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Ellison Doesn't Know If Java Is Free
New submitter Emacs.Cmode sends this excerpt from CNet:
"Among the highlights emanating from U.S. District Court in San Francisco courtroom 8 today was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's response to a question regarding the status of the Java programming language, which his company acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Asked by Google's lead attorney, Robert Van Nest, if the Java language is free, Ellison was slow to respond. Judge William Alsup pushed Ellison to answer with a yes or no. As ZDNet reporter Rachel King observed in the courtroom, Ellison resisted and huffed, 'I don't know.'"
Groklaw has a good write-up about what happened during day one of the trial and a briefer summary of what happened on day two.
What, precisely, does it mean if you say a programming language is free?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A language is nothing but a listing of words and how they are used. It is a cataloging of facts.
Facts, as such, are not copyrightable. You can't copyright the listings in a phone book, and neither can you copyright the contents of a header file. Because there is no creative content, and as far as the US is concerned, "sweat of the brow" does not give you copyright.
This is why Oracle is not going after IBM for Iced Tea, because Oracle they know they have nothing and are afraid of what the Nazgul might do in retaliation.
--
BMO
The honest answer would have been, "in some ways yes, in some ways definitely not".
Oracle's courtroom slideshow at the bottom was really damning... as was its purpose. It's pretty clear that Java is meant to be a fucking trap.
And there's no way we're going to get away from it any time soon. Fuck you Oracle. Fuck you twice. :(
If Stallman were really that interested in freedom he'd go with the BSD license, since that actually offers, you know, the most freedom. GPLv3 is all about Stallman's ego and his personal, anti-corporate agenda, not about free software.
The GPL (in its various versions) and the BSD license emphasize different parts of freedom. GPL is particularly about the freedom of those upstream, and the BSD license is particularly about the freedom of those downstream. Unfortunately, it's not possible to maximize both of those at the same time as they're somewhat antagonistic; some things that a downstream participant (a consumer of the licensed code) might want to do will reduce the power of the upstream participant (a producer of the licensed code). A case in point is where the code in question is used as a component (despite not being originally intended as such) and resold as part of a larger product; the freedom for the downstream actor to do that is much more extensively curtailed by the GPL than by the BSD license.
This is really a philosophical difference — you can't reconcile them, and it's really about a statement of values — and it is often counterweighted by a community that uses "soft power" to encourage the other sorts of freedom; patches still flow upstream in BSD-based communities, people still build products in GPL-based communities.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
I've always pondered about yes/no answers in court. I've seen judges demand either a yes or no answer on many occasions, yet to me it seems to conflict with a fundamental principle, at least in the UK justice system.
When you give your oath to the court in the UK it's "I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth".
I remember being taught in history class of all things that it used to simply be "I promise to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth". The whole truth section was added later to prevent people giving answers that whilst true, only paint half the picture due to missing vital information or context.
So I've often wondered in this context how a judge can push for yes/no, as in many circumstances it betrays this fundamental principle in that either answer only tells a partial truth and not a whole truth. Has this principle ever been tested? To me being forced to give a yes/no answer would mean that I was betraying my vow to tell the whole truth as either answer would only be a partial truth in a more complex situation.
This is one of those circumstances where such an answer would in my opinion, violate such a vow, and as much as I want Oracle to lose I do also sympathise with the difficulty of just answering yes/no to that particular question.
As someone with a tax accounting background (but not currently working in that field) I'll do my best to add a little clarity to the issue.
Stock compensation will require an immediate tax payment ONLY if it is without conditions. If, for example, the company granting the stock to you puts a two year period in which you must maintain employment before you can sell the stock then you can avoid immediate payment of taxes and it gives you time to take advantage of some benefits (though it gets pretty hairy from that point trying to claim value reductions or reduced value for the limitation of liquidity).
In response to your other comment about being able to take a like amount of cash and buy the stock at fair-market value to achieve the same tax rate that is not true because you would expose yourself to double taxation (which is the reason most people put a before-tax investment into their 401k). If you received a million dollars in cash you would end up paying your income taxes on that amount and then capital gains taxes on the stock as well.
As a side note, if a company is trying to reduce tax liability themselves they can compensate employees in stock, treat it as an expense akin to cash payouts, and reduce their overall burden. Corporations always win on matters like that.
One of the real brilliant things these billionaires do is, after covering basic taxes, not sell the stock at all. If you don't sell it you avoid tax consequences. Larry Ellison "borrowed" against the value of his stock to buy his giant yacht and doesn't pay a dime in taxes. If he keeps them for his whole life he can pass them to his heirs and the income tax will never have been paid (heirs only pay a tax on appreciation of value since the death of the owner, often a fraction of the true value of the stock).
-Not To Be Taken As Professional Advice, Consult A CPA/Lawyer before making any decisions.-
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
A Google engineer, Tim Lindholm, said in a February 2006 e- mail that the company was in negotiations for a Java license. Google didn’t agree to the terms of a type of license that allows companies to use Java code and write new code on top of it which “you have to give back to the open-source community,” Jacobs said.
“You can’t keep it for yourself,” the Oracle lawyer said. “They broke the basic rules of the Java programming community.”
So I don't get why the open source crowd is all pro Google on this.
According to Groklaw, Google's lawyer was kind enough to show Mr.Ellison a tape of his deposition where he answered the same questions "That's correct." Alzheimer's perhaps?