Six-Hour Meeting Friday Fails to End Oracle/Google Lawsuit (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google and Oracle executives met for six hours Friday in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve an ongoing copyright lawsuit. "Because an agreement couldn't be made, the next phase of the case will head to court in May, where a jury will decide if Google had the right to use certain parts of Oracle's programming language, Java, for free or if it owes Oracle damages..." reports Business Insider. "Last month, Google said that its damages expert strongly disagreed that it should owe Oracle upward of $8 billion for using certain parts of Oracle's software in its smartphone operating system, Android."
Friday's court-ordered talk included both Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Oracle CEO Safra Catz, and it marks the second time the two companies have failed to reach an out-of-court settlement, a fact alluded to by the case's judge in newly-released documents. "After an earlier run at settling this case failed, the court observed that some cases just need to be tried," reports the court docket. "This case apparently needs to be tried twice."

Comments

Any way they can both lose?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm rooting for Oracle.

Oracle just wants my money.

Google wants to sell details of my private life.

Re:Any way they can both lose?

[Tablizer]

Actually, I'm rooting for Oracle. Oracle just wants my money. Google wants to sell details of my private life.

It's kind of like deciding between Mussolini and Hitler.

You want to see them fight each other to death, with no survivor.

Re:Any way they can both lose?

[DaHat]

Oracle is also dying to be relevant again, apparently being taken by surprise by the cloud and not quite being sure how to adopt. Somehow I don't see running an Oracle DB on AWS or Azure is the way to go.

Re:Any way they can both lose?

[slashdot_commentator]

A lot of people picked Stalin over Hitler.

Re:Any way they can both lose?

[slashdot_commentator]

> apparently being taken by surprise by the cloud and not quite being sure how to adopt.

As much as I loathe Oracle, I'd hardly say they were "taken by surprise" by the introduction of cloud infrastructure. In fact, once Amazon was able to get a leg up on Google, Oracle totally saw the light. Cloud technology is an integral component to Oracle's strategy at this point; the question isn't how to adopt it; its more like how to monetize it.

It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time for Google to seriously consider switching to Rust for Android development. Rust is just the kind of language that's needed for mobile development: it's safe, it's fast, and it's the future. In fact the best thing about Rust is that it's an all-level programming language. You can use it for writing low level OS kernels and device drivers. You can use it for writing mid level servers. You can use it for writing high level apps. You can use it for writing ultra high level distributed software. Rust is the first programming language that provides a bottom-to-top solution. C++ got close but Rust has got it completely covered. The sooner Google switches to Rust the better for everyone, I think.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw, Rust is not really on the table for them, they are looking at Swift(cause this is apparently popular according to people OTHER then Apple apparently) and/or Kotlin.

Re: It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're switching to Swift so people will release their iOS apps on Android as well.

Switching to Rust doesn't solve anything.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[squiggleslash]

That wouldn't solve the problem. Ironically, Google could solve the problem by faithfully making a 100% copy of Oracle's version of Java, complete with their JVM, the core Android environment.

Oracle's argument, bizarrely, is that Google didn't copy them enough and therefore isn't entitled to any Java technologies it considers covered by its IP.

The entire situation is absurd, and if Oracle prevails, it'll have very interesting consequences in terms of continuing corporate support for the platform.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[phantomfive]

Google recently switched to openJDK, so there's no longer any legal reason for them to switch. They are now protected by the GPL (they weren't before).

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[phantomfive]

Google recently switched to openJDK, so they are good now, that is they are no longer infringing.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[twistedcubic]

Sorry, Larry, but there is no "infringing" at all.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Unlike nearly all of the other comments, which are just mindless Oracle bashing, the parent comment at least tries to come up with a viable technical solution for avoiding these kinds of legal issues.

And switching to NT or Unix was a viable technical solution for MS DOS users, but it didn't instantly and seamlessly replace all their existing applications.

Re:It's time for Google to switch to Rust.

[phantomfive]

The courts have already ruled that there was infringement. So as much as you disagree, your opinion doesn't matter much (unless you can convince many other people like you to change the laws).
In Google vs Oracle, it has been decided that Google was infringing. Now the trial has continued onward, and they are trying to determine if Google has a fair use defense.

Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

"a jury will decide if Google had the right to use certain parts of Oracle's programming language, Java, for free or if it owes Oracle damages"

That's the way Oracle wants to spin it.

Java is GPL'd, and Google didn't use Oracles/Sun Java machine anyway. So YES Google can use Oracles code because it's GPLd and Oracle agreed to that in the GPL. Do you mean "can Oracle back out of the GPL contract?" because no they can't. In any case Google did not use Oracles VM anyway. It used Davlik VM.

The question is, can Google use a piece of software that implements the same API as Oracle's/Sun Java. As if the API can be separated from the software somehow you can GPL the software without GPL'ing the API it implements. Fat fooking chance.

Oracle bought Java when it bought Sun. Sun made a product called 'WABI' a Windows clone that implemented the Windows API on Unix. So Oracle are hoping to fool the jury here. It implemented someone elses API, the API in question is under GPL, i.e. they explicitly gave permission in contract form to copy it.

So what is the question really.... can Oracle fool a jury into making a bad decision letting Oracle break a contract and putting all open software at risk?

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

can Oracle fool a jury into making a bad decision letting Oracle break a contract and putting all open software at risk?

Maybe, but even if they did it probably wouldn't stand up on appeal and both Google and Oracle have very deep pockets. This could go on for decades as it winds it's way through the courts. Once again, the only people that win are the lawyers.

Re: Spin much

[slazzy]

Just got a call from oracle database sales team, I told them to fuck off.

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is GPL'd

Java is released under several licenses. GPL is one of them, but Google very purposefully did not take the GPL.

Re:Spin much

[BradMajors]

The issue is that Google took Java and created something from it that isn't quite Java. Oracle believes Java code should be used for "Java".

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft is enjoying the whole affair.

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that Google took Java and created something from it that isn't quite Java. Oracle believes Java code should be used for "Java".

No, that's what Microsoft tried to do, and Sun sued them for it, successfully. AFAICT, Google has been very careful not to change Java. Extend it, sure, but that's what everyone does when they write libraries.

Re:Spin much

[phantomfive]

Java is GPL'd, and Google didn't use Oracles/Sun Java machine anyway. So YES Google can use Oracles code because it's GPLd and Oracle agreed to that in the GPL. Do you mean "can Oracle back out of the GPL contract?" because no they can't.

This is a horrible misunderstanding of the case: it has nothing to do with the GPL because Google didn't follow the terms of the GPL (if they had, this case would have been done with long ago, as the FSF pointed out in their brief to the supreme court).

The question is, can Google use a piece of software that implements the same API as Oracle's/Sun Java. As if the API can be separated from the software somehow you can GPL the software without GPL'ing the API it implements. Fat fooking chance.

That's the question right now. The appeals court decided that yes, Oracle can own the copyright on the API. The question is whether Google has a fair use defense (and it will be an interesting case, worth following closely); but again, it has nothing to do with the GPL.

Re: Spin much

[DaHat]

It's risky doing that, for all you now they are calling to say you haven't paid enough for your current license, and that they will let you resolve this issue now cheaply, or later for even more money.

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't use the full JVM, because it was considered too big for smartphones. The freely available GPL version only applies to full implementations. This is their problem.

Re:Spin much

[Tatarize]

Microsoft got sued on the trademark. They called their VM Java, and they were actually pretty crappy at it.

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

They had a point, people were hating Java at that time because Microsoft was saying they had a proper implementation and it was buggy crap, making people think that Java was buggy crap. That's a pretty solid lawsuit. They are using our trademark and making us look bad.

Re: Spin much

[Dogtanian]

You're assuming that they're calling him as an existing customer of Oracle's rather than someone they're wanting to rope in to using Oracle's software in the first place.

Of course, Oracle's business model *is* to get customers using their software, then once they're locked in to and reliant upon that infrastructure, squeeze them for every penny they have with the threat to withdraw their license or ramp up the price horrendously. So if he's in the latter group then, yeah, bad idea.

'Course, a really bad idea would be to leave yourself open to that sort of legalised extortion in the first place, especially if you know (as anyone ought to these days) what Oracle's modus operandi is. So if he's in the former group- and sure Oracle don't have any leverage they can use against him- telling them to fuck off is absolutely the most sensible decision.

Re: Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually after doing something by hand for the third time, I just write a script to automate it.

Re:Spin much

[sjames]

Google looked at Java and implemented their own take on it that is compatible at the source level.

Re:Spin much

[Rob Y.]

But they didn't use the mobile version either. That's where Oracle (or Sun) miscalculated. They figured they'd GPL big-iron Java to keep the language in widespread use - and make their money selling a non-GPL'd mobile version. But they didn't count on Google building their own. Perfectly legal, if not in keeping with Oracle's plans.

So now Oracle is trying to make an unprecedented argument that the API definitions for a language's core libraries is somehow separately copyright-able from the language itself - as if an API were able to be defined 'differently' without working differently, because, face it, an API is just a spec, and by definition, in order to work, a spec must be defined exactly once. To say this can be used the way Oracle wants is to say that all computer programming for the past 40 years is in violation of this new view.

And seriously, you can't build a free OS off of non-free code, so there was really no way for Android to have been based off the 'official' mobile Java - and still be Android. And a non-free Android would never have become the leader. Trying to collect royalties for an open source language after it has spawned a successful open source OS on a weird technicality after the fact is kind of having your free cake and charging for it too...

Re:Spin much

[sjames]

Actually Sun sued MS for calling the bastardized result Java. If MS had marketed it as METOO or ITSATRAP a MS only incompatible language, there would have been no lawsuit.

Re:Spin much

[sjames]

And worse, MS threw in just enough bits of MS-only API that it was likely to fool people into writing Windows only software while relying on the promist that Java programs run everywhere.

Re:Spin much

[rastos1]

Fat fooking chance.

You are being rational. That's now how the court room works.

Re:Spin much

[slashdot_commentator]

In any case Google did not use Oracles VM anyway. It used Davlik VM.

No, as of Licorice, it uses the ART VM.

Re:Spin much

[inline_four]

If I remember this right, Oracle's grievance was that some of the Android source was shown to have come from non-GPL Java libraries. It's not just about the API, but the implementations as well. In light of this, it looks as though Google made a mistake. I doubt that it can be demonstrated that Google's actions caused $8B of damages to Oracle in missed business opportunities in the mobile market, which is what I think their case alleges. We'll see.

Holds pinky to mouth

[KeensMustard]

8 .... beeeliion dollars

Mwhah hah hah.

Re:Holds pinky to mouth

[Tatarize]

So long as you wouldn't be bailing me out if I were millions of dollars in debt from my collapsing single-truck-empire, then yes that shouldn't be there. But, the damages could certainly be the value of the truck plus the money you might have made if you had the truck, plus interest, minus the value of the now returned truck.

Oracle wouldn't even exist today...

[Anonymous Coward]

If IBM had sued them into oblivion for copying their entire database code and relabeling it Oracle.
Now, APIs, which everyone knows, cannot be copyrighted because they are used for inter program communications, calls, functions, etc...

Or to sum it all up in a few seconds,

[dsmatthews9379]

Pichai vs Catz https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

six hours

[phantomfive]

You kind of have to wonder what they talked about for six hours.

Re:six hours

[Tatarize]

No. You can have 90% of the money this idiotic suit will cost us, nothing more.
Fuck you I want 8 billion dollars.
Wow you suck at being a patent troll, fine, we'll go to trial. It'll take a decade and you'll be belly up in five years.

Google using parts of Oracle's Java?

[khz6955]

"the next phase of the case will head to court in May, where a jury will decide if Google had the right to use certain parts of Oracle's programming language, Java, for free or if it owes Oracle damages"

Google designed a totally independent implementation of the Java API. Java was originally described as being free to use unencumbered by a license by Jonathan Schwartz before Sun sold it to Oracle. The Google version used in android is a totally independent and unique design. Does not use the Java Virtual Machine but one of Dalvik or the Android Runtime (ART).

"Schwartz explained that if the Apache Software Foundation wished to release a product, even if it implemented Java APIs through Apache Harmony, it could do so without a license -- so long as it does not call it Java." ref

Oracle has a toxic, money-grabbing culture

[Bearhouse]

I won't discuss the technical and legal aspects that have already been well-addressed by insightful posts above.
Unfortunately, whilst they are completely correct, logic and reason have nothing to do with this case.
There are perhaps a few of us ex-IBMers still around here on /. who have had the dubious pleasure of knowing Larry Ellison.
The man's a shit; period.
A financially-successful shit, perhaps. He's not the first.
But still a shit.
This case is just another example of the toxic culture he created in Oracle; try as you will to reinvent yourself as a "philanthropist" Larry, those of us who know you...know you're just a nasty little shit.

Re:Oracle has a toxic, money-grabbing culture

[thephydes]

Can't comment on Ellison personally, but it does seem that a LOT of successful business people (I know a few) are shits. Perhaps that is what is needed to become financially successful? Of course money does not make you a good person, as you have pointed out.

No Google will Win.

[Tatarize]

No. From a legal standpoint Java was released at one point on a free license. So Google has every right to the language. They rewrote the libraries as such (there are notable differences and improvements in Android's). Java was released under an open license at one point. So they totally can use the language as it appeared at that point. Also Java is just gets converted over to Dalvik bytecode and then compiled on ART in modern Android or runs on the Dalvik VM in the earlier versions.

They are *only* using the language itself (and there's some rumor about adopting Swift as a first order language as it was equally opened under an open license).

Make no mistake, Oracle should lose. They don't have to change a thing.

Re:No Google will Win.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. From a legal standpoint Java was released at one point on a free license. So Google has every right to the language.

No, it was released under a specific license (GPL) that Google specifically and deliberately did not take on or comply with. Had they done so, they might not be in this mess. The district court will now be considering the "fair use" defence that Google's lawyers have submitted to the court, which has nothing to do with the GPL.

https://www.eff.org/cases/oracle-v-google

Re:No Google will Win.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So you're claiming that Google included Oracle's GPL'd code in a version of Android?

Re:No Google will Win.

[sjames]

No, they included 7000 lines of declarations that look like Oracles because there's no real room for creativity.

Let's say I implement a function to play music and I declare it as boolean Play(void);

Now, you write an entirely different function to play video. You might well declare it as boolean Play(void);

Have you violated my copyright? Did I somehow gain the rights to any function called Play that takes no parameters and returns a boolean value?

Re:No Google will Win.

[ShooterNeo]

Caveat : I'm of mixed feeling myself.

Anyways, here's where you might have missed the mark a little bit. Sure, "bool Play(void);" isn't much. And, by itself, I'd agree with you.

But when you write an interface to a program - something I'm in the process of doing now - the interface itself reveals part of your software architecture. And as the architecture changes, as you eliminate countless bad early decisions, so does the interface. If someone just gets to grab your interface for free (if you didn't put a permissive license on it), they are also getting a partial blueprint to the architecture of your software. It's going to be easier and cheaper for them to make a knockoff than it was for you. As you probably know if you are a programmer, the decisions you make on how to subdivide a task and what information is passed where is actually the majority of the solution. Good, isolated and decoupled functions that actually implement a solution are easy, and you'll get them right eventually. It's the overall interface that matters and mistakes here are expensive because to fix them often ends up affecting dozens or hundreds of places.

A 7000 line header file is a whole interface. It's like a paragraph, where that single boolean function prototype is but a single word. In the written world, you can't copyright the word "the" but you can copyright a big enough chunk of text...

Re:No Google will Win.

[sjames]

The part you're missing is that architecture is not protectable by copyright. You can copyright a particular detective novel, but you cannot copyright the concept and structure of a detective novel. You can copyright a particular implementation of Java, but not the language itself (which is described in part by those headers).

Re:No Google will Win.

[TheSunborn]

No they did not include 7000 lines of Oracles code.

What they did was write 7000 lines with the same semantic as the Oracle code.

Re:No Google will Win.

[ShooterNeo]

Maybe, maybe not. Obviously, I'm going to have to say that you and I aren't the arbiter of what copyright law covers or doesn't cover, the courts are. They sided with Oracle in the first round, and clearly there is some reason to think they might side with Oracle this time, or Oracle's attorneys would have settled.

I was addressing whether or not said architecture should even be copyrightable at all. I think it should be, to a point. Sort of how you can't copyright a structural arch but you can copyright the design of an entire building.

Re:No Google will Win.

[ShooterNeo]

Then this is a slam dunk for google. It shouldn't even go to trial...oh. It is still going to trial?

Re:No Google will Win.

[sjames]

Nothing is a slam dunk when the players have millions to spend on lawyers.

Re:Submit that to google's legal team?

[phantomfive]

The quote comes from testimony in the first trial.....I think Google lawyers know about it.

Bad Idea - Legal Precedent

[ytene]

Respectfully, I think that is a hugely dangerous outlook for any "tekkie" to hold. The essence of Oracle's argument is that they want to hold declarative structures as "copyrightable", which is not too far removed from trying to copyright the first couple of notes of a piece of music [something the law deliberately excludes and for good reason].

If Oracle were to win this case, it would hand ***far too much power*** to any first-to-file player in the copyright space. An Oracle win would run the risk of destroying the software world as we know it. What Oracle are trying to claim in court is that if they publish an API, they get to decide whether or not your use of that API is in breach of their copyright. Even if that "API" extends to nothing more than declaratives.

Sometimes [and particularly in this specific case] the implications and subtlety of the arguments do a very good job of hiding the real-world ramifications of a particular ruling. Make no mistake, an Oracle win could be a DISASTER for the software community, most especially the FOSS community.

Re:Bad Idea - Legal Precedent

[sjames]

Far more than the software world. Imagine if the ability to copyright a database extended to the schema? There can be only one database that has phone number, last name, first name, address!

Re:Bad Idea - Legal Precedent

[phantomfive]

The essence of Oracle's argument is that they want to hold declarative structures as "copyrightable",

No, they already won that argument. APIs have been ruled copyrightable. The End. (A supreme court ruling could change that in the future, though).

If Oracle were to win this case, it would hand ***far too much power*** to any first-to-file player in the copyright space.

You don't file copyrights, man. For example, the comment you just wrote is copyrighted, even though you didn't file anywhere.

Make no mistake, an Oracle win could be a DISASTER for the software community, most especially the FOSS community.

No, if Oracle wins, then the world will say, "Oh, Google should have done a better job making sure their copying was 'fair use.' Fortunately, copying for interoperability purposes has already been ruled fair use in many cases, so only Google is screwed here."

Re:Bad Idea - Legal Precedent

[ytene]

Actually, you absolutely *can* file a copyright claim. That's why there is "copyright.gov", the United States Copyright Office. For example, there have been times when two different US movie studios both release a movie with pretty much exactly the same plot at pretty much exactly the same time... A good example would be "Drop Zone", starring Wesley Snipes and "Terminal Velocity", starring Charlie Sheen - both released in 1994 (purely by coincidence).

It didn't happen in the case of those two films, but it would have been entirely possible for one to have filed a copyright claim on their plot and followed up with a court injunction against the other studio. Such action would not have needed a formal copyright claim, but it would have been done.

A perhaps more relevant example would come from the court case between The SCO Group (TSG) and Novell, after the latter stepped in and granted IBM the right to use SVRX source code via a perpetual, irrevocable license. TSG tried to argue back that they, not Novell, owned the code - and went so far as to file a copyright claim in the process. See groklaw.net for details.

You are absolutely right to point out that you don't *need* to file for a copyright on anything you produce, because you get an implicit claim on your own works. However, in scenarios where your ownership could be called into question, filing doesn't hurt. And, for those who want to secure some form of protection but don't want to stiff for the copyright fees, print off your works, put it in an envelope, then mail it to yourself. If your letter has a clear "frank" [postal stamp] on it, then just keep it sealed tight - at a pinch a court might accept that as evidence...

Re:Bad Idea - Legal Precedent

[phantomfive]

That's true, I should have said, "You don't file to get a copyright"

Whoricle Still At It

[BrendaEM]

They just bought a bunch of someone else's IP, so they can attack?
Perhaps they should do something constructive, instead.

I feel bad. I have friends who work at Oricle, and I yet, I have no respect for the company.

Licensing Shakedown

[ytene]

I'm sure that Larry Ellison has a burning desire to be relevant again, but I suspect another reason might be the way that Microsoft have been turning tricks on all the companies using Android on their phone hardware, sticking them with patent license suits. Oracle figure that if they can stake a claim on some Intellectual Property in Android, they will be able to just hold out their hand too...

What does a GPL cover?

[mbkennel]

The courts have ruled that an API is copyrightable.

Now, the question is whether Google's use of the API violates the GPL contract or not?

"The freely available GPL version only applies to full implementations"

Does it? Does GPL prohibit somebody from taking part of a piece of software, and then using it in a GPL-compliant manner?

Next, did Google use the API's (let's say to be concrete the interface definitions), in a GPL-compliant manner?