends in reimbursement (manufacturer sends out recall notice, you're forced to send your car in due to the hideous defect that endangers everyone around you).

This wouldn't apply in cases where Android had an update pushed out to remove the infringing parts, and you rooted your phone to get it back, since they attempted to make good, and now you're the one infringing.

Of course, I could be wrong, and if so, someone let me know. After all, I'm neither American nor a lawyer, so I'm far from an expert.

Re:But, but, but ...

[LBU.Zorro]

Doesn't matter if you use an Android based phone or if you're guilty of patent violation - damages will be minimal. No possibility of 100 million damages against an individual, more like $1 as there are over 100 million devices.

Can you really imagine Oracle suing someone for $1? Or even $3 for triple damages from willful infringement?

And if they do sue you, then they can't sue the manufacturer because they're attempting to get compensation twice for the same event (or at least I believe that's the case).

Patents aren't ever (for a given value of ever, I suppose it is remotely possible) enforced against individuals, you could probably win simply thru having more money but the PR would be hideous, you'd spend more trying to get your dollar than you'd ever get back and judges would end up detesting you.

When you get down to it, other than as attempting to change the behaviour of other people you're too small to be noticed. The same is for copyright infringement, the labels aren't really making much in the way of money (other than from the people who settle) and are pissing everyone off, including the judges they're relying on. Even when they win 100k judgements they've little hope of ever getting the money unless the person literally has that money lying around or is a high earner.

Z.

Burden of proof?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this work anyway, is there a burden of proof to show you somehow lost $x, where x in this case is 6.1e9?

Move outside the US

[Doodlesmcpooh]

If Google runs into problems surely they could set up a European company and sell them Android for $1. That way they could at least continue with Android everywhere except the US. Maybe if all the large software companies started moving out of the US then the government would do something about software patents.

Re:Move outside the US

[nzac]

Giving up on the US market just over not being able to use Java is unlikely and stupid. They will just find another dev language probably either extending Go or create a C++ framework. Assuming damages cover the already distributed androids they are fine to use java but for new version devs must rewrite their apps.

Re:Move outside the US

[toriver]

Just don't pick Britain or Germany, where software patents appear to be legal...

Re:Move outside the US

[LynnwoodRooster]

Giving up on the US market just over not being able to use Java is unlikely and stupid.

Unlikely, yes. Stupid? Probably not... The US market has around 180 million cell phone users. China alone is around 800 million (China Mobile boasts 600 million subscribers alone). Add in SE Asia and India and we're talking close to 2 BILLION potential Android customers.

In the big scheme of things, the US market for cell phones is interesting, and it's great for early adopters, but as a monster source of long-term revenue the US really isn't where it's at. Witness Nokia's lack of presence in the US for the last 10 years, yet they continue to be the biggest cell phone maker in the world. A company can get along pretty well without the US market...

Re:Move outside the US

[nzac]

Unless they can control the internet advertising there is no benefit to selling phones with android. I would think that every US android user is worth many times more in ad revenue and search data (i don’t think that google is likely to be kept as default search engine by the majority) than someone in china.

Re:Move outside the US

[HiThere]

There are *LOTS* of reasons to give up on the US market, and software patents are near the top of the list. There are also a few reasons not to give up on it. So far the major players have decided that it's still worth the risk and the expense to maintain a US presence. If things continue to get worse, expect that to start changing.

P.S.: Java wouldn't be the reason, software patents would.

P.P.S: The eternal copyright would be another good reason, if the other countries weren't doing the same thing. Sometimes the stupidity isn't localized.

Re:Move outside the US

[LynnwoodRooster]

Check out the most used Android apps: Google Maps, GMail, Google Voice. All controlled by Google, all with Google ads. They make plenty of money on Android users in China...

Re:Move outside the US

[DragonWriter]

Giving up on the US market just over not being able to use Java is unlikely and stupid. They will just find another dev language probably either extending Go or create a C++ framework. Assuming damages cover the already distributed androids they are fine to use java but for new version devs must rewrite their apps.

The VM is as big of a deal than the dev language. It seems to me that Google pretty clearly sees Android and the Dalvik VM as a short-term solution, with Chrome OS and PNaCl for native apps as the longer term solution. But its going to hurt them if they don't have time to give developers a gentle transition period where you've got Chrome running on Android, so both Android and Chrome OS apps can run, before deprecating traditional native apps in favor of PNaCl apps.

Uncle Larry

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Uncle Larry's Maybach is free? Time for Google to pay up and stop freeloading. Sometimes I believe their dancing around copyright and patents is childish. Just like the Nerf guns and shit I heard they have at that place. Children with PHd's.

Kill All Software Patents

[Nom du Keyboard]

I'm ready to kill all software patents. Does Android compete with Oracle? (No, Oracle doesn't market phones or tablets and never will.) Does Android compete with Microsoft. (Not really.) Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.) Did anybody other than Google put in the effort to create Android and deserve the rewards for doing so? (No, they just want to collect money for doing nothing more than filing a patents that they don't even use in this market.)

Who loses when all of these patents are enforced. (We, the public, do - Big Time!)

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[lolcutusofbong]

I believe you meant killall -9 software patents.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh J2ME was *THE* goto language for cell phones up until andriod/iphone showed up. So yeah they may have had some compete there and probably a patent or two... The company they bought up even worked on it and they even still sell it...

Between apple and google they have reshaped the entire phone market.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[ccguy]

Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.)

Too much of a stretch, isn't it? Of course one brand of phones competes with the other.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[nick_davison]

[1] Did anybody other than Google put in the effort to create Android [2] and deserve the rewards for doing so?

[1] By definition, yes. Someone spent time and effort creating an idea, a technique, a widget, whatever. If they hadn't, there would have been nothing to patent. That idea/technique/widget was then used by Google who could build Android faster, cheaper, easier, more useful, because they didn't have to both identify the problem and then think of a solution to it themselves. So, yes, someone other than Google put in [some of] the effort to create [some of what became] Android.

Actually, massive numbers of people did but those who invented transistors, windowing, graphics techniques, file systems, core OS concepts, etc. either didn't patent those ideas or invented them long enough ago that they've fallen out of patent protection. That's the nature of every modern OS being built on ~65 years of computing evolution. I'd imagine if you take any modern OS and could somehow magically calculate all the hours of human thought that went in to every technique, every technique that supported another technique and so on, the OS company's investment in that OS is probably far, far below 50%.

[2] That one's much more subjective. Generally speaking, these days, someone at company A invents and patents something. Company B then sees value in company A's patents, customers, reputation, etc. and pays a price to purchase all of that. This means that company B didn't actually invent it themselves but you can argue they paid for that invention and the value that controlling it confers. In the current legal system, yes, that means they deserve to get compensated. But there's always the question of whether current legal systems really represent what's "right," what's "deserved," etc.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[JAlexoi]

Does Android compete with Oracle? (No, Oracle doesn't market phones or tablets and never will.)

Oracle licenses Java ME to phone manufacturers and Android is destroying that revenue. Though in a good sense, because Java ME should be killed off.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

hahaha funny!

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

[1] There are so many patents filed today, you can't possibly know if something you're doing was already written down by some other guy 5 years ago. If you didn't even know you were using someone else's idea, how could you have used the idea to build something faster, cheaper or easier?

If I come up with an idea and start a business, I have no idea whether some patent troll can surface, take all my money and shut me down. He doesn't necessarily have to create anything, or even implement the patent in any way. Do you honestly feel like this is how the system should work?

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Compaqt]

>Did anybody other than Google put in the effort to create Android and deserve the rewards for doing so?

You just blew my mind with this one.

Why does Google deserve the rewards for Android, but Sun doesn't deserve the rewards for Java? Totally leaving aside all legalistic arguments Google were scumbags for giving a bit fat $zero to Sun.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Myopic]

Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.)

Whoa. That is an amazingly narrow definition of "compete". So, if Android doesn't compete with Apple's iOS, could you give an example of what Android does compete with?

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[PCM2]

Does Android compete with Oracle? (No, Oracle doesn't market phones or tablets and never will.)

Oracle markets Java ME, which must be licensed by phone manufacturers, for money.

Does Android compete with Microsoft. (Not really.)

Microsoft makes Windows Phone 7. It also has a couple of different flavors of Windows designed for embedded systems, and I see an awful lot of device manufacturers considering Android for those these days (the Barnes & Noble Nook line, for example).

Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.)

Buh? You might as well ask "does Ford compete with Chevy" and conclude that it does not, because once you own a Chevy you're not likely to buy a Ford and vice versa. Competition is something that happens before a company makes a sale. The TV spots, the product placement, the retail channel, the app market -- in short, all the things that make you want an iPhone -- that's the competition part.

Did anybody other than Google put in the effort to create Android and deserve the rewards for doing so? (No, they just want to collect money for doing nothing more than filing a patents that they don't even use in this market.)

Of course they did! By no means was Android created in a vacuum. The simple fact that the Android OS uses Java demonstrates that.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[protektor]

You sure that it is impossible that no one else around the time would have or did come up with the same ideas? JIT systems are definitely not a new idea. They have been used in games for a very long time. Look at Infocom and SCUMM (Lucas Arts) games. They used basically JIT. I know that when I was in college back in the 1980's in class we talked several times about JIT and how they would work and how it could be done. The problem back then was getting it adopted not the technical issues. No two computer makers would ever want to see a JIT on their computer that works with the competition. I thought that getting one for Commodore, Apple and IBM-PCs would have been a great product to have. It would have made development costs much lower in theory. It wasn't until the Internet and needing 1 app to run on multiple platforms and systems that adoption of the idea became realistic.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[LBU.Zorro]

[1] By definition, yes. Someone spent time and effort creating an idea, a technique, a widget, whatever. If they hadn't, there would have been nothing to patent. That idea/technique/widget was then used by Google who could build Android faster, cheaper, easier, more useful, because they didn't have to both identify the problem and then think of a solution to it themselves. So, yes, someone other than Google put in [some of] the effort to create [some of what became] Android.

Sorry but that's really not the case. You're making an assumption that just isn't true when it comes to software development - people never reuse idea/techniques/widgets from patents because there aren't any idea/techniques/widgets in patents, only claims.

Patenting idea/technique/widget X does not mean you've helped anyone. I have my name on several patents myself and have waded through many other patents (software and hardware), what you actually have are a series of claims and that's what you infringe - the sole sop to actually having the invention in the patent is the preferred embodiment, which is really no use. It's pretty much impossible to run through a patent database and find ways to solve your problems and it certainly would take longer than just writing it yourself from scratch. Just looking for prior art to verify that you have something patentable is a nightmare and then seeing what happened to a clear valuable idea when it became written up by the patent attorneys - if I couldn't have worked back to my idea from the end result I don't know how anyone else could have.

What usually happens is that someone patented X, and someone else who faced the same problem (or similar problem, or even something else entirely but the claims on X were broad) implemented X without ever knowing about the patent, and even if they had known about the patent it wouldn't have helped - they have been made so generic and legalised that there's really no benefit to the actual code.

In software people re-invent the wheel all the time, there's no library of patented functions you can pull from and pay a fee, you don't even look because if you looked it becomes willful infringement, you couldn't find something that matched and you wouldn't get any benefit from the legalese and broad generic claims.

The concept of a patent helping innovation by spreading knowledge around is false, the most you can say is that it may help innovation by protecting ideas. The reality is (I believe) that it hurts innovation by being about who has more money.

Z.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

$ killall -9 software patents
killall: Permission denied
$ sudo killall -9 software patents
I thought you'd never ask
$

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

great, you just killed all software and all patents...

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, any idea how to accomplish this?

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[HiThere]

But it doesn't use Java. That's the point. If it used java, then it could use any of various freely available java engines. It uses, however, Dalvik which isn't covered by the same license. As it is, however, there wasn't a pre-existing deal with Sun that need be argued away.

Personally, at this point I think they should build a Python engine, and switch over to Python. It should be possible to create a tool that would do 90+% of the code conversion automatically...at least if you don't care how ugly it looks. After all, they did write a compiler.

Actually, what they should do is to write a Python VM for an extended Python that's extended to allow inline assembly language code (in the assembly language of the VM), and an automatic translator from Java to a combination of Python and the assembly code of the VM. Since they've already got the design to translate Java to Dalvik this should be reasonably easy. So then the tool is for converting one kind of source code into another kind of source code. And the compiler never comes close to Java. Also, at that point they immediately become available to another large pool of programmers, without additional work on their part. They can then retire Dalvik. Advantages here include the large number of libraries that Python has already available to replace the ones that Java has. Not quite the same, but probably available without a fight.

Clearly what I'm talking about here wouldn't be the standard Python dialect. And as it's already deviant, it can be allowed to deviate further to accommodate needed changes to improve performance. This should, however, be kept to a minimum. Changes to improve performance are a reasonable approach. And possibly compiler switches to enable the non-standard features. (OTOH, nearly anything performance enhancing could be done with the "inline assembler". So this shouldn't be stretched too far. Probably only to the point to static typing to allow optimization. Pyrex and Cython show one way this could be done. What I'm basically talking about here is an enhanced Pyrex, extended to the entire compiler, rather than intended for only a link between Python and C.)

The part that's obviously difficult is the automated translation step. Perhaps Google could use some of their search technology to search out patterns of code that do the same thin in the two different languages? Sort of a very specialized bablefish.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[PCM2]

But it doesn't use Java. That's the point. If it used java, then it could use any of various freely available java engines. It uses, however, Dalvik which isn't covered by the same license.

But it does require you to compile Android software to Java bytecode as an intermediary step. Do Oracle's patents cover the design of the VM or just the execution of the code? If they cover the design of the VM, then the design of the VM includes bytecode, and using Java bytecode as a basis of a derivative product could be infringing. I say "could be" because I don't know for sure, and nobody really will until the judge rules on it.

Personally, at this point I think they should build a Python engine, and switch over to Python. It should be possible to create a tool that would do 90+% of the code conversion automatically...at least if you don't care how ugly it looks. After all, they did write a compiler.

I wouldn't mind that all. A smartphone SDK that lets you build apps using Python sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to how you do it now.

Re:Kill All Software Patents

[HiThere]

I must have misunderstood the Dalvik compiler. I thought it could understand Java source code as well as class files. That does mean it would be more work for them. If they don't already have a Java compiler, then a Java to Python + Python-machine-code cross-compiler would be a lot more work.

OTOH, it would need to be a specially hacked version of the Python language. The main reason that Google went with Dalvik rather than jvm, as I understand it, was for performance. Python would need special features that aren't in the standard language to allow for that. Statically typed variables is probably the main feature, and routines in which ALL variables are required to be statically typed. Python's dynamic variables are a bit expensive. I think there's something like one extra indirect reference per reference. And there's also a bit of RAM overhead. And a couple of other computation penalties. Think of each variable reference being a function call and you'd probably be pretty close to the overhead.

Still, Cython and Pyrex are already more than half-way there. It's not an impossible target if someone with some resources wanted to go for it. If those are your starting point, you're assuming C rather than Java as your base layer. Quite traditional, actually. (Too bad Parrot isn't making better progress. That's a design with some real possibilities...though I say this based upon only a brief scrutiny of the VM opcodes. And there's also LLVM, but I don't know the tradeoffs that it makes.)

Google didn't use Oracle Java.

[Anonymous Coward]

They did a clean room implementation of Java that worked exactly the same way. But it is not Java and uses no Oracle IP. Oracle doesn't own Java. They just own their one implementation of Java.

This is the same way us old people were able to buy cheap IBM clones back in the day. If it had been upto IBM you would still be running a 486 with ISA expansion slots.

Re:Google didn't use Oracle Java.

[Haedrian]

Ah but here lies the difference between patents and copyright.

To use a car analogy (since they're pretty popular around here) - if I patent a car, I am locking down all ideas which are similar to it. So even if you get a person in the jungle whose never seen a car in his life, and he thinks up "Hey ... car", and designs one from scratch - it'll still be bad since he is 'copying' the idea. Clean room or not clean room.

Now copyright on the other hand, yes. If you do the same idea in a different manner, that's fine!

Re:Google didn't use Oracle Java.

[Sehnsucht]

Actually, you'd have MCA ...

Re:Google didn't use Oracle Java.

[Thing 1]

MCA only came about as a method to obtain more revenue, when everybody and their brother were selling ISA motherboards and cards. It was IBM's cash grab that failed. This article is correct: if the playing field then was like it is now, they would not have needed MCA, ISA would have been protected.

Re:Google didn't use Oracle Java.

[PCM2]

They did a clean room implementation of Java that worked exactly the same way.

No, that's not quite right. Dalvik is a new virtual machine which, as I understand it, loads and executes bytecode in a way that's more efficient on low-power devices with limited resources. You start with a Java program, which you compile using the Oracle Java compiler. You then run it through an extra step that transforms the stock Java bytecode into Dalvik bytecode. Dalvik will not run regular Java code until you do this last part.

That said, it doesn't really matter. Dalvik could be a virtual machine that runs bytecode from a language called Vluuurm, which only runs backwards, and it could still violate Oracle's patents on virtual machine technology.

This cannot be good for Java...

[mark-t]

I am inclined to think that if Oracle wins this, then there are going to be a lot of other places that are going to end being afraid of utilizing Java in the future... which could spell the effective end of Java as a mainstream programming language (although it obviously wouldn't die completely), which can't possibly be good for oracle.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Haedrian]

Well, is Oracle making any money off Java? Far as I know they're not making a cent from it. All versions of java are open to use.

If they get a few billion (which they had hoped for) from Google it'll really pay its rent. That said, I do see Oracle killing off this language due to being bad money hungry people indeed, and I hope someone will fork it because , well, it was a clever idea.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[calmofthestorm]

Yep. They're cashing in their board position for some cash now.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[JAlexoi]

Their community relations are the worst out of all corporations. I don't know what is their standing in the DBA community, but in Java community Oracle is definitely not loved... The Apache issue has had a really big impact on their image, since ASF is one of the biggest Java community hubs.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

Free to use, yes. Free to implement, only if you stick to the very strict rules set forth by Sun. Sun always intended to collect licensing for implementations that did not strictly adhere to those rules. By not providing an implementation that does not comply with either J2ME or J2SE they are violating these rules. Google knew this which is why they inquired about licensing with Sun, but instead of an agreement of terms Google decided to just turn their back and do whatever they want. Sun knew that this was a violation and knew that they had grounds for a recourse but lacked there wherewithal to do much about it.

I severely doubt that Google will walk away from this without having to open their wallet. The question is whether or not they and Oracle will come to an agreement or if Oracle will rake them over the coals.

Make no mistake about it, though. Sun designed the Java licensing very deliberately and they did intend to make money on it through these nonconformant implementations.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[bigBlackSabbath]

What? Where did that leap in logic come from? Sun had specific terms around using Java in embedded applications. It appears Google realized that, but perhaps felt by using Dalvik rather than a Sun JRE, they would be avoiding that.

Most mainstream Java programming, involves server-side applications. The outcome of this trial should have no bearing whatsoever on those mainstream uses of Java. At all.

If Java's mainstream appeal will be diminished by anything, it's the rise of alternatives (e.g., ruby, python, c#, etc.).

I don't know if you're spreading FUD, you're uninformed, or you just don't like Oracle. Either way, you're speculation strikes me as wild and baseless.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[saleenS281]

You do realize most of the products Oracle sells rely on Java, right? That's the entire reason they didn't want it going to IBM. They are more likely to kill of their database than Java.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[shutdown -p now]

I don't see why would that be the case. You don't get sued by using Java that comes from Sun/Oracle, or a certified compatible implementation, which is what the vast majority of people are doing. Especially in areas where Java is dominant or at least popular today - big enterprise apps and web apps - this lawsuit has no relevance at all.

Sure, for the use of Java in a mobile device, you'd have to pay (though that only applies to device manufacturer, not e.g. app developers). I don't know how much Oracle asks for that license, but given how many J2ME enabled phones are out there, even the cheapest ones, I'd wager it's very cheap.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Compaqt]

>I am inclined to think that if Oracle wins this, then there are going to be a lot of other places that are going to end being afraid of utilizing Java in the future

And which ones would those be? Mobile and embedded apps? The licensing scheme for Java was always that the desktop is free, embedded/mobile is not.

What that means is your average 2-man programming shop can come up with nifty Java CRUD apps for free. Your average multinational corp that wants to produce 100,000 phones has to pay a fee.

Read the license, also see here.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Compaqt]

No, Sun made upwards of $100 million per year licensing Java to the mobile phone industry.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20013549-264.html

Java was free on the desktop, but not on mobile.

Since Android was going to to be a unifying OS for all manufacturers, dropping J2ME, $100 million is an eminently reasonable figure for licensing Java to Google.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[tibman]

I doubt it could be forked. That's what Google tried to do and some parts of the implementation are patented. Microsoft forked with C# but had to get some kind of Sun approval after the fact.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[PCM2]

You do realize most of the products Oracle sells rely on Java, right? That's the entire reason they didn't want it going to IBM.

Oracle didn't block the sale to IBM. Sun's talks with IBM broke down, IBM walked away from the table, and Oracle swooped in.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really... Google is in trouble right now mainly for having made a clean-room implementation(Dalvik) of Java VM. But much of Java is already available under GPL. The GPL is designed to give protection from patent claims by the author of the code.
From the GPLv2 :

...Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Like the FSF said Google could have avoided much of this by just building Dalvik over Oracle's GPL code, or a derivative of it such as IcedTea.
Why didn't they do so?
Probably to release Dalvik under the more permissive Apache license which allows for proprietary modifcations by handset manufacturers.

Other companies in the future (in case Oracle wins; lets pray it doesn't) are just probably going to
(1) license Java, or
(2) license the patents allegedly infringed by Dalvik or
(3) just use a derivative of Oracle's GPL'd code such as IcedTea.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[LBU.Zorro]

You can't use J2SE on mobile devices (I'm pretty sure Google would have wanted to use J2SE) due to Field of Use restrictions and J2ME wasn't any good, so no choice if you wanted to use Java. Sun wouldn't open the Field of Use restrictions at all - possibly because they were making money from it but I don't know.

As far as I know Sun said it had to be J2ME on Android which wouldn't have worked, J2ME is incredibly restricted and frankly almost sufficiently different from J2SE to be a different language.

Sun could have sued - but Sun didn't want to be the bad guy. Oracle is happy to be the bad guy so there you go - which is weird, they happily piss off everyone they run across from open source developers to large companies.

Google have already opened their wallet, lawyers aren't free after all :) but barring getting rid of those patents (prior art, overly broad claims, or being found not to infringe etc) they'll probably have to pay. That said if the case goes against them I'm sure they'll appeal and if that fails or looks like it'll fail they'll settle - at least Oracle can't go for a scorched ground approach if the settlement is reasonable they've pretty much got to accept it (I think that's right).

Z.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Oracle does make significant money from Java. The Java Run Time JRE is licensed to manufacturers and they pay a pretty penny for it.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

Java has no future, but $$$ from GOOG are welcome in the Oracle camp..

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[StormReaver]

This trial doesn't matter either way, as it's going to be appealed by whomever loses. This judge is giving both sides ample ammunition for appeal. Frankly, this trial is a total waste of time, money, and effort. The appeals court is going to grant the loser a new trial, anyway.

Some of the decisions this judge made are just jaw-droppingly bad.

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Tim C]

Well, is Oracle making any money off Java?

Indirectly yes, as they sell a number of products that are written in/expose APIs for Java (e.g. WebLogic, Portal Server, etc)

Re:This cannot be good for Java...

[Tim C]

I think you may be confused - Sun sued Microsoft for breach of the Java licence terms when they added their own custom classes into the java.* package hierarchy (they'd have been fine putting them in com.microsoft.*). I believe Microsoft licences some patents from Sun (now Oracle, of course), some/all of which cover features implemented in C#. C# is only a fork of Java in the very loosest sense imaginable.

Just Use Mono

[lolcutusofbong]

Seriously, at this point they'd probably be better off writing everything for Mono or another CLR clone - it's not like Microsoft isn't already asserting patent claims.

Re:Just Use Mono

[scorp1us]

I'll bite. Everyone just use Qt. Free, portable, open source. With QML, no C++ is needed.

Re:Just Use Mono

[Anonymous Coward]

That is possibly not so funny actually.

As a language/library/api C#/.net is much safer from a patent/licensing position than Java. Java is completely free as long as you do a full deployment and don't customize it. That isn't an issue for the server or the desktop (not that anyone cares about Java on the desktop). Burt for other applications where you don't want, need, can't use the full distribution, or your need to extend the language, you are SOL. You have to license the rights from Oracle.

Another two observations. Microsoft back in the day was notoriously viscous to competitors, but not end users, and certainly not for tools. Oracle's relationship with it's customers is predatory. If you're in corporate you might think about having options other than Java. And especially if you have products that compte with Oracles.

Re:Just Use Mono

[shutdown -p now]

With QML, no C++ is needed.

QML is a markup language, embedding a subset of JavaScript for things like data bindings. My impression was that it doesn't give you access to all features of Qt - e.g. if you need to write your own custom control, or even for a lot of model code (DB access etc).

Re:Just Use Mono

[lolcutusofbong]

Yes, and thanks to the magic of the (L)GPLv3, as long as the copyright holder on Mono has a copyright and patent license from Microsoft, so does every single Mono user. Besides, it's in Microsoft's best interest to let C#/.NET/CLR/Mono proliferate - they sell the dev tools, but the libraries are free as in beer. The more people who have it installed, the more popular C# applications will be, and the more copies of Visual Studio they'll sell. Seems like a win/win to me.

Re:Just Use Mono

[scorp1us]

Largely incorrect.

QML is like CSS, with inline JS, and Qt's API expressed as JS bindings.

True some advanced things still need C++, but you can make QML component objects from and use them in larger projects as a "custom control". Also there is the database API. The global object holds some misc properties.

People can and do whole app is in QML. And the advanced stuff from Qt Mobility - GPS, etc comes with JS/QML bindings.

I get the impression

[maroberts]

...the judge is trying to pressure both sides into reaching a settlement

Google was STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

With Sun, Google would had gotten a gigantic patent portfolio along with a highly successful technical with lots of ideas with potential.

That $6.5B investment would had being a drop in the bucket of money they could had made with everything they would had gotten with the purchase.

Re:Google was STUPID

[Bazar]

$6.5 Billion isn't small change.
And what would google gain by purchasing sun?

Open Office?
They have google docs

The Sun OS?
They have chrome

A dying mainframe business?

They'd gained Sun's Java i suppose, but then again, they already had a working java engine. Why break their existing java engine when it isn't broke.

I suspect that Sun's purchase was way overpriced, and purchased mostly as a way of aggressively killing and smothering (or in Google’s case extorting) competition.

5-10 years from now, once oracle has finished sucking the blood out, it'll be sold for a few hundred million.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Linux for mobile devices

[cbarcus]

Android sounds like Linux for mobile devices. I'm sure someone will come up with a more accurate analogy, especially since the technology is actually built on top of Linux, but it is essentially a community project stewarded by a commercial firm whose business is built upon selling algorithmic access to its customers. This preserves a certain amount of privacy that many of its customers find acceptable. What is perhaps not acceptable is the NSA's access to nearly every communication firms' backend, but that's another story.

Java is a great technology, but Sun was unable to build a viable business around it, and Oracle acquired Sun largely for litigation potential. Oracle has essentially failed the community in the stewardship of this technology, so this lawsuit is more than a little bit ridiculous. Like many patent disputes, it heaps doubt upon the entire software patent system.

In this time of economic contraction, should we be instigating more uncertainty among important community-orientated technologies? Do we not want businesses like Google building open (and very inexpensive) platforms, and competing primarily upon the quality of their services? Isn't that very much in the interest of consumers?

Re:Linux for mobile devices

[Compaqt]

>Java is a great technology, but Sun was unable to build a viable business around it, and Oracle acquired Sun largely for litigation potential.

Well, it was getting $100 million per year for mobile Java, which also subsidized desktop and server Java development.

Until Google came around and had all the mobile manufacturers transition to Android, and didn't pay Sun a cent.

That's what this trial is about.

From Andy Rubin, father of Android:

"What we've actually been asked to do by Larry and Sergey is to investigate what technology alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome," the Google executive wrote, referring to founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. "We've been over a hundred of these and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java.

Larry Value = $1.00 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really.

Really!

Oracle Value = $1.01.

Really.

Really!

What this means is that the US Government is throwing away BILLIONS of DOLLARS persuing persecution of a person, Larry Eilson, and a company, Oracle, whose combine worth is only $2.01; given the exchange rates in 1989.

President Obama has a secure Executive Order granting him privalige to kill any and all human beings on Earth as his pinis dictates and his asshole ablidges.

Why dosen't Obama order the killing of Eilson and all employees of Oracle as he did with Osama Bin Laden.

What would be easier for a person such as Obama just to order the killing of his school-yard tormenters just to satisfiy his perverted homosexual cravings.

--//..

Re:Larry Value = $1.00 ...

[lolcutusofbong]

I wish I had mod points so I could mark this "-1 Batshit Insane".

MOD UP Parent ^

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD UP parent, +1 informative.

Really? Where are non-ARM android phones?

[SuperKendall]

The practical reality is that Android phones are ARM, in part because Google has promoted using the native development kit for games... Android doesn't really need the cross-platform aspect of Java.

Google is not the good guy here

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You seem to be confused this is not a case of software patents (at least not primarily, like apple-htc for example). I mean google did not use "the principles behind java". It did not use a new version of the language, it does not use different opcodes, it does not ... Google uses Java, verbatim, Google uses the binary format of java, verbatim (yes they package it *slightly* differently), Google uses the sun jvm (a secondary derivative, but that, too, is illegal), ... You use the very same development tools for java enterprise as you use for android development, which is the big advantage android has above other systems.

Google is guilty of copyright infringement. Java is not public domain, and anything unique about java is protected just like the contents of a book. It is fully owned by Oracle. Google simply took something that didn't belong to them, maimed it against the wishes of the original author (who should have complained sooner), and used it's massive weight to outcompete the original author in a matter of months. I, for one, do NOT think what google did is okay. Imagine this happening to something *you* wrote. I like the result, android is great, but the ends do not justify the means here.

Java is not public domain (actually none of the big languages is), nor is Java freely licenced (like C++ is, for example).

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[LBU.Zorro]

Er?

Dalvik bytecodes are not sun bytecodes - they don't work, at all. And I suspect you're misunderstanding what verbatim means - because it certainly doesn't mean 'slightly different'.

Dalvik was written anew, not developed from a sun JVM. Although how clean-room this is as it was written is to be decided in the courts - and last I'd heard Oracle's contention that this was copied has been mostly shot down, hence the patent claims being the most talked about currently.

"Java is not public domain, and anything unique about java is protected just like the contents of a book." - Well except for the fact that writing a book does not mean you own the English language, you have some rights over expression of the language in that book and that format.

In programming the content of the book, the story is the program, the language the book is written in (say English) is the programming language ie Java. So a copyright for a particular program does NOT mean you own every program written in the same language.

You may be thinking of the class libraries because these provide 95% of the meat of Java, but of course Android uses the Harmony class libraries, something clean-room developed and currently owned by the Apache Foundation so it's not using the Sun class libraries.

Not a single programming language ever lays claim to the programs written within that language - if one ever did? then it would never be used. Why write a program in order to give it to someone else - seriously, TOS for all languages specifically state that the programs you create in that language are yours!

So to sum up, Google is only guilty of copyright infringement if (and only if) the Dalvik VM hasn't been clean-room developed correctly - it's not copyright infringement to convert from Java to another language (at any point of the compile process), nor is it copyright infringement to use the same development tools, the Dalvik bytecode is a different language to the Java bytecode.

What Android cannot (and if you'll notice - does not) do is claim that it runs Java, because field of use restrictions in the JCK and TCK prevent anything other than Java ME running on a mobile device and if a VM has not been JCK and TCK certified then it can't have the trademarked Java coffee cup or use the trademarked Java name and of course since Dalvik doesn't run Java bytecode.....

The largest part of this case is (as the previous posts mention - they are correct, you missed the point) the patents, as they are much more difficult to deal with. Copyright? Easy just develop it without ever seeing the original and you can't have copied.

Google didn't take something that didn't belong to them, yes they maimed it against the wishes of the original author (but if the author wanted to prevent this possibility all they had to do was not release it into the public), didn't use it's massive weight to outcompete the original author (seriously? If Sun had opened the Field of Use restrictions then clean-room re-implementing Java wouldn't have been necessary - Java ME was never fit for purpose).

As for the ends justifying the means? Well considering it appears about the only thing they may have done is violate some patents it's not exactly evil is it?

I could create a new language that looked the same as Java tomorrow (I'm a fast worker ;) ) and not violate any of Oracles copyrights... Patents on the other hand..

Z.

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[Anonymous Coward]

I could create a new language that looked the same as Java tomorrow (I'm a fast worker ;) ) and not violate any of Oracles copyrights... Patents on the other hand..

And if you're good enough, I'm sure you could do this. But that's not what Google did. If you did a clean-room implementation of Java (preferably without having used java beforehand yourself to be entirely clean), then copyright wouldn't apply. But again, this is not what Google did. And you'd have to be an unbelievably capable expert indeed to make the compilers generate identical output.

So your point doesn't quite apply here. Yes the superficial comparison Java=English makes it sound reasonable, but it isn't.

Java, the language, is a computer program, it consists of things like a specification, compilers, ... It details a method to write other computer programs in an easier way. Compared to english, it is much more akin to the contents of a book, than it is to a human language. It is much more akin to a book teaching something. The Java spec is a book describing a mapping between a character stream and the "mathematical" meaning they have. Because Java is a "managed" language it's also a design document for a very specific piece of software, the JVM. And it's also the API "interface" (to use a term from C++) for a very extensive library.

What google did is to take the specification, some "chapters" (like the language spec, compiler and base API) copied verbatim, and change a few chapters in the book (mostly packaging and extended the API) so that it would apply better to cell phones. Now this is all nice and great, but like for a real book, you can't do this without the permission of the original book owner.

There are computer languages that do not allow you to base other languages off them (in fact most commercial are like this). The big exceptions is C/C++ (and another exception getting bigger is Javascript). But most languages do not in fact allow this, things like C#, F#, Object Pascal, PL/SQL, ... do not allow you to make a new computer language based on them (in fact several Google languages explicitly forbid this, they even forbid trying to understand how they work)

If the license to programming language reserves the copyright to every program written in that language, I am afraid you will find that this applies. There was a big stink about this when some people released programs written in Delphi's "trial" version, and Borland claimed copyright to the code, and I believe Microsoft did the same with QBasic program (they only made you buy QuickBASIC, they did not actually try to own the program like Borland did though). I do not know if this case went to court, but I do believe the authors believed they would lose this case, as it was spelled out in no uncertain terms in the applicable license (and remember : just because you haven't read the law or a contract doesn't mean it doesn't apply. A license = a contract). But the big, current, example of a programming language that reserves copyright on every program written in it's code is FBML (facebook's extension language).

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[LBU.Zorro]

Actually what Google did was relatively smart but not in this case creating an entirely new language.

It's quite a hack really but what happens is that you actually create your android app against stubs, completely in Java and using the desktop, free licensed version of the Java compiler, nothing here violates any copyright or patents.

Then you take your compiled Java code and re-compile it for Dalvik, so it's no longer Java and isn't running on a JVM.

Java the language isn't a computer program, quite explicitly Java is something in which you can write a computer program but it is not a program itself. Yes there are support tools such as the compiler and the JVM which allow you to execute a program written in Java but you must understand that Java is not a program. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding how a programming language works.

Please note however that "Because Java is a "managed" language it's also a design document for a very specific piece of software, the JVM. And it's also the API "interface" (to use a term from C++) for a very extensive library." is pretty much completely incorrect.

The JVM doesn't have a design document, multiple companies produce multiple JVMs in different ways for different platforms and different instruction sets. Primarily Java consists of the language syntax and the bytecode syntax.
The Java class libraries are not fixed, nor are they solely defined by Oracle, as should be pointed out by the Harmony class libraries.

Just to repeat it: Java is the language syntax and the bytecode specification!

"What google did is to take the specification, some "chapters" (like the language spec, compiler and base API) copied verbatim, and change a few chapters in the book (mostly packaging and extended the API) so that it would apply better to cell phones. Now this is all nice and great, but like for a real book, you can't do this without the permission of the original book owner." - I suppose it would look like that from the outside, but what you're really not understanding is that it's not what it is under the covers. Since everything was written in Java on the desktop for J2SE with additional libraries nothing has been violated - except for the Dalvik VM. So things like the language spec? Doesn't matter, the reason you can use the normal tools is that it's normal Java, under the normal license on the normal compiler and without hitting the Field of Use restrictions that required it in the first place. Compiler? It's not copied, you're using the one that Sun and now Oracle ship, all that happens afterwards is that the bytecode is converted to a different language to run on a different VM. Base API? I can only assume you mean the class libraries which have been clean-room implemented in Harmony and so Oracle's IP hasn't been touched.

"There are computer languages that do not allow you to base other languages off them (in fact most commercial are like this). The big exceptions is C/C++ (and another exception getting bigger is Javascript). But most languages do not in fact allow this, things like C#, F#, Object Pascal, PL/SQL, ... do not allow you to make a new computer language based on them (in fact several Google languages explicitly forbid this, they even forbid trying to understand how they work)" - I'm pretty sure that I could write a Pascal alike language, create my own compiler and stay within the law (can't be sure I won't get sued but that's what the courts are for). I couldn't call it Pascal and I'm sure there would be minor differences but for all practical intents it would be a very similar language - and when you get down to it most languages are very similar, they have to be.

"(and remember : just because you haven't read the law or a contract doesn't mean it doesn't apply. A license = a contract)" - A license != A contract they are very different things in the eyes of the law, not reading law (which most definitely != a license) means you were negligent, not reading a contract means you were stupid if

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[Anonymous Coward]

What it all boils down to is that Google has a choice
(a) the GPL (which they've obviously rejected), and obviously the standard GPL restrictions would apply, like forced-open sourcing of anything linked with sun's library (like all Google and Android apps for example) *1
(b) a licence restricting all uses of the JVM stack to ... blah blah blah, but explicitly excludes embedded use, and forbidding doing anything to the code in the java.* namespace. Both terms have been massively violated by Google *2

And on a moral level, I think the authors of Java should have the right to say "you can't do that" to Google. I would certainly reserve that right on any software I write.

Since google doesn't have a contract with either Sun or Oracle ... these are the terms they've explicitly agreed to.

Oh btw, there's another very well known example of forced licensing of a "programming language" : Trolltech's QT - GPL version. Trolltech modified C++'s syntax so it would be a pretty well known and accepted example of a company forcing license terms on any program written in it's "dialect" (look at QT code, now look at standard library C++ code, and you'll agree QT is a dialect. Besides a base library like QT is a necessary component of every programming language) *3

Obviously IANAL, and the judge is the one who decides. I may be horribly wrong, and so YMMV.

*1 http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Android_FAQ#Q:_Why_does_Android_use_the_a_GPL_Linux_kernel.2C_but_libraries_and_user_space_apps_that_are_licensed_more_liberal_open_source.2Ffree_software_licenses.3F
*2 http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/jdk-1_5_0-license.txt (I am sure there are other versions)
*3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(framework)#Licensing

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[LBU.Zorro]

Ok, google's choices as you see them.

a) The GPL? I don't really understand why this is even a discussion. On one hand you're saying you should be able to do anything with anything you create, and on the other hand google shouldn't be allowed to. Since Android is effectively an application executing on Linux there's no reason for it to be GPL'd. There is no reason for it to be GPL'd other than that. One of the main reasons for Android to be under the Apache2 license is project Harmony http://harmony.apache.org/ that provide the class libraries. I don't know if they could have converted the class libs to the GPL and I really don't care, I'd prefer the Apache2 license to the GPL because as you say " I would certainly reserve that right on any software I write." - if I write apps I want to own the apps, or at least have something of a mechanism to stop people ripping me off.

b) Seriously? Did you read any of the things I'd posted? That license is between you (as the Android developer or android OS compiler - and even that isn't guaranteed) and Oracle. Remember, and this is important, Android does not run Java, it CANNOT run Java it runs Dalvik byte-code. The license you linked to was for the Java Development Kit, effectively a desktop JVM and compiler. Ergo executing Android does not violate this license, Writing apps for Android does not violate this license and I'm fairly sure that even compiling Android doesn't violate this licence although not 100% confident.

From that license file
"D. Java Technology Restrictions. You may not create, modify, or change the behavior of, or authorize your licensees to create, modify, or change the behavior of, classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are in any way identified as "java", "javax", "sun" or similar convention as specified by Sun in any naming convention designation."
Which is I presume what you're discussing here since there's no mention of embedded versions in the entire license agreement, this is an EULA for the download of the JDK, this may or may not be binding on Google (or indeed any large company) as it is specifically an End User License Agreement - quite a number of companies have their own licensing agreements with Sun and now Oracle over Java as it is different in the enterprise.
But a major point here is that you can use the Java SDK to create programs that run elsewhere and therefore are not subject to this license, secondly there is more than one java compiler for example - http://jikes.sourceforge.net/ which kinda means that if you also have a VM you're able to avoid the license completely.

On a moral level the authors of Java (which by the way isn't Oracle) do have the moral right to tell you what you can and can't create with their software but (and this is important) they've already done that in the license for the language spec and bytecode spec. You're suggesting that they should have absolute control forever - this isn't a good thing and cannot happen. Companies would create new languages rather than be controlled by a competitor.

If you had written a new programming language and you wanted it to be popular you'd have to have few restrictions as if those restrictions are too onerous then the majority of people will never use it. Please note that writing a program is not the same as writing a programming language, one is a program and the other a specification and syntax. If you had put in restrictions then nobody would use it and nobody would care, what you can't (legally, let alone morally) do is say yeah do what you want and then tomorrow say nope, you can only create kiddie games on it. Unless your license had that unilateral ability (and remember consideration is necessary for a license to be binding) that you could change it at any time then you're stuck - most companies read the licenses and as such refuse to do business with something that has the huge risk of randomly changing at no notice.

Finally your forced lice

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

as it is specifically an End User License Agreement - quite a number of companies have their own licensing agreements with Sun and now Oracle over Java as it is different in the enterprise.

And if the tooth fairy sprinkled pixie dust over the licence it would just fly away ...

Are you seriously making this argument ? The whole point of the case is that Google created Android without *any* agreement with Sun (which is why they're grasping at such straws as the "but the CEO said he liked us in his blog and this constitutes an agreement" argument).

The license Sun provided requires you to run Java programs on desktop machines (and there's another one allowing the same for servers) and the license explicitly denies you the permission to create your own VM, core libraries, compiler, ... (and you cannot really create one without creating the other) (this was done to "avoid the possibility of diluting the language" according to Sun)

The authors of Java made their position clear in the licence, the *one* legal document that could have given Google any rights to use Java for android, and Google violated those wishes. It's of course true that doesn't mean Google simply agreed to the licence, but if they didn't agree to the licence they should have deleted all materials pertaining to Java from all their machines. So Google obviously did not have any right to do what they did in creating Android, and so Google will probably have to pay damages. Oracle claims that to create android legally, they would have had to pay 6 billion dollars in a sort of weird revenue sharing agreement. Google claims they got "implicit endorsement" for free, and could have had a contract for 100 million dollars. So Google made billions by violating a contract, needless to say, this means damages. That's what's done if you violate a contract (and before you say it let's leave out the judicial requirements for damage and causal relationship or we'll never get out of this argument, it's plain to see both conditions are satisfied, the only real question, as the judge stated, is the amount they cover).

Google did not write a java program. Google massively changed the VM, compiler, rewrote the jit, changed the base library and so on. None of that was allowed. Your argument hinges on the entire android java system being nothing more than just another java program, running within the confines of the jdk licence (in other words, on a desktop machine in a sun-approved jvm without any special libraries). I find it hard to believe you can even claim this with a straight face.

And try to formulate an argument that doesn't involve the existence of another set of magical legal documents which are stated in the article not to exist. There was *no* agreement of any kind made with Google. Java is *not* English. Android is quite a bit more than a few com.google... classes, and Java is (still) very much non-free software, except in the GPL sense (with the viral clause in full force).

Re:Google is not the good guy here

[LBU.Zorro]

Sigh.

I'm making the argument (as are Oracle in the courts) that it's the software patents that are the case, the copyright violations (the things that are behind the license) have been pretty much shot down - certainly all I'm hearing about is the patents and the big OMG Android copied Java appears to have been removed.

The license you (assuming you are the same person) linked to was a Sun/Oracle SDK End user agreement. There is no guarantee that this applies to Google engineers creating Android (or the company that Google bought that originally created Android).

You are making the stupid assumption that because you have found a license it is somehow magically applied to everyone. This particular license requires that the person to whom it applies have downloaded the SDK. I'm missing the point where you show that Google engineers in relation to Android have downloaded the SDK.

Unfortunately for you that isn't the only way to license the Java SDK, I know for a fact (having worked there on Java) that large companies, especially those that create their own VMs (completely legally under license, like Apple, HP, IBM etc) have different agreements. Your EULA that you linked has absolutely NOTHING to do with the licensing that they operate under - you are confusing individuals with large companies.

Harmony, the 'base libraries' that you are complaining about are owned by the Apache Foundation, they were pretty much written by IBM originally and IBM I believe has a completely different licensing agreement with Sun/Oracle as part of the fact they have multiple platforms and create their own VMs for them. Oracle hasn't sued or in any way protested the Harmony project other than the fact that due to the field of use restrictions Harmony is not TCK / JCK certified and as such can't be called Java - this by the way led to the rather public divorce of the Apache Foundation from the JCP.

If your assertion that the "license explicitly denies you the permission to create your own VM," applied to everyone then there is no way that IBM could create their own VM for AIX and zOS, there's no way that Apple could have created a VM to run on MacOS and there's no way that HP could have created a VM to run on HPUX. All these companies (and more) did this, and all of them entered into different agreements with Sun (and now Oracle).

You are not privy to the contents of these agreements, neither am I, but I can posit that they are different from the the EULA you quoted as according to you that license prevents them creating a VM.

Since you have no idea as to the legal agreements in force between Google and Sun/Oracle your assumption that the EULA for the SDK download applies is moronic - you might be correct, but you're more likely to be incorrect. Basing your entire argument on a document you have no evidence is even in force isn't the way to go about proving anything.

What I've tried to point out to you is that anyone could do the same thing - you never need to touch the license as you can access everything you need elsewhere.

Jikes(http://jikes.sourceforge.net/) - a java compiler (originally written by IBM again) means you'd not need the JDK to convert java code into bytecode.
Kaffe(http://www.kaffe.org/) - a 'java' VM technically not Java but can execute java bytecode, open source cleanroom implemented legal... means you'd not need the JDK in order to execute your program.
Harmony(http://harmony.apache.org/) - java class libraries , means you'd not need the JDK to use similar base libraries.

You can develop Android without ever getting near that license you're so wedded to, so I ask you how is that license in force? You're assuming that the license has to be in force whereas I've demonstrated multiple ways that it may not be.

As a quick aside, your mention of "pay 6 billion dollars" was cut down to 100 million dollars by the Judge, the 6 billion was Oracles made up number to try and get as much as they can - part of the negotiating and media position but not based

Re:Really? Where are non-ARM android phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should stick to posting about what you actually own and use. NDK-heavy games are commonly non-portable between phones. Part of this is because of optimization (usually there is at least 1 build per SoC manufacturer) and part of it is because they're using unsupported features/extensions on the CPU/GPU and part of it is because of buggy code in the app and drivers or (rarely) the h/w itself. There's just no fucking way to achieve the stability of Dalvik by switching to native development when Samsung, TI, Qualcomm, PowerVR, and Nvidia are rapidly rolling out new platform changes.

Apple rolls, others stumble and skid..

[it5complicated]

Why does everything named Apple look so smooth and polished while other tech companies seem to be in a perpetual mess? Apple makes great products, makes great comebacks, settles even lawsuits suavely. Used to admire Google, but they are no longer the style statement they used to be. Oracle is of course, to a tech illiterate hackernews-reading wannabe, a patent troll.

Yah, nice quote

[SmallFurryCreature]

But you forget the power of fanboys. Just this case alone shows just how unsuitable Java was as a choice but you can't get a fanboy to admit such things. A high level exec can't be a fanboy? Oh but they can. And it explains so many boneheaded decisions. Just using the word suck in any official communication shows enough.

Exactly who thought it was smart to base an OS that you give away for free on software that needed a license fee? Java always had the license hovering over it but some at Google are amazing Java fanboys still dreaming of the day that applets make a comeback. How great is this? They have created a program that allows the writing of javascript in java... why not just code in javascript direct? Because then you wouldn't be using java. Note that some java fans will now claim that you can't write certain thing in javascript... this shows a lot about those people. If you can have a java compiler turn out java things in javascript then a human can BUT maybe you REALLY should be just using the language the way it is supposed to be.

Being a fan of something is a very bad way to choose something and Google is now paying the price for it. And we better hope Oracle looses or the Java fanboys will have funded many more lawsuits by Oracle.

go ahead, ask Andy Rubin about the license trap or even just to name why any of the countless alternatives were so bad. He has never answered either. He just likes Java, that is the beginning and end of his reasoning. Maybe Larry and Sergey should deduct the cost of all this from his salary. He suggested after all Google pay for each piece of software they give away. Smart move kid.

License JME

[mswhippingboy]

I wonder what the implications would be if Google were to license JME (Java mobile edition) from Oracle and replace Dalvik with the standard JVM. This would bring Android into compliance with Oracle's license. All that would be needed is for Android to implement a loader to convert the Android APK into standard java bytecode to run them. This would also allow standard java class files (or .jar) files to be executed as well. The Android API could remain as a compatibility layer on top of the JVM. The original purpose of Dalvik was to get around the issue of resource constraints that existed on early android devices (little memory, slow CPUs), but android devices are now coming out with 1GB ram and 1Ghz dual-core processors so the resource constraints are not such a factor. Oracle has already shown that the standard JVM outperforms dalvik, primarily due to it's more sophisticated and highly optimized JVM (and JIT).

Re:License JME

[erroneus]

I just don't get it. Why is it when hardware becomes more powerful, the first thing people want to do is use that power to feed a resource hungry OS? The OS is an important aspect of computing, but an OS without applications is pretty useless.

As PCs surpassed 64K, the OS was quick to require it because it wanted to take all the power and memory for itself. When 640K was broken, once again, the OS came in to claim the space and the increased processor power of the day as well. Fast forward to Vista and you will see it even got worse as Vista required resources that most computers didn't actually have... that didn't go over well and so 7 was made to help correct for that mistake.

Sure, there is something to be said for using an OS to enable and take advantage of newer and better features, but what is wrong with being frugal with resources? XFCE is popular precisely because of its efficiency.

What you're saying is "great! now that phones are powerful enough to waste all that power on running JVM, let's just give all the power and resources to the JVM!" This instead of to the applications we actually want to run... or, for that matter, take advantage of the increased speed by enabling the device to use less power and improve battery life.

I think it's about time that developers put their code on a frikken DIET for a change.

An oracle spits out wise words

[Anonymous Coward]

This company spits out something else entirely. I propose a new name: Anacle.

Re:Really? Where are non-ARM android phones?

[leenks]

Android doesn't just run on phones. Not all other devices use ARM based processors.

Never mind software patents

[roman_mir]

Kill all patents.

But understand that this will not happen, because patents depend on government, government is the issuer of patents, governments wants monopolies, thus government wants patents. Government wants to have franchises, monopolies, it hates competition and it destroys it everywhere it sees it, and government likes to control things, to be involved into everything in the economy, where it clearly does not belong at all.

So that's why patents will not be killed, though all patents need to be killed to improve the economy.

The trouble with patents

[nurb432]

Is that even a so called 'clean room' implementation does not mean you haven't violated one ( or more ). It might protect you from copyright problems pretty well however.

Does it like that?

[tokul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-AxgueBRk

Do you know what compete means?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Android compete with Apple. (No, if you want an iPhone you're not going to buy an Android phone and vice versa.)

That's exactly what competition is, trying to get someone to choose one over the other.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Sun's impact on Oracle after being acquired. Sun spent the better half of the 90's suing Microsoft to remain competitive, now it seems Oracle will latch on to the biggest giant in software in the 21st century in order to remain relevant. Competition through litigation has never worked out well for the company filing the complaints.

I think Oracle just f*cked Java as Google was one of the larger supporters of the Java language, now I can easily see Google creating their own language in spite, Joogle.

Posturing.

[DarthVain]

Sounds to me like the judge is getting sick and tired of all the posturing that both Oracle and Google are doing...

groklaw has good coverage as well

[mrflash818]

groklaw has good coverage of the trial as well

http://groklaw.net/