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Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java
itwbennett writes: Oracle made a request late last month to broaden its case against Android. Now, claiming that 'Android has now irreversibly destroyed Java's fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system,' Oracle on Wednesday filed a supplemental complaint in San Francisco district court that encompasses the six Android versions that have come out since Oracle originally filed its case back in 2010: Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, Kit Kat and Lollipop.
Microsoft licensed the Java platform and trademark and then intentionally built an incompatible implementation, put the Java logo on it and claimed compatibility.
Android has never claimed to be a compliant Java platform, it merely lets you use the Java programming language and GNU's standard java library (gcj & libjava) to build apps for Android.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Which is where you'd want most error messages to happen.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Yes, I had a couple of Sparc Stations in the 90's and admined SunOS and Solaris on those and some enterprise server systems, but
Fuck Sun, they favored proprietary server systems that lined their sales-reps' pockets with cash while the world changed around them and then sold all of their knowledge lock stock and barrel to Oracle, simply because Oracle users were their largest remaining customer base
I feel the same way about DEC, who flushed thirty years of Alpha architectural superiority down the drain because they couldn't sell their way out of a wet paper sack
We get what we deserve because we let the free market reign supreme where the most cut throated business-people win and the rest go down the drain
Wherever You Go, There You Are
And the difference between this and the MS Java case is...what exactly? Because the only difference I can see is Google pulled a name out of their ass, which means all MSFT had to do was call it "MS Coffee" and it would have all been golden.
The difference is trademarks. Microsoft called their unauthorized implementation Java(tm). You don't get to do that without passing Sun's certification process. MS never implemented the entire Java specification. They modified some parts and left others out (embrace and extend). So someone who wrote a Java program against the Sun JDK and brought it to the MS platform would potentially see it fail out of the box. Due to these issues Sun used it's trademark to sue for relief from having its brand damaged.
This is different from unauthorized implementations that did not claim to be official Java products. Indeed, prior to Sun open sourcing the HotSpot JVM, there were quite a few open source unofficial implementations: e.g. GNU Kaffe, Apache Harmony, GCJ, etc. Claiming ownership over interfaces/API is a new and treacherous behavior that came along with Oracle.
And what if somebody was to do this to Linux? After all they have access to the code, should be easy enough to just rip it off and take it proprietary by following the Google model, what would the difference be? None at all.
None. Linus owns the Linux trademark in many countries. Assuming someone didn't copy the source code and just re-implemented the APIs, it would be totally kosher as long as you didn't call it "Linux". How do you think Linux was allowed to exist in the first place? It's just an unauthorized implementation of a bunch of POSIX APIs, but because Linus didn't call his kernel a UNIX(tm) system or claim POSIX(tm) compliance, he didn't run afoul of trademark law.
In general, no. Unfortunately, Oracle owns the rights to Java. That means that Google must comply with Oracle's terms within the limits defined by law. Doubly unfortunately, that means that everyone with a vested interest in the situation is going to have to watch a drawn out soap opera as the case winds its way through the courts.
What legal battle with Microsoft? As the OP already stated, Microsoft has put C# out there for 3rd party implementations with a legal guarantee not to sue.
The irony being that BEA bought JRockit because their JVM implementation was significantly better than Sun's on Intel, and Oracle bought BEA.
This is before Oracle bought Sun, so Oracle were themselves doing to Sun what they're claiming Google have done to them.
Fundamentally it all boils down to Larry Ellison and his company being cunts.
That means that Google must comply with Oracle's terms within the limits defined by law.
But Google doesn't use Java, they use Dalvik/ART, which aren't written by Oracle and therefore don't have Oracle's ToCs attached to them.
They do happen to be compatible with Java, but if you are allowed to copyright APIs (which is what Oracle are pushing for) then that would be absolutely insane for the IT industry, as you wouldn't be able to implement an API (or possibly even access an API) without the permission of whoever wrote that API.
You can install an APK without that. Blame the developers for not releasing free apps directly as an APK.
In that case, it's no different than Windows 8 or 10 or even OS X. There's an app store, but you don't have to use it.
but if you are allowed to copyright APIs (which is what Oracle are pushing for)
You are allowed to copyright APIs. This case went through the appellate court, which ruled that APIs are copyrightable, and to the supreme court, which let that ruling stand.
The case has moved on, and is now trying to determine if Google has a fair use defense. But there is no doubt that APIs are copyrightable under current law.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."