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Judge Wants Ellison, Page To Settle Differences

Posted by samzenpus on from the taking-care-of-things-personally dept.

itwbennett writes "Apparently, Oracle's president, Safra Catz, and Google's head of mobile, Andy Rubin, aren't senior enough to attend a court mediation session. Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the dispute between the two companies, wants the Larrys to go head to head instead. Oracle agreed with part of Alsup's recommendation, saying in a Wednesday evening filing that, 'Oracle believes the prospects for a successful mediation will be far greater if Google's executive-level representative is a superior to Mr. Rubin, who is the architect of Google's Android strategy — the strategy that gives rise to this case.' Oracle also noted that Rubin has represented Google in past, failed mediations."

14 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, Lordy. by hey! · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does the judge even know who Larry Ellison *is*? A normal person's first reaction would be to throttle the man for the good of humanity.

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    1. Re:Oh, Lordy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Does the judge even know who Larry Ellison *is*? A normal person's first reaction would be to throttle the man for the good of humanity.

      I would assume he does. I mean, his name is right in the company... I mean, that's what ORACLE stands for, right? One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison?

    2. Re:Oh, Lordy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A normal person's first reaction would be to throttle the man for the good of humanity.

      I think that's the plan.

  2. I've got a solution.... by bennomatic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kill all IP laws, but force any company over 500 employees to split into two completely independent entities, neither of which has an employee base greater than 300. Then tax anyone who is earning anything--dividends, stocks, profit sharing or W2 income--from more than one organization at 90% for everything outside of their primary income.

    That'll encourage competition.

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    1. Re:I've got a solution.... by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      His idea is stupid, but it's not a freedom issue if you replace "company" with "corporation." There are no ethical barriers to imposing conditions in exchange for the miraculous perk of limited liability; there are only performance issues.

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    2. Re:I've got a solution.... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 2

      Boeing makes planes*, it takes hundreds of people to build a plane. How do you split that up?

      I suspect in much the same way that they make them right now. In pieces. Some companies make landing gear, some companies make navigation systems, some companies design the planes, some companies do final assembly, etc.

    3. Re:I've got a solution.... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 2

      Success is one thing. The trouble is when it leads to a lack of competition because the companies in an industry are each so large that only a small number of companies produce the products consumed by all customers, and with so few competitors it becomes trivial for them to engage in "conscious parallelism" if not outright forming a cartel.

    4. Re:I've got a solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Better solution:

      How about we force any country that's over 50M people to split into multiple countries, with the exact same constitution. And we let all people have the same freedom of movement across borders that we allow incorporeal corporations. Watch market forces work *then*.

      Companies face market competition, so long as the government maintains a somewhat even playing field (yeah, I know. But go with me on this).

      But what produces that effect for governments?

      The original United States it setup. But 200 years of increasing Fed Government have damaged it. Irreparably, I think. Granted, damage was in response to some very f'd up external forces (yeah I'm talking about *you* Europe. And your anachronistic 20th century wars we're all still paying for.)

  3. Re:Errr, which one? by Lifyre · · Score: 2

    Yes

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  4. Page should know by twoears · · Score: 4, Funny

    Page should know you don't negotiate with terrorists. Ellison is a software terrorist.

  5. Re:Can oracle win the suit? by cwebster · · Score: 3, Informative

    He was wrong on the details and displays terrible ability to use google to find the right article, but he was right that the 1.3B judgment was struck down. To my knowledge a new amount has not been settled on. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-billion-award-tossed-sap-oracle.html

  6. Our IP laws are just too complex and absurd by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The judge has no idea what to do. The lawsuit is just a giant mess. Our IP laws strongly discourage competition and the judge doesn't want to admit it. He probably can't even begin to decide how the laws actually determine this complex case.

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  7. There can be only one! by madhi19 · · Score: 2

    I say we solve this Highlander style give the two Larry swords and let them settle this!.There can be only one Larry! (Who CEO of a big tech cartel!) Hell Google and Oracle can make a killing on the pay-per-view!

  8. Re:Can oracle win the suit? by Eskarel · · Score: 2

    It's not about the money, and it never was. It's about Davlik.

    Oracle doesn't want Davlik to exist and Google can't get rid of it without ending Android.

    My feeling is that Oracle would take a settlement of a buck if Google replaced Davlik with Java, hell they'd probably even license it to them for free.

    The problem is that replacing Davlik would kill Android, not because Java is bad or Davlik is much better, but because every single Android application would have to be at the very least recompiled, retested, and redistributed. Every single Android phone would have to have its firmware updated and all its apps removed. Phones which didn't get updates wouldn't be able to get new applications, applications which didn't get updated wouldn't be available for new phones. By the time it was all sorted out they'd have lost a fortune.