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

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.

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

[slazzy]

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

Re:Spin much

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[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

[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...

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.

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.

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

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: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?