Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java

Posted by samzenpus on from the bad-name dept.

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.

85 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a shame Pamela Jones shuttered Groklaw ... her insight into this case would have been invaluable.

    We need to stop the dangerous idea that interfaces can be copyrighted before it becomes as much a bane on software as software patents were before Alice vs. CLS Bank.

    --
    vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    1. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by Luthair · · Score: 5, Funny

      She was conspiring with Bob against Eve!

    2. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We need to stop the dangerous idea that interfaces can be copyrighted

      I miss Groklaw too, but it's really too late for that. The Supreme Court upheld the earlier court's decision that interfaces can be copyrighted (or more specifically, declined to hear an appeal).

      It's not the end of the world. Use of an interface for purposes of interoperability has been declared fair use. The Google vs Oracle case is still in court, trying to decide if Google's use of Java is fair use.

      Of course, Java is under the GPL, so in most cases this is not even an issue.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the API headers are the most valuable part of your software... you're doing something wrong.

    4. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Copyrighting interfaces is indeed a really bad idea, however I'm not so sure it's quite the bane you're thinking.

      In Google's case, their problem was that they had already settled on using Java long before the troubles with Oracle came up, so it wasn't exactly feasible for them to switch to something else. They had already invested in Android, Dalvik, etc., so changing course midstream just wasn't worth it. However, suppose Google knew this was going to happen; instead of basing Dalvik on Java, interfaces and all, perhaps they would have simply come up with a Java work-alike but with different interfaces.

      And now that Oracle's taken this path, what kind of moron would select Java as a business platform, knowing that Oracle will want to lock them in, and lock out any competing Java platforms using this perversion of copyright law?

      If other companies pull this, it seems like it'd end up increasing adoption of open-source programming platforms and making customers avoid anything where the interfaces are copyrighted and proprietary. It's not like there's a shortage of programming languages out there to choose from.

    5. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by flink · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    6. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by flink · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not the end of the world. Use of an interface for purposes of interoperability has been declared fair use. The Google vs Oracle case is still in court, trying to decide if Google's use of Java is fair use.

      It's a serious blow to interoperability and to open source in general. Fair use is and affirmative defense, not an absolute right. It's very subjective. In order to even assert fair use, you have to be sued, refuse to settle, go to court, and convince a judge that the fair use defense applies... and then you have to actually litigate the case, with the risk you will lose, be out potentially millions in your own legal costs, plus damages, plus maybe paying the plaintiff's costs. This is a huge burden for anyone but a massive corporation to meet.

      It is impossible to write a non-trivial Java application without extending or overriding some API "owned" by Sun/Oracle. This means that basically every Java application and by extension, every program that implements a public, non-open-source API or is written in a proprietary language exists at the sufference of the API/language creator. Maybe you could go to court and try to assert "fair use", but good luck doing that if you are not Google.

    7. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by davester666 · · Score: 2

      You are doing it to crush the idea. Getting a bunch of money as well is just a bonus.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    8. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      To be fair, anyone with less than that much in revenue isn't really worth suing in a copyright suit anyway.

      Tell that to the RIAA. If Oracle claims copyright of Java, it would be fairly simple for them to start charging licensing fees. If they went after small shops, they could easily ask for $5k an executable and most shops would have to just pay it as it would cost more to fight it.

    9. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by Cederic · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you're not using Oracle's compiler, it's not a problem as long as you use a GPL compiler. Furthermore, there is a fair-use defense for interoperability, so it's not a problem on multiple levels.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re:Groklaw Needed More Than Ever by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      I think you missed the comments earlier in the thread that I'm responding to. The TL;DR is that you're licensed to use the Java API if you use Oracle's compiler. That is, Oracle are giving you a license to use it.

      Third party compilers, licensed under the GPL or anything else, don't have that licensing because it's not their's to license.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Re:Oracle's monopoly? by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because J2ME was such a brilliant mobile platform.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Profiting on the Backs of Others by Great+Big+Bird · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oracle (then Sun) could have created an operating system for mobile phones based around Java. But since Google did, they want to profit off of it? They should go to hell.

    1. Re:Profiting on the Backs of Others by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      I don't get it -- isn't Android programming primarily Java, with things like C relegated to support library status?

      Sounds stronger than ever.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:Profiting on the Backs of Others by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem with J2ME is that it's awful.

      It's always been awful, I've always dreaded using apps on pre iOS/Android phones.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:Profiting on the Backs of Others by swb · · Score: 2

      Maybe that's the unintended consequence of a write once, run anywhere language -- they were supposed to transcend the operating system. They never made a Java operating system because of that concept, and Sun really wanted to sell Solaris, too.

    4. Re: Profiting on the Backs of Others by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!
    5. Re: Profiting on the Backs of Others by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft created libraries that were compatible with Sun's Java, and then added their own proprietary (and incompatible) extensions to pull developers away from the real Java. This was a deliberate move to make sure that developers had to target Windows and couldn't target ordinary Java (which could run on any other platform) By the way, this was the same motivation Microsoft had for creating Internet Explorer (that is, they didn't want developers being able to target a web browser instead of an operating system.)

      The whole idea was to force end users to stay with Windows instead of anything else, as Microsoft wanted to maintain their monopoly status.

      Android on the other hand wasn't attempting to do that. That is, it never made any effort to pull any developers away from the Java platform, nor was it ever intended to do that in the future, nor did they make any attempt at being compatible with existing Java applications. Sure, it would be easier to port Java applications over, but it's intended to be the same at all, whereas Microsoft's implementation was intended to be a drop-in replacement.

      Furthermore, Sun won their case against Microsoft because it was proven that Microsoft did what they did for anti-competitive reasons; copyright infringement was never claimed at any point. And likewise, Oracle isn't making any kind of anti-compete claims towards Google.

      Oracle is just saying "Hey, you created an interface with similar naming to something created by a company we purchased. Even though other companies have done the same thing numerous times and have never been sued before, we're going to shake you down because we happened to have noticed just how successful you are and we'd like to get on your gravy train without having contributed anything to it."

      Which by the way, what I just said above is typical Oracle behavior. When somebody comes along that does something similar to what they do, then they first try to buy it out, and if they can't buy it out, then they sue it out. Having said that, Oracle is every bit as much of an asshole company as Microsoft has ever been, if not more so.

    6. Re:Profiting on the Backs of Others by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By "irreversibly destroyed Java's fundamental value", Oracle means "we should be getting payments from Google because they're using a version of Java that they didn't license from us to make money." Everything else is fluff.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    7. Re: Profiting on the Backs of Others by fredgiblet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If we refused to buy from any company that did anything assholeish then there'd be nothing to buy.

    8. Re: Profiting on the Backs of Others by sg_oneill · · Score: 2

      The reason they used their own bytecode was because of the Sun vs MS thing. Google wanted to add apis that where needed for modern android, but feared doing so would put them at odds with Sun, so they created a whole new bytecode system to avoid copyright entanglements.

      Regardless, Androids about the only reason Java is still relevant. Sure theres the enterprise java thing, but even thats getting eaten away by web apps in more agile languages. Last job I had was at a government department where we where rewriting clunky old java apps to django and ruby on rails.

      If it was about "the future of Java" Oracle should be thanking Google. But its not, its about getting a slice of that android pie.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    9. Re: Profiting on the Backs of Others by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      Actually in that lawsuit, Sun brought up the emails uncovered in the DoJ investigation where a Microsoft exec (can't recall the name) specifically called out Java as a threat to Windows (the same email mentioned Netscape Navigator as a threat to Windows, and for the same reason.) This is why they won the lawsuit.

      Sun did indeed try for copyright infringement, but that portion of the lawsuit was shot down, and the only one that stood was the violation of anti-compete laws.

      Sun has argued in court that Microsoft viewed Java's "Write Once, Run Anywhere" capability as a threat to Windows, because Java reduced the incentive for software developers to write programs for the Microsoft operating system.

      According to Sun, the version of Java distributed by Microsoft worked better with its Windows software. Such a move threatened Java's ability to provide a cross-platform development environment, Sun's lawyers said.

      Microsoft has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has maintained that it stuck to the letter of its licensing agreement with Sun. Any changes Microsoft made to Java merely allowed developers to take advantage of features specific to Windows, the company has argued.

      The case has been watched closely, and Microsoft's dealings with Java were cited by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in the U.S. government's antitrust case against Microsoft as evidence of the software giant's anticompetitive behavior.

      Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for litigation, portrayed Tuesday's settlement as a positive outcome for Microsoft.

      "Microsoft is very pleased with the successful conclusion of this litigation," Burt said in a statement. The agreement confirms Microsoft's ability to independently develop technology to compete with Sun's products, the company said.

      Sun scored a victory in the case in November 1998, when Judge Ronald Whyte of the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, ruled that Sun was likely to win its case based on the merits and issued a preliminary injunction in Sun's favor. The injunction forced Microsoft to modify the Java technology it had distributed in its operating system, Web browser, and development tools so that it passed Sun's tests.

      A U.S. Appeals Court overturned the injunction the following year, questioning the grounds on which Whyte had based his decision. Whyte reinstated the injunction, but based his order on California's unfair competition statutes rather than on copyright law, as Sun had requested. The ruling was seen as a partial victory for Sun.

      http://www.javaworld.com/artic...

  4. Fuck Oracle by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Java was never useful on phones until Google built something decent.

    Sun/Oracle could never build a decent phone with Java, no matter how much money they pumped into it.

    If you work somewhere that uses Oracle products or is considering an Oracle product, fight to the bone to get their shitware tossed out.

    We need to end this company, it's a tumor in the software ecosystem.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    1. Re:Fuck Oracle by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

      Don't you mean until Google bought something decent? Android does not originate with Google.

    2. Re: Fuck Oracle by binarylarry · · Score: 2

      Well honestly the first few versions of Android weren't great.

      I was an early adopter with the G1, etc.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re:Fuck Oracle by myowntrueself · · Score: 2

      Java was never useful on phones until Google built something decent.

      Sun/Oracle could never build a decent phone with Java, no matter how much money they pumped into it.

      If you work somewhere that uses Oracle products or is considering an Oracle product, fight to the bone to get their shitware tossed out.

      We need to end this company, it's a tumor in the software ecosystem.

      Imagine an Oracle smartphone...

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  5. Innovate, not litigate by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    irreversibly destroyed Java's fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system

    Well there's the problem. Oracle thinks the language and runtime are a complete operating system. There's nothing stopping Oracle making a different OS that uses Java. In fact, the vast amount of libraries for Android out there should be easy to port. Next we'll hear how Microsoft destroyed the value of C as used to build an OS.

    1. Re:Innovate, not litigate by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Java was not designed for low battery power devices with hard real-time constraints

      You might want to look at the origin of Java. It grew from the Green Project, which aimed to build a system for battery-powered devices with about 1MB of RAM that needed interactive UIs and to control other devices.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. JAVA FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Java...[garbage collection] is the .[garbage collection] best .[garbage collection] programming .[garbage collection].[garbage collection] language for .[garbage collection] mobile devices .[garbage collection] .[garbage collection] because it is .[garbage collection] faster .[garbage collection] then C++ and .[garbage collection] more .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] deterministic and .[garbage collection] .[garbage collection] .[garbage collection] nev .[garbage collection] er .[garbage collection] drops .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] user .[garbage collection].[garbage collection] input.

    I like Java .[garbage collection] becuase .[garbage collection].[garbage collection] it's write .[garbage collection].[garbage collection] once, .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] and it runs .[garbage collection] .[garbage collection].[garbage collection] provided you have all .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] the libraries, the .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] correct java interpreter .[garbage collection].[garbage collection].[garbage collection] and enough .[garbage collection].[garbage collection]

    javax.servlet.ServletException: Something bad happened
    at com.example.myproject.OpenSessionInViewFilter.doFilter(OpenSessionInViewFilter.java:60)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
    at com.example.myproject.ExceptionHandlerFilter.doFilter(ExceptionHandlerFilter.java:28)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
    at com.example.myproject.OutputBufferFilter.doFilter(OutputBufferFilter.java:33)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:388)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:216)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.SessionHandler.handle(SessionHandler.java:182)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:765)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.handle(WebAppContext.java:418)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:326)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:542)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.content(HttpConnection.java:943)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:756)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:218)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:404)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.bio.SocketConnector$Connection.run(SocketConnector.java:228)
    at org.mortbay.thread.QueuedThreadPool$PoolThread.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:582)
    Caused by: com.example.myproject.MyProjectServletException

    1. Re:JAVA FTW by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 4, Informative

      Which is where you'd want most error messages to happen.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    2. Re:JAVA FTW by Xyrus · · Score: 2

      1997 called. They want their overused Java meme back.

      --
      ~X~
    3. Re:JAVA FTW by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      1997 called. They want their overused Java meme back.

      I take it you've never used Eclipse?

      Some days I'm lucky to be able to type three characters before it goes off and spends 30 seconds garbage collecting again.

    4. Re:JAVA FTW by sanosuke001 · · Score: 2

      It looks like most of your stack trace is from a third party library and not actually java. gg

      --
      -SaNo
    5. Re:JAVA FTW by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2
      Preview of Java for Windows 10:

      javax.servlet.ServletException: Something happened

    6. Re:JAVA FTW by ckatko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, it's pretty pathetic that C++ doesn't give you a stack trace for exceptions.

      Though, as an aside, that just reminded me of the equally-as-pathetic amount of Stockholm Syndrome exhibited by C++ programmers on Stack Overflow:

      http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

      You don't need it! They're useless! If you use it you're not a good programmer! Why would you want C++ to be like other languages?!

    7. Re:JAVA FTW by Assmasher · · Score: 2

      Maybe you should use C++ before posting stupidity like this. If you mean to say C++ doesn't have built-in stack tracing you'd sound less stupid. Getting a stack trace, like many things in languages built before JAVA is a matter of including some other code and turning on a feature of your compiler. I get stack traces just fine in my exceptions.

      C++ has mountains of capabilities in libs/code outside the standard, JAVA has it all packed into the standard - what's the big deal?

      conclusion: languages are tools in a toolbox, stop getting pissy about any one of them. Hammer? Good. Screwdriver? Good. Right tool for the right job.

      --
      Loading...
  7. Ooops, misread the headline by gnunick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At first, I read that as "Oracle Has 'Destroyed' the Market For Java"... which, of course, seemed quite plausible.

    RIP SUN

    --
    I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Ooops, misread the headline by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
    2. Re:Ooops, misread the headline by hey! · · Score: 2

      At first, I read that as "Oracle Has 'Destroyed' the Market For Java"... which, of course, seemed quite plausible.

      Too late. Sun already did that -- at least if we're talking about Java as a mobile platform. I spent years tracking J2ME as a potential target for our apps. Java may not have been all things to all people, but back in the day (late 90s early 00s) personal basis profile would have been ideal for what we were doing. Even MIDP would have been a good match.

      The problem is that there never was *a* standard J2ME implementation; J2ME was only a set of specifications. Implementations came from third parties and they were either incompatible in various tricky ways or they were impractical to distribute to customers (e.g. IBM's Palm implementation of J2ME, which was almost impossible to buy unless you knew the right people at IBM, none of whom were interested in app developers). In practice that meant that if you wanted to develop for J2ME you were tied to phones from a particular carrier, and couldn't target PDAs or early tablet computers at all.

      When I heard about Dalvik I was overjoyed. Not because I thought it would be any fundamentally better than J2ME, but because Google was going to use it to create a cross-vendor, cross-carrier market for apps. I have no idea what the whole point of J2ME was for Sun. So far as I can see just about all the effort Sun put into it accomplished nothing.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Ooops, misread the headline by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 2

      When Alpha was introduced they laid out thirty years of growth for the platform, primarily because they designed for the long run. When HP was replacing Alpha with Itanium, they had to suppress Alpha benchmarks because it made their 'enterprise' chip look like the garbage that it was

      FWIW all RISC chips sucked at integer division, to quote:
      "When integer multiplication is cheaper than integer division, it is beneficial to substitute a multiplication for a division."
      https://gmplib.org/~tege/divcn...

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
  8. Really??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anybody feel sorry for Oracle???

  9. Oracle, please look in the mirror by JPyObjC+Dude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The contenders for biggest enemies of Java are:

    1) Micro$oft - Effectively killed the JavaBean web plugin market with their own lackluster JVM via EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish).

    JavaBeans is the technology that has the biggest negative view on the net and rightly so. If Microsoft had not done such a good job killing it, Java would likely be in a different light today as more energy would have been spent making JavaBean libraries better while the real engineers at Sun still had control of the source.

    2) Oracle - They just do not get open source or anything that came from Sun.

    Google has popularized Java way more than Oracle could ever imagine.

    "You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end" - B. Cantrill

  10. Ask.com has destroyed the market for java by De_Boswachter · · Score: 2

    FTFY

  11. Sorry... to what market are they entitled again? by Falconnan · · Score: 2

    Quick message to Oracle: Between the security officer coming off as, at best, a self-entitled, over-inflated executive believing her services are better than her customers deserve, and now the company claiming they have a "right" to market share, I think the psychology of the company is becoming quite clear. It isn't that their products are poor (which they are not), it is that they seem to believe that they deserve their piece of the market by divine providence.

    Please note, this is opinion, and only my own. Note to Oracle: One of the only things anyone is actually entitled to. Meaning: You are welcome to the opinion that you are above competitive market forces, but reality may or may not disagree. Be humble, quietly make better products than your competitors, and demonstrate effectiveness in the market rather than in the courts.

    Java could be great. Make it so, or let those who can do better do better. That is the nature of the free market large corporations are supposed to embrace.

  12. Cry me a river by chromaexcursion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sun destroyed the market for Java.
    Sun wanted to sell hardware, and they designed Java to run well with their hardware. Sun's ideal was the network is the computer. Java is/was a client language that could run on a lot of platforms, with in Sun's mind a Sun server at the other end. Didn't quite work out that way. Sun was going belly up, Oracle bought the carcass. Sun gave Java away. You can't put the jinni back in the bottle.
    Java was worthless when Oracle bought Sun. They're engaged in revisionist history trying to milk a dead cow.

    1. Re:Cry me a river by binarylarry · · Score: 2

      Uh most of the world's business and web software ran on Java when Oracle bought Sun.

      It was a huge reason why Oracle bought Sun in the first place, gave them some leverage over IBM, Google and other companies.

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    2. Re:Cry me a river by MouseR · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oracle had (and still have) much reliance on Java and Sun hardware for their server & middleware tiers. They simply could NOT let it die along with Sun or, worse yet, let it pass to a competitor.

      Disclaimer: that's as far as I will comment on that issue, as I am an Oracle employee. Though I have nothing to do with the Java or Sun group, the native mobile apps I develop eventually touches Java code, server side. It's everywhere.

  13. Keep up, or fall behind by Nyder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The tech industry, just like every industry, improves as people discover new and better ways to do things. If you can't keep up Oracle, you fall behind. And since you've chosen to litigate instead of innovate, you have fallen behind.

    No one is guaranteed profit.

    --
    Be seeing you...
  14. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, and what exactly did Sun do with that?

    Oh yeah, there is JavaFX, which still requires an OS to run on

    That is where the disconnect is

    --
    Wherever You Go, There You Are
  15. Re: Google/Android should replace Java with C# by binarylarry · · Score: 2

    Yeah because why only have a legal battle with one evil software compnay, when you could battle two at the same time! Just to show off how much of a silicon badass you are.

    Cmon Oracle and Microsoft, Google will fuck your shit up 2 on 1!

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  16. Jython by tepples · · Score: 2

    Can you imagine a interpreter of perl or python written in Java where no native option possible?

    Yes, and it's called Jython.

  17. Oracle confuses language and operating system by Morgaine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Android has now irreversibly destroyed Java 's fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system ,'

    Java is a programming language, not an operating system. Examples of operating systems are Linux and Unix.

    Nothing could have "destroyed Java's fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system" because the value proposition of Java as an operating system is zero, and always has been. It's like the value proposition of an orange to be an apple.

    Oracle's nonsensical claim might be merely a case of lawyers or managers showing their ignorance of the computing subject domain or just being sloppy with their terminology, which is not uncommon. However, it gets worse.

    A proprietary software package may have a calculated expectation of market share and profit if there is no competition, but this is not the case with programming languages because they always have competition from countless other languages. It is especially not the case with open source programming languages because they typically enjoy multiple implementations, and these make captive markets almost impossible to maintain.

    It seems therefore that Oracle's market expectations were based on a flawed analysis.

    That mistake would have made any market expectations unsafe, but any expectations were dealt a further blow by Oracle's highly abusive attempt to copyright SSO in their litigation against Google. This must have alienated practically everybody who knows anything about programming, and the likelihood is high that many Java programmers who had other languages available must have abandoned Java like the plague to avoid potential SSO copyright liability.

    In other words, if anyone killed off interest in Java, it was probably Oracle themselves.

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
  18. Re: Google/Android should replace Java with C# by edtice1559 · · Score: 2

    Google doesn't have to do any such thing. They can just get rid of the legacy Java APIs and, instead, provide modern ones using lambda expressions. Then they can provide a tool chain that goes directly from source to .dx files and skips the whole Java .class file intermediate step. I'm surprised actually that we still even have to compile to Java classes. Then, in order to have write-once, run-anywhere we can get an ART VM for non-Android operating systems.

  19. IBM will provide OS/2 by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    IBM will finally find a use for OS/2, as a mobile OS to replace Android!

  20. It always sucked by jakeelee · · Score: 2

    Java sucked from day one. Anything that can be "destroyed" by MS, Oracle, IBM or Sun was never worth a crap to begin with. I've programmed with MS .Net and Java and every Java solution took longer to code, was less reliable, slower and consumed more system resources. It got hyped because it was an alternative to MS back in the days when Ellison and McNealy went crying to the government over MS's supposed "monopoly".

    1. Re:It always sucked by TrueSpeed · · Score: 2

      Is that why Java rules the enterprise and Microsoft is relegated as a distant outsider? Java pretty much dominates enterprise development. C#? Not so much. Just ask the London stock exchange for experience with Microsoft and C#.

    2. Re:It always sucked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Is that why Java rules the enterprise and Microsoft is relegated as a distant outsider? Java pretty much dominates enterprise development. C#? Not so much. Just ask the London stock exchange for experience with Microsoft and C#.

      Since the London Stock Exchange switched to Linux/C++, your comment is irrelevant to this discussion.

      http://www.computerworlduk.com...

  21. Re:Oracle works its miracle by TrueSpeed · · Score: 2

    Java is no longer the carrot/bait to get users to buy Sun computers. Java is far more important than commodity hardware and Sun took too long to realize that or monetize Java's value like Oracle is trying to.

    Frankly, IP laws are quite lax if Google can simply take major parts of Java, reimplement the remaining parts, and pay Oracle exactly $0.

    Your recollection of history is quite lax. The VM patents Oracle asserted against Google were all defeated. All Oracle had left was the SSO of 37 Java API's. If the SSO of a subset of an API collection can be copyrighted then the US software industry is in for a world of hurt.

    Personally, if Oracle wins on copyright, I hope IBM goes after Oracle.

  22. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by MacTO · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  23. Re:Oracle's monopoly? by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oracle are the ones that have destroyed Java since nobody trusts Oracle and their licensing.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  24. Re: Google/Android should replace Java with C# by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  25. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by nikkipolya · · Score: 2

    I have used iPhone and iPad. They gave me a shitty experience. I felt like my devices were still owned by Apple and whenever I was using them I was just doing time. I moved to Android and it feels much better. I have a lot of freedom.

    Had Google just straight up used C or C++ we wouldn't be in this predicament.

    I sort of agree with you on that point. But C++ lacks core language support for so many fundamental things. Then there are a myriad 3rd party libraries with their own quirks.

  26. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    sony-e had a working prototype all java(with I suppose their own os underneath). basically android was a clone of that.

    but what sunoracle fucked up in the mid 00's was being too slow in developing j2me extensions(and the 'all java' phone os that they kept in different projects for years and years) and just badly managing how they could be used(four security dialogs for creating a file in a folder on the sd card each with two clicks from the user, for example - NO MATTER WHAT SIGNING YOU PAID FOR), thus the market for android was there when android emerged.

    as for j2me, the process a new API went through to be an approved API was just stupid. the end result was api's that had always some flaw on them or were just unusable from the day 1, like the j2me 3d _scene_ descriptor shit, which was just a wrong, wrong way to go about it on the hw and use it was launching for(like, the api might have been ok for making some animation suite or whatever, but shitty for making games).

    there was a market for a java development based smartphone os all right.. they just dragged their feet on it for way too long, so that market hole is now filled with android.

    they just didn't care about it enough to make sure that the shit they were certifying and dictating how it should be was usable at all.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  27. Java is not an operating system by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    I don't see how this argument is any different than "Apple's used of an operating system has destroyed the market..."

    BTW Oracle, the Android OS is not built in Java. At it's core it is a Linux kernel. There just happens to be a Java-like API and VM for running applications.

  28. Re:Oracle's monopoly? by Znork · · Score: 2

    No shit. If not for Android, maybe Nokias or Microsofts efforts would have been more successful, but Oracle has managed to create enough antipathy that people will go out of their way to avoid them by now.

  29. Oracle has destroyed all achievements of SUN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And now they even want to destroy the only working free and open-source mobile operating-system .. this is like destroying the ocean for profit, destroying the rain forest for profit or destroying free wisdom by patents .. so in the end Oracle yes indeed is as evil as any other terrorist / capitalist.

  30. Whoracle is Full of It by BrendaEM · · Score: 2

    If Java was profitable, wouldn't Sun been profitable in the first place?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  31. Wh Oracle is Full of it. by BrendaEM · · Score: 2

    If there was a good market for Java, wouldn't Sun have been been profitable in the first place?
    (Let's see if that title is acceptable for the filters.)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  32. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by Trongy · · Score: 2

    Android doesn't use Java. Android used to use the Dalvik runtime environment. In Android 5 they introduced ART (Android Run Time) to replace Dalvik.

    Dalvik and ART work like Java in that they execute compiled bytecode, but they are separate implementations and are not compatible with Java bytecode.

    You can write your own source code in the Java language and compile it to Dalvik/ART bytecode.

    Oracle is mad that Google made something that worked similarly to Java, but is not Java and isn't bytecode compatible.

  33. Oracle didn't need any help destroying Java by DrXym · · Score: 4, Insightful
    They managed to do it all by themselves. I used to program set top boxes with J2ME and dear god was it awful. J2ME was so stripped down that it simply wasn't fit for purpose by the end. It didn't even contain fundamental classes that had been in Java since 1.2 like ArrayList! And it was very expensive to licence too.

    So we ended up using another VM called Skelmir which was a clean room Java, roughly analogous to Java 1.5 SE albeit missing some stuff mostly in the javax & sun namespaces. Performance was better, it was cheaper and it was possible to develop normal Java code with a reasonable expectation it would work on the STB. I'm sure the same sentiment was felt everywhere. Companies resented being charging an arm and a leg for a piece of shit runtime which was barely fit for purpose.

    As for why Google succeeded where Oracle failed... It's because they offered more or less a full Java SE API and a rich mobile API that allowed developers to write apps without making compromises. It didn't really matter that the byte code was compiled into something else because they also provided excellent tools that integrated with Eclipse to take care of all that.

    I don't believe for a second that if Google hadn't used Java as their API that Oracle would have triumphed. Not in the slightest. If anything Google did Oracle a favour by using their language and therefore keeping it relevant for portable devices.

  34. Re:Oracle's monopoly? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2
    nobody trusts Oracle

    Hardly surprising really - after being repeatedly shafted by Oracle, anyone who has had dealings with them would probably rather not have a phone at all than be dependent on an Oracle product.

    Witness the way that their take over of Sun was seen as a step backwards - its not like Sun was revelling in a great reputation for its ways with customers.

    I suspect their motto is:

    "Let's be evil".

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  35. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by AC-x · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  36. Java fanboy here by SpaghettiPattern · · Score: 2

    Java fanboy here.

    Java is the new COBOL. that's a status very few general purpose languages have reached. It runs everywhere, can do crazy stuff and banks have embraced it. I'll not jump ship for a long time.

    But calling Java "a potential mobile device operating system" is bat shit crazy.

    --

    I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
  37. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by AC-x · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They didn't make something that worked similarly to Java - that would have been OK, C# is similar to Java after all. They made something that was *identical* to Java. If they didn't want to be sued they should have made their own API and their own language

    What it comes down to is should APIs be copyrightable. Google created their own implementation of the Java API, if companies are allowed to copyright APIs then you can kiss WINE goodbye immediately, anyone wanting to implement an existing API would also be in trouble, and you might not even be able to create a program that even accesses an API without explicit permission.

    To come back to your metaphor just because something implements the IDuck interface doesn't mean it's the same kind of duck.

  38. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by mariox19 · · Score: 2

    What Oracle fucked up on in the mid-Aughts was not copying Apple's iPhone innovation.

    --

    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

  39. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

    What freakin freedom? Why the fuck do you have to register an account at Google Play (and a credit card too boot) in order to download a fucking app! Cell phone carries lock down your phone - restricting access to certain features of that phone. And some phones may or may not be able to upgrade to newer versions of Android; the restriction is not based on hardware specs.

    Spare us your notion of freedom.

  40. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by omnichad · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  41. Re:Sun by mark-t · · Score: 2

    Google didn't see the point.... previously, Sun offered to license Java to them for 100M, but Google decided they would make a their own clean-room implementation that wouldn't be called Java in the first place, and so would not have to pay them anything. Later, when Sun was floundering and about to be bought, why would Google want to buy the company for access to a technology when they had already decided that they would go in a direction where they wouldn't need to pay licensing fees for that technology in the first place? The only thing Google can be faulted for with not buying Sun themselves is not anticipating that the company that *DID* buy Sun would turn around and say that even a clean-room reimplementation of Java wasn't enough to be free of obligation to them, when Sun had already apparently let the matter drop when Google announced their intention to not try and actually use what Sun called Java in the first place. This is just IMO, but I think that Google probably would have decided to buy Sun before Oracle did if they had realized the headache it may have saved them, but I doubt anyone could have reasonably foreseen at the time that is how things would ultimately go down.

    The biggest problem that I see, however, is that If Oracle is allowed to win this, then absolutely every single clean-room reimplementation of anything can become a target for a copyright infringement claim. And if something like that had been a precedent over a decade ago, the whole SCO vs. IBM thing over Linux could have gone *VERY* differently than it did.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  42. Re:You are talking about 2001-2004 technology! by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2

    It was not "pretty amazing". I have written J2ME apps. It was a disaster zone, mostly for policy not technical reasons.

    Problem one: its conformance testing was crap and the licensing for the upstream implementation was expensive. So, guess what, phone OEMs made their own. And did it badly. EVERY J2ME phone was full of bugs, often incredibly basic and obvious bugs like camera APIs that leaked every image taken (take three photos in a row->OutOfMemoryError), or drawing APIs that crashed the device if you tried to draw a bitmap to negative coordinates (correct behaviour is to clip).

    This meant that in practice you had to test every version of the app on every device, because bugs were so common.

    Problem two: it was tiny. Almost every API was optional, and Java has no good support for on the fly adaptation to missing APIs. So apps ended up needing a C style macro pre-processor to customise the app for every combination of bugs and missing features. You think Android is fragmented? I rofl in the face of Android fragmentation, because I've seen J2ME's equivalent.

    Problem three: the CLDC VM was unbelievably sluggish, even compared to the early Dalviks.

    Problem four: many APIs were protected by a code signing requirement that was painful to meet and often very expensive for no good reason. Forget about writing free hobby apps.

    Problem five: no app store. Every carrier ran its own, and if you wanted distribution ....... yup. They wanted money. Often, meetings and contracts too. Just forget it.

  43. Re:Then you don't quite get a number of things by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2

    3b. I've noticed the memory issue. I've also noticed a lot of java programs seem to have a hard time going beyond 1GB of ram. I'm sure there is a way to make them do that but... I've had to screw around with work arounds more than a few times to deal with that issue.

    There are people happily using Java with 300 gigabyte heaps. Look at the Azul Zing JVM for examples of this. Also: they're using it in ultra-low latency financial trading apps. Just because you haven't seen this sort of thing personally doesn't mean it never happens.

    As to your claim that it isn't slower if it has enough memory... That's not my experience. I'm sure I could get you testimonials and links to people talking about Java being slow. But I rather suspect you won't listen to it or will say it is invalid for some reason.

    Performance is complicated. There are lots of cases where a Java program is just as fast as a C++ program or even faster. PIC-optimisable virtual method dispatch in a tight loop is one example of where Java/JVM stuff has stomped C++ for many years, with devirtualisation optimisations only appearing very recently in GCC stuff it seems. HotSpot is an excellent compiler and can do a lot of interesting things.

    Moreover, it's not like for any program there's a choice of Java or C. Many developers use languages like Ruby or Python. It turns out that there's an advanced research JVM which allows you to co-compile Ruby and the C source code of Ruby/MRI extensions together with performance that's radically faster than the original code.

    But mostly, people use Java because the performance is good enough, and the benefits over the C/C++ ecosystem are big. For instance, you get reliable debuggers, stack traces that are never corrupted, no manual memory management, ultra-fast compiles, a huge and standarised package repositories/dependency management system, high quality profiling tools, lots of libraries etc.

    We have less bullshit to deal with the compiled programs. They just "work" more reliably.

    I don't doubt your experience but it has nothing to do with AOT compiled vs JIT compiled. Applets that stop working on newer JVMs are probably relying on bugs in earlier versions. This can happen any time there is dynamic linking. Every time I upgrade MacOS X some apps I use stop working properly, even though they're all compiled. Apple just isn't very good at backwards compatibility.

  44. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    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."
  45. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by AC-x · · Score: 2

    But it's not resolved because if it's fair use to re-implement an API then everything's fine. The problem is if APIs are copyrightable with no fair-use exemption to use/re-implement then that's an issue, because anyone who writes a compatibility layer or service that adheres to a 3rd party's standard is just one copyright claim away from ruin despite the actual implementation being an original work.

  46. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by lgw · · Score: 2

    "Install an APK"? Wait, I didn't think you could edit your hosts file without rooting the phone.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  47. Re: Oracle's monopoly? by segedunum · · Score: 2
    No. I think you genuinely believe you have something to say here, but you simply don't.

    1) Is a thing copyrightable? Does the author own the copyright? The answer is clearly (according to the Supreme Court) that APIs are copyrightable.

    We've been round this set of houses before in the 80s and 90s with DR DOS and IBM and Phoenix BIOSes. Every time someone has tried to claim that APIs are copyrightable, and courts have agreed, the inevitable problems crop up. Hence:

    2) Is there a fair use defense? This must be answered after question 1 is answered.

    This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The very reason someone else uses the same API is, by definition, interoperability. At the very least It is done to allow the same code to be recompiled and for developer familiarity with the API. 1 simply becomes a nonsense when you understand this, but unfortunately that decision was made by people with no knowledge of the topic they made the ruling over nor the precedents set here before. If APIs were practically copyrightable then the fair use clause shouldn't even be necessary.

    Unfortunately, yet again, legal people don't understand the difference between interfaces and software. It really isn't as if we haven't been here before and unfortunately we will go through the same thing all over again in this drawn out legal battle.