What? How did Google manage to release an program/tool based on GPL code under a non-GPL license? Seems the more rocks you pick up, the more critters you see.
Google was already asked nicely in a luvvy-duvvy way by Sun to knock it off and stop fragmenting Java.
But I guess Eric Schmidt just laughed it off, or he thought that the risk of infringing Sun was worth it in the extra money they would make.
Why isn't J2ME appropriate for a smartphone? There are plenty of nice games and whatnot available as Java mobile apps, and it seems most of what people download is games. I think the latest J2ME has touchscreen support. J2ME has support for network (Internet) access, phone contacts access, text, graphics, sprites, and a lot of other stuff. I think it's fine for 66% of the apps out there.
It was pure evil of Android to attempt to not pay Sun.
The suit doesn't have to do with OpenJDK. Google didn't use OpenJDK.
They used another implementation, parts of which have been shown to be basically copy/paste/rename jobs.
And they mangled the implementation to half be Java and half not, while still calling it Java all over the place in their developer docs.
Google could have used a fully-compliant implementation of Java. Or it could have licensed J2ME (which was never free--it paid for free Java). But it didn't.
> Please correct me if you think I am off base in any way.
Lemme take a shot.
J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition) was never free. Sun required (and got) royalties for handsets.
Sun took that money, and release open-source goodness to the world (as you mentioned).
All the manufacturers paid, and all was right in the world. Except one day, a company called Android (later bought by Google) thought it would be a good idea to come up with a Java clone that wasn't quite a Java clone, but they would still call it "Java" in their developer documentation to attract Java developers and make use of existing Java code. The reason for this convoluted mess was all to avoid paying royalty fees to Sun, that open-source loving company.
Standard J2ME apps didn't run on Android. Sun didn't really like what Android was doing to fragment Java, but didn't have the fortitude to make them stop. Google could have at any time made an agreement with Sun (even on a flat-fee basis, and not per-piece), but chose not to.
Now they're dealing with Oracle. I hope Google settles, but they really brought this on themselves. And I really wished they had paid money to Sun in the first place.
It can't claim to be made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and at the same time cling to legalistic interpretations to avoid paying royalties or license fees to Sun for mobile Java (which was never free).
You know how a lot of companies have free and "pro" versions of their open-source code. Often the "pro" version is nothing more than a SKU to allow devs to have corporate accounting pay money to open-source companies.
So it's all the more puzzling when Google thought it would be a good idea to stiff Sun by coming up with a chimera Java implementation to avoid royalties. Doesn't friendship run both ways? Why is Sun supposed to be loyal to the "Do no Evil" Google, and Google doesn't have to pay a few cents (figuratively) to Sun?
Why does it hurt Oracle/Sun's rep and goodwill to prevent Google from fragmenting Java, while it does no harm to Google to fragment Java and not pay its fair share for Java?
But, Oracle is, generally, in the right (if not in every single motion that the lawyers file).
Google/Android embraced/extended Java in order to avoid having to pay any money to Sun, which was also a weaselly move. All this while both claiming Android to be and not be Java at the same time.
Would that be cheaper than if they had just agreed to a fair royalty agreement with Sun (a company that open-sourced OpenOffice, Solaris, Java, and others)?
It's possible the extra income might just have staved off the need to be sold. Karma payback.
And was there really a need to be gratuitously incompatible with standard Java J2ME applications? All while riding the white horse of "protecting the Java community" from the big, bad Sun/Oracle?
Let's say your a corporation (or small business or a mini-ISV) that's standardized on Java as a dev platform.
Do you want to see Java everywhere, or a fragmented ecosystem (ego-system) of everybody making "Java" clones that aren't compatible with standard Java?
While in the first case, your code can run a lot of different places, in the second, you're again having to modify for each different platform.
What Oracle is doing is basically the same as in the Sun/MS case: it's trying to hold together the Java platform.
I realize, though, that lawyers are scum, and that contributes to a bad impression.
Sorry, but Google flubbed on this particular file. If the particular coder who was responsible for that also worked the same magic on other files, Google's going to be in a world of hurt.
Cananical is pretty good with their declaration that Ubuntu will always be free.
Nokia has the following positives: -Bought and LGPL'ed Qt, the underpinning of KDE -N900 -They open sourced Maemo -They open sourced Symbian -Meego, a Linux-based OS more open than Android -They generally sell phones that don't tie you to a carrier.
Well, Android mangled (in Sun's) eyes Java. While Sun grants a patent license for full, conforming implementations of Java, it doesn't do so for "do your own thang" versions.
The difference now being that Oracle isn't a pussycat like Sun is (was).
>Seeing how liberals tend to marry liberals and conservatives tend to marry conservatives; I could see how it might affect the gene pool. Does this mean that the next war between the two sides will be considered a race war?
Here's an idea: bifurcate the United States. Liberals get the west coast except San Diego, conservatives the interior plus the south, and the east coast to liberals.
Run Conservatopia as a hard-core clean, cut, conformist, no hand-outs, no compassion for the down on your luck, no regulation, prayer in schools, etc.
Run Liberaltopia as a hard-core prenatal to old-age social assistance, Keynesian economics, full-on quotas, unicameral government, no states, no God-talk, etc.
Would that solve the perennial liberal-conservative fights? And who would come out ahead?
Don't use dumbed down providers like HostGator or the atrocious GoDaddy. Dreamhost (for all its occasional problems) provides full shell access with every account (no ridiculous photo ID faxing) with a laid-back attitude as long as you're not bringing down the server. (Doesn't mean they want to ssh tunnel, but they also provide a VPN option.)
There are also some venerable free providers out there, but the rule is to not talk about them.
accountant with horn-rimmed glasses. He didn't know how many pull-ups he could do because he had never done any.
He was overwhelmed with the deluge of information.
When he couldn't keep it in his cubicle any longer, he starting taking off his glasses on off-work hours, and resorted to drive-by Firesheeping, destruction of any and all HP printers flashing PC LOAD LETTER, and MITM attacks for kicks.
Slashdot Mirror
> Maybe that's trying to get rid of free decent Java IDEs and muscle the makers of the rest into paying them a fee.
Well, they were giving away JDeveloper even before they bought Sun.
Now, instead of ditching Netbeans, or making people pay for it, they going to be supporting both IDEs, for free.
JDeveloper and NetBeans - The Official Answers
Somebody mod this funny.
What? How did Google manage to release an program/tool based on GPL code under a non-GPL license? Seems the more rocks you pick up, the more critters you see.
The thing is, they're calling it "Java" all over the place.
They calling it ~Java for legal cover. And then they call it Java to get developer interest.
So basically, they're trying to have it both ways.
Google was already asked nicely in a luvvy-duvvy way by Sun to knock it off and stop fragmenting Java.
But I guess Eric Schmidt just laughed it off, or he thought that the risk of infringing Sun was worth it in the extra money they would make.
Why isn't J2ME appropriate for a smartphone? There are plenty of nice games and whatnot available as Java mobile apps, and it seems most of what people download is games. I think the latest J2ME has touchscreen support. J2ME has support for network (Internet) access, phone contacts access, text, graphics, sprites, and a lot of other stuff. I think it's fine for 66% of the apps out there.
It was pure evil of Android to attempt to not pay Sun.
The suit doesn't have to do with OpenJDK. Google didn't use OpenJDK.
They used another implementation, parts of which have been shown to be basically copy/paste/rename jobs.
And they mangled the implementation to half be Java and half not, while still calling it Java all over the place in their developer docs.
Google could have used a fully-compliant implementation of Java. Or it could have licensed J2ME (which was never free--it paid for free Java). But it didn't.
> Please correct me if you think I am off base in any way.
Lemme take a shot.
J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition) was never free. Sun required (and got) royalties for handsets.
Sun took that money, and release open-source goodness to the world (as you mentioned).
All the manufacturers paid, and all was right in the world. Except one day, a company called Android (later bought by Google) thought it would be a good idea to come up with a Java clone that wasn't quite a Java clone, but they would still call it "Java" in their developer documentation to attract Java developers and make use of existing Java code. The reason for this convoluted mess was all to avoid paying royalty fees to Sun, that open-source loving company.
Standard J2ME apps didn't run on Android. Sun didn't really like what Android was doing to fragment Java, but didn't have the fortitude to make them stop. Google could have at any time made an agreement with Sun (even on a flat-fee basis, and not per-piece), but chose not to.
Now they're dealing with Oracle. I hope Google settles, but they really brought this on themselves. And I really wished they had paid money to Sun in the first place.
You know, Google can't have it both ways.
It can't claim to be made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and at the same time cling to legalistic interpretations to avoid paying royalties or license fees to Sun for mobile Java (which was never free).
You know how a lot of companies have free and "pro" versions of their open-source code. Often the "pro" version is nothing more than a SKU to allow devs to have corporate accounting pay money to open-source companies.
So it's all the more puzzling when Google thought it would be a good idea to stiff Sun by coming up with a chimera Java implementation to avoid royalties. Doesn't friendship run both ways? Why is Sun supposed to be loyal to the "Do no Evil" Google, and Google doesn't have to pay a few cents (figuratively) to Sun?
Why does it hurt Oracle/Sun's rep and goodwill to prevent Google from fragmenting Java, while it does no harm to Google to fragment Java and not pay its fair share for Java?
You smell weaselly lawyers (is that redundant)?
But, Oracle is, generally, in the right (if not in every single motion that the lawyers file).
Google/Android embraced/extended Java in order to avoid having to pay any money to Sun, which was also a weaselly move. All this while both claiming Android to be and not be Java at the same time.
Wait, I though the Googleplex was claiming that Android isn't Java.
So how could Oracle's suit against Android be an attack on Java?
Brain exploding in 1, 2, 3 ...
Would that be cheaper than if they had just agreed to a fair royalty agreement with Sun (a company that open-sourced OpenOffice, Solaris, Java, and others)?
It's possible the extra income might just have staved off the need to be sold. Karma payback.
And was there really a need to be gratuitously incompatible with standard Java J2ME applications? All while riding the white horse of "protecting the Java community" from the big, bad Sun/Oracle?
Why would Oracle/Sun sue Apple? Apple bought a Java license from Sun.
By contrast Android/Google tried to weasel out of paying a pittance to Sun, and never had an agreement with Sun.
Java isn't poison to anybody. You can use Java for free (and freely) while keeping within Sun licenses and grants.
Android, Inc. and later Google came up with a hare-brained scheme to avoid giving royalties to Sun by creating a pseudo-Java implementation.
But they also wanted to play both sides by channeling existing Java developers' expertise and code.
If you ask me, that was Evil, because Sun was one of the Good Guys.
The funniest thing about it is that Google wants to claim both that Android isn't Java and that the suit is an attack on ... Java!
Let's say your a corporation (or small business or a mini-ISV) that's standardized on Java as a dev platform.
Do you want to see Java everywhere, or a fragmented ecosystem (ego-system) of everybody making "Java" clones that aren't compatible with standard Java?
While in the first case, your code can run a lot of different places, in the second, you're again having to modify for each different platform.
What Oracle is doing is basically the same as in the Sun/MS case: it's trying to hold together the Java platform.
I realize, though, that lawyers are scum, and that contributes to a bad impression.
Oracle isn't killing Java. It's just trying to prevent Android (now bought by Google) from embracing and extending it.
If anything, what would kill Java is twenty different non-compatible entities all wink-wink, nod-nod claiming to be Java.
Sun thought the same thing, but it didn't have the cojones to do anything other than send love-notes to Google about it.
Well, if it's GPL, obviously it's not kosher for Harmony or Android to relicense it, right?
Why is this modded flamebait?
Come on, the code is ripped or its not.
Sorry, but Google flubbed on this particular file. If the particular coder who was responsible for that also worked the same magic on other files, Google's going to be in a world of hurt.
ZDNet code comparo
http://www.binplay.com/2010/10/look-at-copied-oracle-code.html
And yeah, if M$ did the same thing (embrace and "extend") to Python or PERL that Android did to Java, the community would be up in arms.
Interesting ranking.
Cananical is pretty good with their declaration that Ubuntu will always be free.
Nokia has the following positives:
-Bought and LGPL'ed Qt, the underpinning of KDE
-N900
-They open sourced Maemo
-They open sourced Symbian
-Meego, a Linux-based OS more open than Android
-They generally sell phones that don't tie you to a carrier.
Well, Android mangled (in Sun's) eyes Java. While Sun grants a patent license for full, conforming implementations of Java, it doesn't do so for "do your own thang" versions.
The difference now being that Oracle isn't a pussycat like Sun is (was).
>Seeing how liberals tend to marry liberals and conservatives tend to marry conservatives; I could see how it might affect the gene pool. Does this mean that the next war between the two sides will be considered a race war?
Here's an idea: bifurcate the United States. Liberals get the west coast except San Diego, conservatives the interior plus the south, and the east coast to liberals.
Run Conservatopia as a hard-core clean, cut, conformist, no hand-outs, no compassion for the down on your luck, no regulation, prayer in schools, etc.
Run Liberaltopia as a hard-core prenatal to old-age social assistance, Keynesian economics, full-on quotas, unicameral government, no states, no God-talk, etc.
Would that solve the perennial liberal-conservative fights? And who would come out ahead?
Don't use dumbed down providers like HostGator or the atrocious GoDaddy. Dreamhost (for all its occasional problems) provides full shell access with every account (no ridiculous photo ID faxing) with a laid-back attitude as long as you're not bringing down the server. (Doesn't mean they want to ssh tunnel, but they also provide a VPN option.)
There are also some venerable free providers out there, but the rule is to not talk about them.
accountant with horn-rimmed glasses. He didn't know how many pull-ups he could do because he had never done any.
He was overwhelmed with the deluge of information.
When he couldn't keep it in his cubicle any longer, he starting taking off his glasses on off-work hours, and resorted to drive-by Firesheeping, destruction of any and all HP printers flashing PC LOAD LETTER, and MITM attacks for kicks.
He was Info-Man.
Well, it (my comment) was Funny just yesterday. Somebody please re-mod it to Funny.
I'm still using Archie.
Oh, and get off the lawn!
Why do they have to dig?
Didn't the phone company plan far enough out to put manholes in so they could pull new wire in without messing up people's driveways?