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Jury Rules Google Violated Java Copyright, Google Moves For Mistrial
eldavojohn writes "Details are thin, but the long-covered Oracle v. Google trial has at least partially been decided in favor of Oracle. The jury says Google violated copyrights with Android when it used Java APIs to design the system. Google moved for a mistrial after hearing the incomplete decision. The patent infringement accusations have yet to be ruled upon."
We "Don't Be Evil" didn't work.
It's more about Google finally getting what is has been asking for. They have blatantly violated laws, copyrights and privacy of both people and companies. People, including judges and the government, have finally started to catch up. It's good to see. I foresee that Google will be getting many fines and loses in courts in upcoming months and it serves them well, as they are a bullshit company that abuses just about everything to get what they want.
Open source does not mean it's not copyrightable. In fact, GPL is by definition a restrictive copyright license too. Open source, by definition, just means that - you get the source. It doesn't give you any more rights.
And Miskaata is right. Google has been abusing tons of laws and people in their road to glory. They have finally coming under review and sanctions for it. Not just in the US, but around the world, including Europe, Australia, South Korea and tons of other countries.
But AT THE TIME Google started the project, Java was not an "ISO" language. I do RPG programming on AS400 and just about every manual is labeled by IBM that it is tied to the software license, can't be reverse engineered, blah, blah.
The issue is that Google set out with j
The Java API manual and recreated them ALL with the same names and function calls, etc... That's pushing it even for open source projects.
Even MONO doesn't go THAT far in that they only implement the released ISO specs EXACTLY as written... The .Net APIs had to be rebuilt with different names.
Google even copied to the point the Binary programs in Java would work.. Google COULD have backed off. Google could have kept the language, but not the binary. Google could have redone the work in Python or something... But they were too far along and Sun didn't want to play ball versus Sun's crippled JAVAME. Google took a risk and they lost.
I guess I am dense, because if this is a very good day for Google, and the judge believes that all they infringed on was nine lines of code according to the OP, I don't understand why Google would risk another trial after this set of evidence already convinced one jury that they are guilty of infringing on Oracle's copyrights, and I don't understand why they'd risk getting a less (apparently) sympathetic judge.
Anyone a legal background who can convincingly explain this stuff? Is this more or less a good or bad ruling for Google?
The funny thing is that Google is actively working against privacy settings in browsers so that they would have every means to track users. They use shady tricks that amount to hacking to circumvent browser security. And yet people think Google does no evil? Hilarious.
The issue isn't about not using Google's services. Google should not be allowed to break laws and abuse everyone else.
What most slashdotters seem to forget about this case is that every other company on planet licenses Java from Oracle (and did from Sun when they owned it). Microsoft does, Apple does, Samsung does, Nokia does and so on. However, Google tried to use their image and countless amount of lawyers to get around this so that they would not need to pay for the work that Sun/Oracle have done with Java. They took their changes to avoid the fees and lost. It's not a new tactic to Google, as they have it with scanning copyrighted books and setting up the worlds largest piracy site YouTube. This time they just got bitten. I don't it will be the last time either, as people are starting to catch up on Google's nefarious practices.
What does it matter that Oracle was part of creating it open source? Open source is only that - you get the source. There is no other promises, and no way in hell is there any promise not to even charge for it.