Schmidt Testifies Android Did Not Use Sun's IP

CWmike writes "Google built a 'clean room' version of Java and did not use Sun's intellectual property, Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, testified in court Tuesday. Schmidt said its use of Java in Android was 'legally correct.' On this day seven of the trial, Schmidt gave the jury a brief history of Java, describing its release as 'an almost religious moment.' He told the jury that Google had once hoped to partner with Sun to develop Android using Java, but that negotiations broke off because Google wanted Android to be open source, and Sun was unwilling to give up that much control over Java. Instead, Schmidt said, Google created the 'clean room' version of Java that didn't use Sun's protected code. Its engineers invented 'a completely different approach' to the way Java worked internally, Schmidt testified."

Comments

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[binarylarry]

Where do you get the shit that you smoke?

We really need better names

[girlintraining]

We really need better names in this industry. I read the headline and immediately imagined a robot falling over and convulsing while saying "IP conflict.. conffflict... unaaaable to.. reboot," while a self-satisfied and positively glowing Sun glanced over the top of his laptop and started giggling quietly to himself. But it could just be the caffeine withdrawl too.

Re:We really need better names

[Confusador]

But it could just be the caffeine withdrawal too.

So, you're testifying that you also did not use Sun's IP?

an "almost religious moment"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the old days, such moments usually resulted in their partakers getting ex-communicated, inquisited, racked and burned.

These days, they result in getting sued, subpoened, deposed, and collected.

Gee... I long for the genial old days.

Re:an "almost religious moment"

[Anonymous Coward]

"In the old days, such moments usually resulted in their partakers getting ex-communicated, inquisited, racked and burned."

Or sites like Lourdes were built when some idiot analphabet had a bursting aneurysm moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

From Bonch, AKA Burson Marsteller.

Re:FP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure it's "fucking prat"

Re:FP!

[crutchy]

nope. his nick isn't brick top

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[crutchy]

or apk

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[MightyYar]

Guess why Google doesn't use it or create their own? Because that would be much more work to do.

1) What's wrong with saving yourself work?
2) Isn't that the whole point of OSS?

fragmentation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Oracle is so worried about the "Fragmentation of Java", why would they want to force Google to write a completely different API?

Re:fragmentation?

[julesh]

Google were going to use a completely different API anyway (the android application framework, rather than J2ME which Sunacle would have preferred). By "worried about fragmentation" what they really mean is "worried that people won't pay to license the patented parts of Java".

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Genda]

And so the myth that Steve jobs is still alive begins!...is that you Steve? Knock once for "yes" and twice for "God wants an iPad!".

"Clean Room" implementation

[willoughby]

If what he says is true, there should be lots of evidence including a big stack of affidavits signed by the reverse-engineers swearing that they have never seen the original code. If he can't pull these out of his pocket, along with the Attorney who oversaw the project, I'd be.. erm... skeptical.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[LiENUS]

There are some fairly large differences between Dalvik (the vm in android) and the JVM from sun/oracle/whoever. Namely the Dalvik instruction set is register based whereas java is stack based. You can easily have any engineer look at the code for the Dalvik vm itself and see there is quite a difference. Then the libraries that aren't android specific are based on the Apache harmony project so affidavits from Google engineers would be quite useless there. Now the question to me wouldn't be in Android itself but is the Android SDK truly clean room. There's a static re-compiler to recompile JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode. My guess is the SDK is clean room itself but Schmidt being honest about android being clean room isn't so unlikely but it is quite possible this is doublespeak and the SDK itself (hey it's not "Android") could very well be based on Sun IP. The relevant stuff I've seen in this court case hasn't related to so much lifted code as it was patents which is quite difficult to avoid infringing just by not seeing code.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that any affidavits would most likely be hearsay and not allowed as evidence.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

This is exactly true. If it were truly a clean room implementation, they couldn't have possibly ended up with parts of Sun's Java in their code, even a single line. But they did. Not only that, Google engineers have said that they were looking at Sun documentation while they were writing Dalvik.

So Schmidt might be right. It could have been 'legally correct.' But it sure wasn't a clean room implementation.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at docs, specifically java docs you will get variable names and description what it does. This is still clean room implementation.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anaerin]

The problem with your statement is that they are implementing an SDK, so the code they produce has to have the same behaviour as the original. For instance, making a sandwich - without having the original recipe and reverse-engineering it, it'll end up being (virtually) identical, as you're trying to produce the same output. And even if this wasn't the case, there are some functions that need to be the same - if they're not, breakage happens.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

It seems some people here are a little unclear of what a clean room implementation is. Here, from the wiki:

Typically, a clean room design is done by having someone examine the system to be reimplemented and having this person write a specification. This specification is then reviewed by a lawyer to ensure that no copyrighted material is included. The specification is then implemented by a team with no connection to the original examiners.

That's the proper way to do a clean room implementation. Once you start looking at copyrighted materials of the person you are copying, then it's no longer clean room. And yes, Javadocs are copyrighted.

Now, what you have done might still be legal. That's what I'm hoping for in this case. However, it certainly isn't clean room.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Talisein]

That's the weird part of this trial, there doesn't seem to be a formal decision paper/memorandum saying "Okay, we are doing a clean room, and these are the measures we need to be sure we enforce, here is the manager in charge." [Cravat: Maybe there is and Oracle simply didn't want to present it. But that seems unlikely] It seems more like Andy Rubin was shooting the shit over email and some engineer said that he could write his own byte-code interpreter, and some others piped up that maybe rewriting everything would be fun. And then 2 years later they had it done and Rubin was just like, "Oh, cool, let's build our business on this then."

But really this entire phase of the "trial" is bizarre. Oracle spent hours and hours and hours proving.... Google implemented the methods in java.lang et al. And Google is saying.... they implemented those methods. What exactly is the jury supposed to decide? Isn't whether or not Google can implement those methods be a matter of law? if the jury is supposed to say its fair use or not, why wasn't Oracle's presentation filled with examples of what things are fair use and what things aren't?

Oracle's lawyers are so focused on saying that Google should have got a TCK license, but they never presented WHY Google should have gotten that license. They just asked the Google people, "Hey, did you know you should have got a TCK license?" Then they ask the Sun people, "Hey, should they have gotten a TCK license?" But they never seemed to explain why the TCK was needed beyond avoiding fragmentation of the language. Fragmentation of the language isn't against the law AFAIK.

I guess things will become clear when the judge gives his instructions to the jury, but I am completely puzzled.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

The problem with your statement is that they are implementing an SDK, so the code they produce has to have the same behaviour as the original. For instance, making a sandwich - without having the original recipe and reverse-engineering it, it'll end up being (virtually) identical, as you're trying to produce the same output. And even if this wasn't the case, there are some functions that need to be the same - if they're not, breakage happens.

It's not clear to me you understand what a clean room implementation is. It is perfectly possible to make a clean-room implementation of an SDK, or a chip, that implements the behavior accurately, without looking at the original code. There is no reason to believe Google did this (except for the sketchy testimony by their CEO).

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[noh8rz3]

INow, what you have done might still be legal. That's what I'm hoping for in this case. However, it certainly isn't clean room.

Why do you have a strong opinion for google or oracle in this case? I don't have a horse in the race, and I hope truth will out.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Why do you have a strong opinion for google or oracle in this case? I don't have a horse in the race, and I hope truth will out.

I don't have a strong opinion. I hope it will turn out that Google doesn't have to pay because that will increase the price of Android for everyone, for no good reason. Or if it doesn't, then I don't care.

Also, depending on the exact nature of the infringement, this has important implications for open source software, since Sun DID make Java open source.

And finally, if it comes down to patents, I hope Oracle loses miserably, because I hate software patents. But I don't think Oracle will lose miserably.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[wrook]

I'm equally puzzled. They may actually have a case if they say that the API is copyrighted. Yes, it is a collection of facts, but I think there's a strong argument that it is a creative collection. The API was actually designed with an asthetic purpose. Like you say, whether or not reimplementing the API is fair use would seem to be the key issue (I hope to hell that it is, or even better that APIs can't be copyrighted).

But they are confusing the issue with this TCK stuff which seems blantantly obvious that they can't win. Probably they know something I don't. It is possible that it is simply a FUD attach (i.e., a long drawn out period of uncertainty wrt to the legality of Android causing people to develop for alternatives). In other words, they don't expect to win, but just want to confuse stuff as much as possible for as long as possible. I'd be looking for a money trail from MS in that case, though...

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Oracle has two goals. The first is to prove that Google copied them. They've already established this, though they might need to deal with a fair-use defense, or any other defense Google uses.

Their second, and to them very important, goal is to prove that Google willfully infringed, and benefited a lot from it. They want a big payment as a result of this.

I believe the focus on the TCK license is an attempt to get bigger damages.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[noh8rz3]

I'm sorry, I disagree with you. It won't change the price of android for anybody in US, because everybody buys with carrier subsidies anyways. All phones will stick to the $99 / $199 / $299 price points.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Possibly so. Then I don't care.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it was a single engineer who made up dalvik and the .dex format, I'm too lazy to find the link, but he has a single webpage up that talks about it, and gives the .dex specification(loosly, or atleast what it was when he posted the site) , but I've done a lot of research into it in the past.

There is a compiler called DX that converts Java .object(I don't think this is the right name for java's but again... too tired to look up the right term) files and then converts them from a stack based architecture to a register based one (with some optimizations) and saves it as a .dex file. APK(applications) are made up of one or more .dex files (along with other binary/xml data)

The dalvik VM runs the dex code and does a TON of security handling the access of protected system calls, such as sending SMS/voice/handset rumble/etc...

From a pure technical standpoint Dalvik is a giant step forward for security and efficiency, because every application runs in a separate linux thread in a separate dalvik VM. and only authorized IPC through the provided dalvik mechanisms allows other programs to even see/talk to each other.

However, It still has its issues.. namely the same as the windows auth popups, most users just install anything without caring. and also you can not _yet_ revoke individual rights to programs (without root access)

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand what a subsidy is? You most definitely pay the full price for that phone over time, in fact possibly even more than buying it outright. When the price of hardware and software increase to a certain point so does the cost of the service.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[GryMor]

Everything Google 'copied' (really, re-implemented) was released under the Apache license as project Harmony.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Saying you copied it from someone who copied it from someone else is not a defense. If it's infringement, copying it from Harmony will not help them in court.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[julesh]

An affidavit from a developer about that developer's practices, or even the practices that that developer observed other developers using, is not hearsay.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Sudline]

The probability to have 9 similar lines in 15 millions is high. It is even higher if the lines were contributed to Java by a programmer who then contributed to Android.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[tnk1]

It is a defense against the "willful infringement" part of it, which I believe does have extra penalties associated with it. If Google said that Harmony presented itself convincingly as being able to offer the code/apis/docs legally without a license, there would be cover for calling it unknowing infringement. They'd still have to pay, but it would be much less.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[julesh]

It's not clear to me you understand what a clean room implementation is. It is perfectly possible to make a clean-room implementation of an SDK, or a chip, that implements the behavior accurately, without looking at the original code. There is no reason to believe Google did this (except for the sketchy testimony by their CEO).

And the fact that a very large majority of the non-trivial portions of the code clearly do what they do in different ways to Oracle's implementation. And the fact that the developers of the code (in this case Apache, not Google) have stated several times that it is clean room. And that it was an open source project where the practice was to obtain a signed statement from developers providing complete details of exposure to Sun's IP prior to accepting patches from them (see http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html ), so it seems to be pretty clear that either it was clean room, or there is a developer who lied to them in a written warranty and therefore *that developer should be liable*, not Google.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Sure, we'll see if that defense works.

I don't think it will, because it's clear that the infringement was willful. They WERE trying to copy Sun. The only question is whether they were able to do it in a way that infringed or not.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

It is even higher if the lines were contributed to Java by a programmer who then contributed to Android.

That wouldn't be a clean-room implementation then, would it.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Why do you have a strong opinion for google or oracle in this case? I don't have a horse in the race, and I hope truth will out.

Incidentally, the bias on Slashdot against Oracle, and for Google, is so strong right now, that if you aren't careful, you can get modded down for pointing out a way Google can lose, even though your post is 100% accurate. It's ridiculous.

Mentioning that you think it's better if Google wins is a way to let those people feel good without needing to mod you down. Sad but true.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

And the fact that a very large majority of the non-trivial portions of the code clearly do what they do in different ways to Oracle's implementation.

That's nice, but it's not evidence of a clean-room implementation. It is a good way to avoid copyright infringement.

And that it was an open source project where the practice was to obtain a signed statement from developers providing complete details of exposure to Sun's IP prior to accepting patches from them (see http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html [apache.org] ),

OK, that is evidence of a clean room implementation. How did Sun code end up in Android then?

Also, what was this guy doing working on Android? Having one of the original developers work on Android is certainly not a clean room implementation.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[ppanon]

Berkeley vs. AT&T seems to have pretty well established that APIs cannot be copyrighted, although it's possible that a specific API include file layout can be.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[sg_oneill]

And the fact that a very large majority of the non-trivial portions of the code clearly do what they do in different ways to Oracle's implementation. And the fact that the developers of the code (in this case Apache, not Google) have stated several times that it is clean room. And that it was an open source project where the practice was to obtain a signed statement from developers providing complete details of exposure to Sun's IP prior to accepting patches from them (see http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html ), so it seems to be pretty clear that either it was clean room, or there is a developer who lied to them in a written warranty and therefore *that developer should be liable*, not Google.

Your basically right, however if a developer hired by google cheated and snuck a look, then it would be google itself who is liable. Companies can't really push liability down to employees like that. *GOOGLE* could sue the employee for breaching contract, but it can't clean its hands of the act. When you work for a company, you represent the company. Thats why if a low level chump makes an insane deal with a third party he's not authorized to make on behalf of the company he's working for , the company is still liable to the third party , the chump is liable to his employer, but the chump is not liable to the third party.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[cj*]

Berkeley vs. AT&T isn't case law - it was settled so it didn't establish anything. Berkeley may or may not have been out on a legal limb because of the syscall interface. AT&T was in free fall because of the socket code.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[julesh]

OK, that is evidence of a clean room implementation. How did Sun code end up in Android then?

I see no clear evidence that it did. All the code examples I've seen that are supposedly copied code seem trivial, and likely to be accidental duplication.

Also, what was this guy doing working on Android?

He wasn't. http://www.zdnet.com.au/google-oracle-get-technical-in-court-339336340.htm

He was working for Google in an entirely different capacity, and wrote the code as a translation of a Python implementation. The code was then copied into Android by a second Google employee, who was possibly unaware of its source. But as the code in question is trivial, and represents just about the only sensible way to achieve the same results, I'm not sure it counts as copyright code (see the Lexmark case of a few years ago -- if code is the only sensible way of implementing a functional requirement, no copyright exists). Here is the code in question:

private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
                  if (fromIndex > toIndex)
                          throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
                                                ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
                  if (fromIndex < 0)
                          throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
                  if (toIndex > arrayLen)
                          throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
          }

Sure looks trivial to me.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[GryMor]

Equitable and promissory estoppel: Sun helped project Harmony and was deeply involved in it's creation, to the extent that it infringed, it had permission to do so. Sun definitely received benefit from this arrangement as parts of Sun's own implementation were contributed, as a result of Harmony, by Google.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Hognoxious]

It won't change the price of android for anybody in US, because everybody buys with carrier subsidies anyways.

It didn't cost me anything, it's on HP!

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[geantvert]

Humm... If the purpose of that function is to check that the interval fromIndex:toIndex is valid within an array on length arrayLen then there is another sensible way to implement that function.... without a bug:

    This code does not throw ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if toIndex == arrayLen

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Having seen the Mona Lisa does not mean my paintings are anything the like..

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[gaelfx]

Your cravat looks suspiciously like a caveat. You might wanna get that looked at.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[wrook]

I don't see anything that supports this claim. Hopefully you know better than I do. If so, please post something. The Berkeley vs. AT&T case clearly established that *those* APIs could be implemented. I have been unable to find references, but based on my memory of the time (which is likely faulty), I think there was an explicit statement before the split that the API would be open. This may actually have been before source code was considered copyrightable so they would not have really referenced copyright. In the settlement of the lawsuit, I believe that they agreed to allow implementation of the API, but I don't think they discussed copyright of the API per se. Unfortunately I can't locate a good link.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats why if a low level chump makes an insane deal with a third party he's not authorized to make on behalf of the company he's working for , the company is still liable to the third party

You need to read up on Agent-Principal law.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[CrimsonAvenger]

[Cravat: Maybe there is and Oracle simply didn't want to present it. But that seems unlikely]

Note that "cravat" is a form of necktie.

Perhaps you meant "caveat"?

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[CrimsonAvenger]

Copyright doesn't protect functionality.

Since an API is all about functionality, it's pretty hard to see how it can be protected by copyright.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[hairyfeet]

Exactly, anybody that thinks if Oracle wins it'll do shit is deluded. Google has already spent nearly a billion bucks on Android development and have completely curb stomped MSFT and is neck and neck with Apple for control in what will arguably be the PC of the 201Xs, the all important mobile space. Now does ANYBODY truly believe that Google would risk screwing that if Android takes a penalty? Nope they'll eat the cost because that is the SMART thing to do, all those Android devices are using Google apps and making them craploads of money in search so no way in hell they are gonna risk screwing that up.

In the end this entire case will end up a tempest in a teacup. From the way the judge has hinted he sure as hell isn't wanting to award anywhere near what oracle wanted so more likely they will get somewhere between...oh say 30 million and 150 million, which may sound like a lot but to a supermegacorp like Google will just be written off as a cost of doing business and that will be that. They'll still have Android, they'll still be co-ruler of mobile, they'll still make mountains of money.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[DarkOx]

Yes! Finding the people with the required skill sets and background across the many disciplines withing the larger umbrellas of Computer Science and Computer Engineering needed to implement something like Davlik in reasonable is no small feat. It certainly can be done if you have Google's money for payroll but searching successfully for the above who have also never seen a Java doc? The may be beyond the power of even the Google the search king!

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

They still might end in the SCO trap, and have the copyright being assigned Public domain status due to the actions by it's previous owner.

A lot of the legal problems seen in this case is rather similar to the SCO mess, where some stupid lawyer ran a pattern matching tool against their IP and the Linux source tree's found a few similarities and when bankrupt as they were laughed out of court for not understanding neither the history of their IP nor the how copyright law actually works.

A lot of old copyright centric companies completely fail to grasp the legal frameworks that govern when IP is transferred sub-licenced and submitted as "standards". causing a lot of those absurd claims to make it all the way to court.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Confusador]

In other words, they don't expect to win, but just want to confuse stuff as much as possible for as long as possible. I'd be looking for a money trail from MS in that case, though...

Normally I'd be with you on that, but this is Oracle we're talking about. It's fairly reasonable to assume that MS's hands are clean on this one, only because there's no value in trying to convince an entity to do something they would do anyway.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Muad'Dave]

If this is intended for Java String operations, the toIndex is one more than you'd expect. From the String.substring() javadocs, emphasis mine:

"public String substring(int beginIndex, int endIndex)
Returns a new string that is a substring of this string. The substring begins at the specified beginIndex and extends to the character at index endIndex - 1. Thus the length of the substring is endIndex-beginIndex."

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Awww, you posted it! You goin to jail!

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

You dope! The clean room implementation of dalvik has never been in question. Well, except by you, a dope.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, what you have done might still be legal. That's what I'm hoping for in this case. However, it certainly isn't clean room.

That is ONE way to have a clean room implementation. It is NOT THE way to have a clean room implementation. A fact which would bolstered during the SCO vs Linux trials. Direct examination of interface headers files can legally and correctly provide for a clean room implementation. Period.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[realityimpaired]

No, but if two programmers trained at the same university and were taught by the same people, and happened to have similar coding styles, then it would still be a clean-room implementation.

There's only so many ways to achieve a specific goal in programming, and there's likely to be some stylistic similarities between different people who had similar background. Actually, I'm surprised it's only 9 similar lines, considering the size of the codebase.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[dzfoo]

Also don't forget that some of those "Google engineers" were "Sun engineers" not too long before.

      -dZ.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[dzfoo]

>> [Cravat: Maybe there is and Oracle simply didn't want to present it. But that seems unlikely]

Psst! I think you mean "caveat," which means a warning or statement of caution. A cravat is a sort of fancy neckerchief. Or else, I missed a pun!

              -dZ.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[dzfoo]

Because the copyright does not apply to the functionality of the API, it applies to the format and organization of the function calls.

You can't copyright a number, and you can't copyright the idea of looking someone's phone number in a list. But you can copyright an ordered collection of numbers as an artful expression of of such a list.

An API is more than "all about functionality"; it is an artful expression of the collection of function calls, and their parameter signatures, needed to implement such functionality.

Or it could be. Only a judge can decide that.

                  -dZ.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

The guy who wrote those lines said he probably copied them.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

That might work. We'll see if Google tries that defense.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

No, and that is a perfect example of why "intellectual property" is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT.

In real life there is no such thing as a "clean room". As soon as you put a human in it it's not clean anymore because the human will always have information that was carried in from outside. I don't care if it's something as trivial as how often to empty the cat litter box, it's information, and it's not "clean". It came from outside.

The idea that you can "own" the ideas in SOMEONE ELSE'S HEAD is such utter bullshit that I shouldn't even need to be here saying what bullshit it is, but here I am.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

Yeah, if the same person writes that function twice, it will probably look the same.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[VGPowerlord]

Equitable and promissory estoppel: Sun helped project Harmony and was deeply involved in it's creation,

Reference?

Do I even need to point out that Apache claims Harmony is a clean-room implementation of Java, and if Sun worked on it at all that would be a complete and total lie?

Not to mention that Sun released OpenJDK a year or two after the Harmony project started.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

Under what possible exception or exclusion in the FRE would that come from? It is obviously testimony from a person who was not present in court at the time it was given that is offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted in it.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Anaerin]

I know this, and I agree entirely. But, as mentioned, there are some situations where two totally different developers, who have never met or communicated in any way, were to write a function according to a specification, they will end up writing similar (if not virtually identical) functions.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[chrb]

If it were truly a clean room implementation, they couldn't have possibly ended up with parts of Sun's Java in their code, even a single line.

Not true. There is at least one possible path, even with separate reverse-engineering and implementation teams: if the team writing the specification includes code as part of the specification, then the team doing the implementation from the spec can use that code. Code can form part of the specification, as long as it isn't "proprietary".

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[Talisein]

Thank you, everybody. I am suitably ashamed.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[wrook]

I wish I could mod you up. You are exactly right, I think. There is a big difference between a "good" API and a "bad" API that has nothing to do with functionality. They could both accomplish the same thing, but there is a value in creatively designing the expression of the API. I think it is probably even a better candidate for copyright than other collections that are already recognized as having copyright. However, as a programmer, I do not want APIs to be copyright-able. It destroys interoperability and tilts the balance too far towards large companies being given a perpetual monopoly. All the have to do is write a standard and then change the API every 90+ years...

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[julesh]

803(6)?

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[phantomfive]

True, it's not the case here, however. It appears it was a developer who wrote the same function in both places, although he personally wrote them at different times.

Since he was the same person, he wrote the same function in the same way twice.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[dzfoo]

Well, that's just the thing: you can have copyright on APIs and still have interoperability.

Consider something like patents on a particular technology. If you want your invention to take hold in the marketplace and serve as a standard (de facto, or certified), then it is in your best interest to offer agreeable terms for access.

Likewise for copyrighted APIs: If your intention is for your API to serve as a model and standard for the industry, then it is incumbent on you to release it under an applicable license that ensures interoperability and limits or eliminates liability.

Otherwise, people won't adopt it. It's that simple.

What, you think that allowing copyrights on APIs all of a sudden will cause all software architects to release APIs with the express purpose of not allowing interoperability? Why would they do this?

They should have control over their rights, just as implementors have control over which technologies they chose to adopt.

                -dZ.

Re:"Clean Room" implementation

[ppanon]

An API is more than "all about functionality"; it is an artful expression of the collection of function calls, and their parameter signatures, needed to implement such functionality. Or it could be. Only a judge can decide that.

Indeed it sounds like this case will provide a ruling on that since the judge has reserved the right to rule the the applicability of copyright to the API for himself and told the jury to assume that the APIs are copyrightable so that their verdict will stand even if his finding on the legality of API copyrights is challenged on appeal. However when it comes to the jury's verdict, it would seem that Schwartz' testimony gives really good grounds to Google for estoppel that Sun had limited the copyright-based constraints it asserted on the APIs. More specifically that, since Google had not tried to call Dalvik by the trademarked Java name, that they had complied with Sun's public statements regarding licencing requirements of the Java APIs in that the licencing was only required for access to the JCK/TCK for compatibility testing and use of the Java name.

Like Linux?

[ukemike]

Isn't this basically what Linus Torvalds did with Linux? If it can be done with an OS couldn't you do it with a compiler or an interpreter? I'm not a programmer, so the likeliness of this story being true is beyond my ability to judge.

Re:Like Linux?

[ukemike]

Also, if this is true, shouldn't the evidence of it be bloody obvious to any sufficiently skilled programer who could examine both sets of code? It seems like a totally testable hypothesis to me. Someone should test it.

"Stand back I'm going to try SCIENCE!"

Re:Like Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stand back I'm going to try SCIENCE!"

fuck science, law should be a fashion contest for lawyers.

Re:Like Linux?

[jd]

Kaffe was a clean-room Java, so yes it can be done.

Re:Like Linux?

[wrook]

Linux is written to the POSIX standard. The POSIX standard is copyright IEEE and the Open Group. They have been clear that they won't sue people for implementing the standard (though, they also own a trademark which is a separate issue...). Additionally, the ability to implement this was pretty much covered by the BSD lawsuits in the 80s, which said that *this* API could be implemented (not that *all* APIs could be implemented).

I don't know for sure, but I don't think that the issue of blocking the implementation of APIs has been tested. POSIX is a special case. SCO was *clearly* full of shit. It is much less clear wrt to Oracle and Java from my position. The strange thing is (as others have mentioned) that Oracle seems not to be pushing the API copyright issue and are instead claiming that Google needed a TCK license. Things may change later, though.

Re:Like Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well of course it was a huge point of contention, once upon a time. But that battle was fought by BSD vs AT&T.

Linux gained popularity during that time, but never had to contend with AT&T. All that remained was SCO by then, but a battle was fought. They didn't actually decide whether copying OS concepts was legal, only that it wasn't SCO's intellectual property at stake.

Re:Like Linux?

[Adrian Lopez]

Linux is written to the POSIX standard. The POSIX standard is copyright IEEE and the Open Group.

IEEE holds the copyright to the documents describing the POSIX standard. It doesn't necessarily apply to the particular items being standardized (APIs, utilities, etc.).

Re:Like Linux?

[Ruie]

Isn't this basically what Linus Torvalds did with Linux? If it can be done with an OS couldn't you do it with a compiler or an interpreter? I'm not a programmer, so the likeliness of this story being true is beyond my ability to judge.

Both general GNU and Linux developers were very careful to avoid infringing copyrights and a lot of work started after the original Unix patents expired.

Re:Like Linux?

[julesh]

Isn't this basically what Linus Torvalds did with Linux?

Yes & no. Torvalds was implementing POSIX. There are two advantages he had here:

1. POSIX is defined in a document that is separate from any implementation of it and is published by a group that is not a single copyright holder of a particular implementation. It was specifically intended to be a vendor-neutral standard that anyone could implement.
2. There were already free implementations available (BSD, and the out-of-copyright-due-to-error older versions of System V) that he could use as the basis for his own; both of these had already had their validity argued in court.

Re:Like Linux?

[TechyImmigrant]

Isn't this basically what Linus Torvalds did with Linux? If it can be done with an OS couldn't you do it with a compiler or an interpreter? I'm not a programmer, so the likeliness of this story being true is beyond my ability to judge.

He had Posix to guide him.

Re:Like Linux?

[TechyImmigrant]

As a contributor of code to IEEE documents, I always found it necessary to release the code to the public domain before I submitted it to the IEEE, so their unashamed copyright grab would not apply.

Re:Like Linux?

[gl4ss]

. The strange thing is (as others have mentioned) that Oracle seems not to be pushing the API copyright issue and are instead claiming that Google needed a TCK license. Things may change later, though.

it's not that strange. isn't that after all the license they require from all j2me and mobile implementors? you got any idea how many hundreds of millions of those devices have been sold under license?

crappy part is that because of that same stranglehold on j2me, j2me is dying.

Re:Like Linux?

[G3ckoG33k]

I don't believe there is such a thing as a clean coffee room. That can't be done.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would God want a nearly worthless, over priced and over hyped piece of tech? Disclaimer: this was typed on an iPad.

Re:Cue Google apologia in 3.. 2.. 1..

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge is the one who needs to figure out who is telling the truth and what the legal ramifications of the truth are. Rabid opinions from either side of the fence is not the issue here.

Clean room is irrelevant

[goombah99]

As I understand tje JAVA lic, and perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems pretty clear that Sun lic the programming language for free but retained the lic and copyright on the implementation of the language itself. That copyright would clearly include the interface and methods needed to implement any java compatible compiler or interpreter. As long as one agrees that SUN had the right to copyright that then I don't understand why google has a case on this. maybe someone can explain?

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[Fjandr]

My take on the case:

Sun requires licensing to ship their JVM and SDK with a commercial product.
Google claims their wrote their own without using any Sun code.

If that is true, there's Google's case: they're not using the parts requiring licensing.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[yincrash]

I'm not sure there is any precedent that copying APIs are illegal. Reverse engineering is legal, and that is basically Schmidt is claiming was done here.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[goombah99]

reverse engineering from the language itself might be reasonable but as I understand it Dalvic actually implements all the java VM header profiles. You can't specify those without passing along copyrighted information. So how does one explain that? it's not a clean room and it is something that I beleive their lic forbids. maybe I'm wrong.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[Adrian Lopez]

"... as I understand it Dalvic actually implements all the java VM header profiles. You can't specify those without passing along copyrighted information."

For those of us who are not familiar with Java's internals, what are Java's VM header profiles and how are they subject to copyright protection?

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[julesh]

I'm not sure what you mean by "header profile", but would you also consider Wine to not be allowed? I'm not sure you understand what clean room means -- simply that a specification is built by one person examining an existing system, and passed to another for implementation. You certainly can produce an API this way, and Apache has documentation that they claim supports the notion that Harmony (the API implementation Google used) was produced this way.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[ppanon]

And yet somehow, Berkeley managed to convince a judge to let them do exactly that with BSD. So there seems to be established precedent that this is actually possible without conpyright infringement, and it would be surprising if Google weren't to bring that up at some point in this trial. The relative newbies posting here who have only been in the industry 10 years or less may not know about this precedent, but it's doubtful that Google's lawyers won't have come up with it at some point in searching out relevant case law. Heck, even if they hadn't, Eric Schmidt's been in the ball game long enough that he would have brought it up. If that's all that Oracle's got going for them, then they must be hoping that they can snow the jury.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[silentcoder]

Trouble is BSD didn't establish any case law. It was eventually settled out of court. Settlements don't establish precedent.
So while indeed it's a relevant case, and the decision may be of interest it is only possible for Google to refer to it as evidence that these kinds of practices are common in the industry and can be resolved with agreements between the parties - it does not give them any legal maneuvering beyond that since there was no judgement made about the case.
An out of court settlement is basically a private contract that ends the litigation. It has no legal weight on other cases.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of us who are not familiar with Java's internals, what are Java's VM header profiles and how are they subject to copyright protection?

He's a clueless idiot. They are not. That is, however, Oracle's claim.

He is claiming the header format is copyrighted. And irrespective of clear case law which says interoperability is most definitely allowed, which this definitely falls under, somehow doesn't apply here because he has no clue about the things he's discussing.

Part of Oracle's case is that even though the headers and format is openly published and required for interoperability, its copyrighted. Therefore, if you allow for even legal interoperability, you are in violation of Oracle's copyright. Case law and precedences say Oracle and the loon above is full of shit. Oracle is making an honest effort to throw out existing law and precedence so as to extort Google.

Law and precedence clearly shows Oracle is full of shit here. The only question is, can Oracle baffle the judge enough with their bullshit created by their army of lawyers, in direct violation of law? Who knows, but its very clear Oracle is going to make every effort to do so.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[dzfoo]

OK then, Mr. Anonymous Coward, what makes you any less of a "loon," and your statements any less "full of shit"?

Which "law and precedence" are you talking about, and why should I believe you over another random Slashdot user?

        -dZ.

Re:Clean room is irrelevant

[LiENUS]

As I understand tje JAVA lic, and perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems pretty clear that Sun lic the programming language for free but retained the lic and copyright on the implementation of the language itself.

I'm not sure how this would be relevant. Last I checked neither android nor the android SDK implement a java compiler at all. They rely on the JDK for compiling. They do static binary translation from JVM byte code to Dalvik byte code.

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice nearly universal copypasta there.

Name any market Apple has created? Tablets? Smartphones? MP3 players? It's all polished implementations of other peoples well proven ideas. Their finest and purest idea was their first one: computing accesible to masses.

Name any market Microsoft has created? Operating systems? Database servers? Directory services? It's all polished etc. etc. etc.

Re:mod up

[The1stImmortal]

There is nothing new under the sun :)
Seriously though - I love the irony in someone saying

"Name any market Google has created [...] It's all polished implementations of other peoples well proven ideas."

in response to a comment about Google "stealing" from Apple

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Because the Samsung clone of it isn't out yet.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an injunction against samsung importing tablets into heaven..

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[hcs_$reboot]

Mod 3 Funny?? If you can not silence someone, say he is a fool...

Google=Zynga

[Anonymous Coward]

1. See a good idea
2. Copy it,
3. link to it on the google home page.
4. repeat
5. innovate ( Warning this line is unreachable.)

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[simula]

What "IP" did Schmidt "steal" while serving on Apple's board?

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[Anonymous Coward]

What "IP" did Schmidt "steal" while serving on Apple's board?

Maybe you should "google" that question?

Re:mod up

[edremy]

Schmidt has dirty paws. I would not be surprised if this behavior is why Sergey Brin had to oust him. Name any market Google has created? Search? Mail? Maps? Online Docs? It's all polished implementations of other peoples well proven ideas. Their finest and purest idea was their first one: search ranking by citation.

AdWords. I'm unaware of any prior system that did automatic auctions for specific search terms. As far as Google's success, AdWords was equally as important as search, since it's the financial basis for the entire company. If you read some of the early history of Google their original sales methods were human centric, slow and no better than anyone else. AdWords started the flood of cash.

"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[G3ckoG33k]

"Google wanted Android to be open source, and Sun was unwilling to give up that much control over Java."

What?! Java already was open source, GPLv2. Since 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Java_implementations#Sun.27s_November_2006_announcement

It must be something else then, or what am I missing here?

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[zbobet2012]

Google wanted the [i]actual virtual machine[/i] to be open source. Java the [i]language[/i] was open sourced. This trial resides around whether or not that open source license extended to the api's of the language.

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[fsterman]

Java ME (a version of Java for mobile phones) doesn't include the classpath exception, so ALL Android software would have had to be GPLv2.

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[zuperduperman]

Yeah, that statement doesn't really capture it very well. Google wanted (actually, needed) Java to be open source under a permissive license, not GPL. This trial is in an interesting way, an examination of the difference between the GPL and Apache licenses and how incredibly important they are. However both of them certainly qualify as open source.

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[julesh]

In 2006, only javac, the java compiler, was open source. Android doesn't even use this compiler, so this was irrelevant to them. It took until 2007 for a GPL release of the class library, and Android was basically finished by this point in time. The first android phone launched only weeks after Java's GPL release. The decision to pursue an open source Java implementation was taken in 2005, shortly after Google acquired Android, and long before Sun began open-sourcing anything.

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[kensan]

Google acquired Android Inc in 2005, so development had started before Sun opened up Java, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system).

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mixing things.

OpenJDK is the GPLv2 licensed reference implementation for Java SE. This is important because it includes crap like Swing and AWT that have no place on a modern mobile phone or tablet, amongst countless of other fat that's not needing. The virtual machine itself is way to heavy, doing optimizations that can be afforded on a desktop, but that are too expensive on a mobile phone.

But Java ME (mobile edition) is an entirely different matter. It does not have an open-source implementation, so you have to license it from Sun/Oracle. And if you do that, you cannot modify it to suit your needs, unless Sun/Oracle agrees, which is very unlikely because historically they've been quite religios about their TCK.

So the thing left to do, if you want to use "open-source Java" is to fork OpenJDK. But the problem here is that the patents grant in GPLv2 is implicit and this means for derivate works it does not hold in Europe (for example) as the "implicit patents grant" is an artifact strictly related to the US patents office only.

Apache begged Sun for years to license them the TCK for Apache Harmony (the most complete third-party open-source implementation), but the license of the TCK says that distribution of the implementation for mobile devices is subject to licensing, a clause which is incompatible with Harmony's APL license, therefore Sun disagreed ... but at least people assumed that a clean-room implementation is fine, even if it does not pass the TCK, as long as you don't use the Java trademark. And now Oracle wants to prove otherwise.

So no, for mobile devices Java is closed, unless you go with a clean-room implementation, which Google did.

Dalvik is a virtual machine optimized for mobile phones. The latest version is pretty good too. Android has its flaws, but it's overall pretty good and this is in part because Google went the extra mile with their own VM implementation, which wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[JasterBobaMereel]

..One point if the GPLv2 does not cover US Patents in Europe but it does cover US Patents in the US ... what is the problem?

US Software patents are covered in the US - but implicitly granted

US Software patents are meaningless in Europe

Europe does not have Software Patents ...

So this is about Copyright and not Patents ...and nothing was copied?

Re:"Google wanted Android to be open source"?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, no. Sun placed under the GPL both the Java runtime libraries and the HotSpot VM, apart from a few bits for which they didn't own the copyrights (I believe mostly in the font rendering and sound libraries).
What Sun did NOT place under an open source license was J2ME which is what they would have liked to license to Google.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[truedfx]

That's impossible. Where in heaven would Jobs have found a lawyer?

Re:Cue Google apologia in 3.. 2.. 1..

[nedlohs]

Surely the jury figures out who is telling the truth.

Re:Registers vs. Call Stack = speed gain... apk

[julesh]

We're talking about an intermediate representation. Both Google and Oracle's virtual machines take their respective bytecode formats and convert them to a register-based machine language prior to execution. The only difference is that Google does this by translating from a different register-based language while Oracle translates from a stack-based language. This isn't about calling conventions, but compiler technology.

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[zuperduperman]

He should have excused himself from the board the moment Google started working on Android.

That would have been silly because Google started working on Android when Apple was a company that made portable music players and pretty much nothing else. But even so, he did in fact recuse himself from all discussions involving the iPhone and resigned not long after its release. Since Google purchasing Android was very publicly known there is no excuse for the rest of the board for not removing him if they thought it was a problem. There was absolutely nothing secret about it, so if it was a problem as you seem to believe then that is a testament to incredible stupidity of the Apple board room and not much else.

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[julesh]

I did. All I get is a series of articles that suggest he probably didn't "steal" anything.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Hognoxious]

... and where can I get some?

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

Guava? Gperftools? Google test? Protocol Buffer? GWT?

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

In what sick universe would Jobs even be able to find which direction Heaven was?

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[beerbear]

sssssshhhh don't say his name! it's like boogeyman, only apk is real. DAMN!

Re:Registers vs. Call Stack = speed gain... apk

[Chrisq]

We're talking about an intermediate representation. Both Google and Oracle's virtual machines take their respective bytecode formats and convert them to a register-based machine language prior to execution.

No shit - they run on an intel processor ... in fact any processor since the HP 3000 as far as I know.

Re:Registers vs. Call Stack = speed gain... apk

[TechyImmigrant]

We're talking about an intermediate representation. Both Google and Oracle's virtual machines take their respective bytecode formats and convert them to a register-based machine language prior to execution.

No shit - they run on an intel processor ... in fact any processor since the HP 3000 as far as I know.

Maybe you meant the Transputer.

The clean room process is just a joke

[Yvanhoe]

I am sure that the process you describe could be automated, except for the lawyers who has, as we all know, a magical ability to understand how to make the difference between two copyrightable work and decide they are different (a process that, as far as I know, is non-computable for a lack of coherent definitions)

function foo(int * buf) {
for(int i=0;i<10;i++) {
buf[i]++;
}
}

The function foo increments the first ten arguments of the integer buffer passed in argument, without checking bounds or overflow.

Here is what shocks me : these two paragraph convey the same information. They are two representations of the same (simple) algorithm. I could write a generator that would create hundreds of variants of this. Yet, it seems allowed to do that to escape copyright.

Maybe is it time to recognize that IP laws regarding software are incomplete and incoherent and that enforcing copyright on a specific code makes as much sense as enforcing copyright on a set of gears ratio in a watch.

The value of the code is not in its precise wording, it is in the function it accomplishes. Protecting the first is useless, protecting the second would stall the whole software industry. (Dibs on the loops !). Can't we just root for a sane reform now ?

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[CrimsonAvenger]

The value of the code is not in its precise wording, it is in the function it accomplishes. Protecting the first is useless, protecting the second would stall the whole software industry.

Copyright doesn't protect functionality. Copyright only protects expression.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[Yvanhoe]

Which is just silly as expression is the least thing we are concerned about in a code. Can I take the binary syntax tree of your program and escape copyright ? If no, why not ?

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a likely not copied variant.

void foo(int buffer[]) {
  int i=10;
  while(i--) buffer[i]++;
}

Here is a likely copied variant
void foo(int * buf) {
int j;
for(j=0;j10;j++) {
buf[j]++;
}
}

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[CrimsonAvenger]

Which is just silly as expression is the least thing we are concerned about in a code.

Which is irrelevant. If you want to protect functionality, try getting a patent.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[icebraining]

You can't, because it's a derivative work.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[dzfoo]

I am sure that the process you describe could be automated, except for the lawyers who has, as we all know, a magical ability to understand how to make the difference between two copyrightable work and decide they are different (a process that, as far as I know, is non-computable for a lack of coherent definitions)

Except that the first step starts with the analysis of the fully built system, as a black box, not its source code. In essence, you write the specification based on empirical data obtained by observing the behaviour of the system.

It is not computable, since by definition you do not know what is the behaviour you will observe before doing so, and so you cannot account for all its variables until you start.

                -dZ.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[phantomfive]

That might not count as a clean room implementation. Generally a clean room implementation does NOT start by examining the code, they examine inputs, outputs, and parameters. If you write your documents based on looking at the code, you will probably not win your case. The exception to that is if there is no other way to discover what the interface is doing, besides looking at the code. Which isn't the case here.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[Yvanhoe]

"Derivative work". Another term for which we have absolutely no clear definition. A clean room implementation is not a derivative work because there isa layer of miscommunication between two human teams. Automate this process and it becomes a derivative work even if the information flow is the same. That's magical thinking and should not exist in the law.

Re:The clean room process is just a joke

[Yvanhoe]

Exactly.
Therefore, considering that a simple obfuscator can automatically change the expression of a code while retaining its functionality, can we agree that copyright on code is a totally useless notion ?

Re:mod up

[Zan Lynx]

That's the irony though. Apple did exactly the same thing. There's no innovation there. MP3 players? There were many before the iPod existed. Desktop computers? Even computers with a GUI. Those existed. Microsoft had been pushing tablet computers for years before the iPad came out. Smart phones running Windows Mobile were out there.

So what did Apple do? They created, in the words of the grandparent post, "polished implementations of other people's well proven ideas."

Re:Registers vs. Call Stack = speed gain... apk

[Chrisq]

We're talking about an intermediate representation. Both Google and Oracle's virtual machines take their respective bytecode formats and convert them to a register-based machine language prior to execution.

No shit - they run on an intel processor ... in fact any processor since the HP 3000 as far as I know.

Maybe you meant the Transputer.

Believe it or not the HP-3000 was still being sold up to 2003, so though being introduced much earlier than the transputer it was produced later.

Re:mod up

[jimicus]

By that definition, there's been very little innovation in the computer industry in the last thirty years. After all, there were touch-screen driven computers around years before Microsoft started pushing their tablet idea, and there were also laptops around long before then.

Innovation does not have to mean "implementing a 100% brand-new, never been done before, never even something similar been attempted before idea". If it did, then we've had no innovation since the days of Charles Babbage.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Barefoot Monkey]

Oh come on, just saying a name is harmless. It's like Candlejack - I say "Candlejack" all the time, and nothing bad ever ha

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

GoogleMaps :-)

Re:Schmidt cannot be trusted or believed.

[Pubstar]

I immediately thought of this

Re:mod up

[Swampash]

Adwords was technology developed by a company originally named Boingo, later renamed to Applied Semantics, and which Google purchased in 2003. Google did not develop Adwords itself.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[oobayly]

If you say "Steve Jobs" three times to a mirror he appears and smashes your Android phone.

What about the libraries?

[msobkow]

There is a lot more to Java than the runtime engine and it's bytecode format -- like a few million lines of library code. Did they develop a clean room version of that as well?

While the source for those libraries was eventually released by Sun, it's not clear to me what license applies to the library source, and it's definitely not clear that the source was released before Google's work on Android. The issue may be water under the bridge as Sun did open source the vast majority of Java, but it kind of flies in the face of "clean room" claims.

Re:What about the libraries?

[VGPowerlord]

While the source for those libraries was eventually released by Sun, it's not clear to me what license applies to the library source, and it's definitely not clear that the source was released before Google's work on Android. The issue may be water under the bridge as Sun did open source the vast majority of Java, but it kind of flies in the face of "clean room" claims.

How is it not clear? Download OpenJDK from the OpenJDK site and read the License file.

Here's a spoiler: It's mainly GPLv2, although there are apparently still some binary blobs out there with proprietary licenses, plus some parts have the Classpath exception.

However, it's a moot point as Google uses Apache Harmony's class library, not OpenJDK, meaning that this license wouldn't apply.

Likewise, Google claiming they made a cleanroom implementation is moot, as it'd be Apache Harmony's people who would need to claim that.

Re:What about the libraries?

[msobkow]

But that's exactly why I wasn't clear on the issue: GPLv2.

Not LGPLv2.

That means any application using those libraries is required to be released under GPLv2, and I seriously, seriously doubt that many people would be following that restriction because they think of Java as a "free" compiler and don't think about the licensing terms on the libraries.

If the only way the core Java library source is available to the public is under GPLv2, it's effectively useless to most projects. You can't link libraries of GPL code to non-GPL applications!

Re:What about the libraries?

[msobkow]

I see your point, though. If they're using the Harmony implementation of the libraries, the question becomes whether the Harmony source is legit.

Re:What about the libraries?

[LiENUS]

Then the libraries that aren't android specific are based on the Apache harmony project so affidavits from Google engineers would be quite useless there.

I touched on the libraries in my original post as well.

Re:What about the libraries?

[isilrion]

Actually, it's not GPLv2. It's GPLv2+classpath exception:
http://openjdk.java.net/legal/gplv2+ce.html

"CLASSPATH" EXCEPTION TO THE GPL

Certain source files distributed by Oracle America and/or its affiliates are subject to the following clarification and special exception to the GPL, but only where Oracle has expressly included in the particular source file's header the words "Oracle designates this particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code."
Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole combination.
As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version.

Re:mod up

[hairyfeet]

Actually Apple is, and this is coming from someone who doesn't actually own anything Apple except and old B&W G3 I got free to play with PPC, truly innovative in ONE area...removing DUMBSHIT ideas! I mean look at the Windows tablets and WinCE...ohhh boy was that name appropriate! Here you have devices that are controlled completely differently from other devices so what does MSFT do? Why make little desktops with teeny tiny start icons and everything! What a truly DUMBSHIT idea that was! Now of course we are gonna get to see dumbshit thinking again come Oct where they just flip that and instead of putting the desktop on the cell phone they put the cell phone UI on the desktop, because hey, if it was stupid ONE way then the other way must be smart right?...Facepalm.

So I give the late Jobs and Apple credit where credit was due, Jobs had a knack for looking at things and saying "That is a totally dumbshit idea, so don't DO that!" and making things all about simplicity. Its like this story I read and never forgot about the guy working on iDVD and what happened when he heard Jobs was gonna check on their progress: "So we had all these mockups with cool menus and effects, yet he walks right past them to the whiteboard and drew a box. He said "This is what I want, its a box. When you drop a video in it a button that says burn pops up" and he walked out while we just stood there shocked" because of course they were thinking about all the "cool shit" they could pile in but all the extra shit would mean a learning curve and irritation, Jobs just wanted something simple that worked.

So if you ask how Apple has innovated that would be my answer, Jobs knew what was dumbshit and what wasn't and how to make things functional yet simple enough even a child could use. And frankly considering how many truly dumbshit ideas we see in the tech world apparently that was a rare gift indeed.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[BasilBrush]

You appear to have been the victim of several (-1, I disagree) mods.

Re:mod up

[gl4ss]

well that's the point, there hasn't been real innovation going on in ages.

just marketing older innovations and faster cpu's. and battling over those non-innovations in the courts.

Re:Registers vs. Call Stack = speed gain... apk

[WrongSizeGlass]

Believe it or not the HP-3000 was still being sold up to 2003, so though being introduced much earlier than the transputer it was produced later.

I worked on HP-3000's for years (back in the 80's and 90's). A sturdy workhorse indeed. Unfortunately the only language we had for it was HP Business Basic. <shudder>

Re:mod up

[JasterBobaMereel]

Search .... Why does everyone use Google, pretty logo, Adwords, no it's simply that it finds the information you want most of the time whereas the others don't

Microsoft had their search on every homepage but you had to make a conscious decision to go to Google and they still won, they were simply a better search engine (and in many respects still are)

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of two off the top of my head:

Dynamic maps via Ajax/JavaScript: this was the first widespread Ajax application I'm aware of. Google maps was a revelation. Before them anti mapping website (mapquest) required a full page reload for every request.

Creation of the first true modern warehouse-scale datacenter.

First popularization/application of large scale parallel programming and infrastructure via MapReduce, BigTables, Google File System.

In essence Google is for massively distributed computing what Apple/NeXT were for the GUI. A lot of the ideas were out there but google was the first to engineer and apply the whole stack - hardware, file system, OS and networking infrastructure, API, and apps. And as stated before, the first popular development and exploitation of AJAX.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[tom17]

Why did you click on both 'Preview' and 'Submit' before attempting to comple your sentence?

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

That's impossible. Where in heaven would Jobs have found a lawyer?

Jobs is in hell so he has plenty of lawyers.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[icebraining]

No, he's just wrong.

In fact, despite the fact that kernel and userland programs in Android require it to be open source, Google is making it as hard as possible for it to be any use for others.

This is wrong - only the kernel is GPL. They have no obligation to release the rest of the source, which is either Apache2 or BSD licensed. In fact, they didn't for a version (Honeycomb?).

Bionic, Dalvik, they could've kept all of that closed and they didn't.

You need to be registered partner and pay hefty sums just to officially use Android.

This is a red herring and slightly wrong. You can call your device "Android" if you pass the compatibility test, which is free (as in beer and speech). If this is enough to call Android not open, then Firefox isn't either (see Iceweasel).

You have to get a license to get access to Google Play, which isn't software but a service provided by Google and not really part of Android.

In fact, they have basically used the work of countless amount of volunteer programmers without giving much back.

That's called open source. We all use much more than we contribute back; in fact, that's the whole point!

But the fact is that the Android software is open, and Linux 3.3 included contributions from Android's kernel.

Guess why Google doesn't use it or create their own? Because that would be much more work to do.

They have created a language (Go), they pay for the development of Python (check who employs Guido van Rossum) and they have developed a full compiler and VM (Dalvik).

The reason they chose Java has nothing to do with it being more work, but with the fact that developers already know the language.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Zero__Kelvin]

"You appear to have been the victim of several (-1, Most of us are not clueless morons) mods."

FTFY

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/candlejack

i'm dumb.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, but would something like this be possible:

The next version of the apache-whatever-license says "You can't use our stuff if you keep suing people like assholes".

Then sun can't use anything Apache.

Re:FP!

[Salina]

I don't care, after over a decade on Slashdot I finally got my first FP!

Re:Google did not develop Android... APK

[Anonymous Coward]

I've decided to leave SLASHDOT forever. You guys just aren't fun to troll anymore!

Enjoy life without me, losers!

APK

Linux was based on something already open

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget POSIX, if you know anything about the origins of Linux you will know about Minix... Linux is not Minix, however Linus pretty much learned how to write kernels with Minix, so disregarding the obvious conceptual differences in design decisions, it is often thought of as a derivitive of Minix in a non direct way.

How does this not make it infringe upon UNIX?... because that was half the reason Andrew Tanenbaum wrote Minix... in order to escape the copyright limitations of UNIX which was preventing him from teaching it to his students.

Why does Java have any patents at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Java have any patents? IMHO, what it doesn't owe to the UCSD P-system, it owes to C++ and to some extent SmallTalk. This is the mess we get when we let people that don't even read the bills vote on and pass them. Aren't patent applications supposed to include descriptions of prior art? Why IS software patentable anyway?

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[ccguy]

That's impossible. Where in heaven would Jobs have found a lawyer?

No, he's suing from hell and is expecting the laws they have there to apply to all other universes. That's what he's used to.
And he's ready to spend all 40 billion fanboys souls he has in the bank if that's what it takes!

Clean room? Not according to Joshua Bloch

[sproketboy]

I submitted this but of course it doesn't get promoted as that would interfere with the Google distortion bubble happening here:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/19/2961128/google-chief-java-architect-likely-i-copied-sun-code-in-android

Re:Clean room? Not according to Joshua Bloch

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google distortion field", right. Do you even read what you post, bonchhead?

Your groundbreaking news are these 9 extremely non-trivial lines of code, which were written by the same guy both for Sun's Java and for Android.

private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
                  if (fromIndex > toIndex)
                          throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
                                                ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
                  if (fromIndex < 0)
                          throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
                  if (toIndex > arrayLen)
                          throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
          }

Of course it's extremely unlikely that same guy could write something non-trivial like this the same way twice. He surely must remember stealing this unique piece of coding elegance from Sun.

Re:Clean room? Not according to Joshua Bloch

[dzfoo]

Wow, talk about missing the forest by the trees. Did you even read that article? The point was not to single out the small piece of code as a smoking gun, but as an example of a lack of discipline in setting up the so-called "clean room" environment, which seems to cast the entire endeavor into question:

While the amount of code unto itself may seem trivial, it does hold implications for Google's assertions that it used a "clean room" when creating Android -- in this case, ensuring that engineers working on the project didn't have access to copyrighted code from Sun or Oracle.

Nice ad hominem attack there, Mr. Anonymous Coward.

Re:Clean room? Not according to Joshua Bloch

[Anonymous Coward]

To reiterate, a) it's a trivial helper function, b) written by same person, c) ten years ago before that. It is not unlikely that he indeed forgot that he wrote a function the same way in Sun's codebase, and might even be a perverted proof that he didn't have access to copyrighted code when working on Android.

The Jury

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

It's worth pointing out that all bets are off once the jury leaves to reach a decision. I last served on a jury in 2005 in the most populated county of a major metropolitan area in the USA. I mention that so you understand that I was not on some backwoods jury in some rural underpopulated area. Again - biggest county in one of the USA's major metropolitan areas. One morning while we waited in the jury room to go to court for the day's testimony, three guys on my jury got into what I will call a "stupid contest" where they argued with each other over who knew less about computers. Each of the three insisted that he was far stupider than the other two in this contest and cited examples of his own stupidity to support his claim. These are the kinds of people you get on juries. If even one person on the jury has the background to understand correctly the testimony at the trial, I will be amazed. And very likely nobody will listen to that person in the jury room anyway as the jurors with the loudest voices will carry the day with their half-baked understanding and assumptions of what they heard in the trial. What the jurors perceive to have been said in the trial and what was actually said are likely to be very different. I have no idea which way this will go, but I can assure you that the jury reaching the decision will have no grasp at all of what they are deciding and a coin flip would be about as thoughtful.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's cheaper and better than all of the competing over-priced and over-hyped pieces of tech. And despite the fact that the Android competitors are just making knockoffs, they still can't match the same price/functionality point.

But how's that bolt-on GPS dongle working for you, Asus Transformer fans? LOL U WAS JUST HOLDING IT WRONG, AMIRITE?

Don't be insensitive

[Dareth]

Don't be insensitive. Jobs probably met some "handicapped" lawyers who yelled at him for parking in "their spots".

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you click on both 'Preview' and 'Submit' before attempting to comple your sentence?

Indeed?

Re:mod up

[rgbrenner]

The idea for AdWords came from Overture. Overture was originally named GoTo.com, and was founded 6 months before Google, and 2 1/2 years before AdWords.

Overture sued Google for infringing its "bid-for-placement" and "pay-for-performance" patents. (article)

Google settled the suit for $300+ million

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[dmesg0]

Whatever he wrote is so obviously wrong, that either he's deliberately spreading FUD, or just trolling.
In either case the moderation is correct.

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[tom17]

I know the meme lol.

I just didn't know that Candlejack clicked submit for you after!

Anyway, it's all just a rehash of the age old meme of connection lo***CARRIER LOST***

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[tom17]

Quite :)

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

*WHOOSH!*

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, high UID, early post, hates Google? I thought bonch and his sockpuppet army had given up. Guess not.

Re:Google did not develop Android... APK

[scot4875]

Imposter. There's no random bolding, no creative use of punctuation symbols, and you never once mentioned a host file.

"Oracle lawyer David Boies"

[chrb]

That would be the infamous David Boies that partnered with SCO, and that went well. Maybe there's hope yet.

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

Oingo/Applied Semantics specialized in matching ads to content using wordnet(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordNet). So you can say they helped complement the existing AdSense program, but they had nothing to do with the AdWords part of it.

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Palm's popular PalmOS meant nothing to the world of touchscreen displays.

You know, where there was a grid of 3x3 to 3x5 icons for you to tap.

OMG INNOVATION ... 4x5 ICON GRID

WOAH. PATENT THAT SHIT.

P.S. I've heard people talking about his bio -- the other half of his "omg this is dumb" is a week later "omg I'm glad I thought of this".

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[tom17]

Oh I got it, it's just a pet gripe of mine that I have always had with that meme. Yes, I know the flaw makes it 'funnier', but a man can have a pet gripe can't he?

But Java is ultimately 'Big Corp'

[Anonymous Coward]

Not open source or public domain.

Google Vs. Sun. That's big monsters fighting over turf and lock in. And ultimately, when they have wrung all the cash out of it that they can, you have upgraded and upgraded and upgraded, Java will be abandoned, along with all the old, experienced, highly paid programmers that go with it and all your application source code, which is basically all your corporate infrastructure.

All the cool kids will be programming in TEA or NARF or have electrodes in their heads.

A big hardware/software/personel/paradigm refresh, a whole net set of buzzwords for the same old thing.

Java is Big Corp. Just like the dot net. You will get fucked in the end. That is what big corps do. That's what they do. That's all they do. They will not stop. They cannot be reasoned with.

Write only in languages like 'C' that are beyond the control of Big Corps, are widely ported and standardized, will not go obsolete and have open source implementations like GCC.

Or write in one of the popular open source languages that have a large community writing and maintaining them, that are going to live a long long time.

If you write in a big corp language, get ready to rewrite and update and refresh and eventually throw the whole thing out and start from scratch. You will never develop your concepts, your business intelligence more than about 5 years in.

You will be lucky to get the bugs out before you have to rewrite the same old basic thing just to make it all work with version 2 of the runtime.

Your inexperienced newbie programmers are counting on this to dump that spagetti code abortion so typical of a new programmer's first attempt at anything. Of course the newbies want to rewrite, so they can hide the evidence and cheer 'Change' and call you an old fart.

You will always be chasing the next magic silver bullet and never arrive.

What, that salesman from Oracle is going to tell you this?

It's in the courts, because it is about control. Control is about making money. Making money in languages is lockin, upgrade cycles and planned obsolescnece. Rinse and repeat.

JAVA IS BIG CORP.

Sigh.

Re:Google did not develop Android... APK

[crutchy]

you forgot to mention incomprehensible and full of acronyms (with full-stops and all!)

Re:Google did not develop Android... APK

[crutchy]

and no mention of "open sores"... definitely an imposter!

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[Old Wolf]

same reason I'm still using a dial-up model with in-band si+++ATH

NO CARRIER

Re:Google did not develop Android to be open sourc

[tom17]

But you...

Oh nevermind.

127.0.0.1

[allo]

Android uses 127.0.0.1 as IP, which was already used by sun a long time ago.

So they in fact DO use sun's ip.

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

Google didn't create AdWords, they bought it after the market was well established.

Re:FP!

[RockDoctor]

Hey, Brick Top is just this guy, you know.

This really, really scary guy.

With a pig farm.

Do software copyrights protect what programs do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Communications of the ACM, April issue 2012, page 27-29.

See SAS vs WPL:
http://www.harbottle.com/hnl/pages/article_view_hnl/7292.php

and Lotus vs. Borland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Int'l,_Inc.

Re:Gosh you've just "fooled us" (not)

[crutchy]

you apparently haven't read many of my posts, or haven't read many of apk's (well, if it were possible to actually read his posts) or you would see that i'm capable of actually constructing a full sentence

...but whatever (your response actually has some apk hallmarks)

Re:Seems others read my posts & rate them well

[Anonymous Coward]

"2EZ" huh? oh my you're so clever and all growd up now. too easy to do what i wonder? prove that you're a tard? prove that you're socially inept and technically incompetent? well you're definitely onto something there. proving yourself to be a moron to others is obviously something that comes way too easy for you, and you should of course be proud. i guess if i ever want to "prove" anything i'll be sure to spam with pasted pages of jibberish that i keep close on hand to make my point undeniable. apparently it works for apk.

oh look, i think that's the special bus come to pick you up and take you back to the special fun house where you can lick windows all day long. fruitloop

Re:"Rinse, Lather, & REPEAT" (lmao)... apk

[crutchy]

Then, you *TRIED* to impersonate me too when I was not even IN THIS DISCUSSION in the 1st place

you poor thing. that wasn't me actually, but how could you have known (AC has its uses)

I must actually THANK you for making ME, look great

if you think so dude. my pleasure :)