Yes, it seems you are correct, The Verge has a better summary.
Bloch testified that he wrote the original rangeCheck code, present in a file called Arrays.java, back in 1997. In court documents, Sun claims a copyright date of 2004 in connection with the rangeCheck code. Block began working for Google in 2004.
The exact same nine lines are also present in an Android file named Timsort.java, which Bloch testified he wrote in 2007.
When asked if he had copied the copyrighted Sun code directly for Timsort.java, Bloch initially responded "I don't recall." In a playback of his 2011 deposition, however, Bloch states that "the same order and same name is a strong indicator that it is likely that I did."
However, he noted that it was a good engineering practice to use the same method, and that he not only contributed the code to Android, but to the Java Development Kit as well (Timsort.java is now part of Java SE 7).
Josh Bloch, who wrote rangeCheck, testified that “[a]ny competent high school programmer could write” that method. RT 815:13-16 (Bloch). Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell).
[PJ: Let me remind everyone that the testimony was that a contractor, Noser, did it, and it did it contrary to specific instructions from Google.]
Let me come back to rangeCheck. Every time I talk about this, I feel like I'm either saying it's important or it's not important. That's a false dichotomy. No one can say it's a big thing. But it was something that was copied, and it was important to TimSort, which had a significant performance advantage.
Google did not copy it. Their contractor reverse engineered Sun/Oracle's code - despite being told by Google explicitly not to do so!
Google used Noser to provide additional resources and accelerate the completion(?) of Android.
On March 28, 2007, Google hired Noser to deliver a package of Java libraries./See/ TX 30 (Statement of Work between Google and Noser, dated March 28, 2007)
On April 19, 2007, Andy Rubin wrote to Alan Eustace regarding the "Noser agreement": "This is our final java solution — consultants to take our java libraries as a starting place, and bring our java classes up to J2SE spec, in a clean room environment. They have signed up to a pretty aggressive schedule for quite a bit of work. This deal replaces the $18M approved acquisition that we decided to pass on. Barring any unforeseen surprises, I think this is our last big deal ($4M)." (TX 438.)
In the US it's legal to have monopolies as long as they're not "damaging". In the EU it's illegal to have a monopoly regardless, they're always damaging according to our law. Two fundamentally different approaches.
I think that's probably more a matter of the path of least resistance.
The US doesn't get its way at the expense of everyone else, just a little more in its favor sometimes. That's probably better than no progress at all in some areas. If the issue is of crucial importance even the US meets serious resistance (see ACTA, GM foods and WTO).
The EU is also attempting to lead by policy, such as the RoHS directive, and increasingly becoming more proficient/successful at it. Similar to how California sets the standard for the US in many areas. There are [some]gains for the majority despite the consequences, and someone needs to take the lead.
I am by no means an apologist for the US, I'm a European/Scandinavian, and while I have mixed emotions my aim is to be objective and try to view matters in a historical/anthropological perspective. It's obviously too broad a subject to answer with a few sentences:)
Thank you, I think it's fair to say the US receives plenty of feedback and most of it's negative. That's just the way humans work. We hardly praise people when things are just fine?:)
That wall will be built by the Americans themselves if it ever comes about. It is not so likely now that either Obama or Romney will end up as President.
However the United States has always had periods of voluntary and ideologically founded Isolationism. If you give them another shock to the system like 9/11 or internal forces such as the Tea Party pushes them in that direction they could very well decide to shut their doors to the greater world.
I don't think the world will be better off without the US, we might not like everythng the US does, but it has probably been more beneficial than bad. I'm not disregarding the wars, mistakes and indirect suffering, but whatever power leads the world in the future will have to make the same tough decisions. You can't have stability without the threat/use of force.
Oh, yes, like the treaties between the US and EU with regards to privacy and security.
The US government and its intelligence agencies say that the treaty does not matter, if it's owned by an American company [incorporated in Europe]it will still be subject to US laws and demands... That kind of treaty? Two-faced deception?
If a branch is incorporated in Europe it's a local, legal entity, it is only subject to European laws, regardless of foreign ownership. In fact the treaty should "cover" it from any American laws, but alas that's not the case.
You cannot trust branches of American corporations abroad to respect local laws due to the legal pressure they face at home. I don't blame them, they have no choice but to obey.
The problem with the one-size-fits-all approach is that it has horrendously failed here.
I disagree. The fact that you can have it certified by one lab and have it accepted everywhere in Europe is not the issue. I don't really see why you object to that? That's a different matter from when and what products need to be certified. I fully understand your complaint in that regard.
I would hazard a guess at "we're covering our backs" is the real reason for the certification. Farnell and others probably didn't want to take any chances. I don't know who demanded what exactly but I did read as much on their blog.
It's helpful if you have some legal cover regardless. After all this is going to end up in schools and homes literally everywhere around the world. I would also rather do it just-in-case before something happens. The certification might not be necessary, but it sure is useful. As a "consumer" I don't mind it either.
The point being that CE certification and the mutual recognition is a good thing, when it applies another matter. The previous comment "attacked" it in general, which I find unreasonable. You wouldn't want to sell this device in the US without FCC approval either.
I'm sorry, I only know what I read on their website. As far as I can tell they're shipping them out as soon as possible subject to their certification papers being "approved" by the distributors in question. The CE certification itself is official and valid so there really is no reason for further delays.
No, actually, the Beagleboard is not a "finished" consumer product as far as I know. That's the major difference between the two. Finished products for sale to consumers are subject to taxes, whereas partially assembled products are not to the same degree.
The CE certification is not an evil conspiracy at all, every major country in the world has this type of legislation and testing!
The CE mark is just a one-size-fits-all procedure. If you have it tested in any [approved] European lab it will be accepted in every other European market! You don't have to have it tested in every country in Europe to sell it there. Think of the huge savings!
If you're English or British I can understand your deep seated and unfounded skepticism of all things EU, but this is not one of them.
"If a product is not susceptible to ESD and fast transients, for instance, it will not fail as readily during normal use. This is not only important from a performance standpoint, but from a safety and legal liability standpoint as well. Therefore, it is useful to use interference generators in the product design and development stage, as well as in the CE mark certification process. "
All electronics that are going to be sold, as finished products, in the European economic area (EEA) have to be tested and comply with European standards. It's the short answer, and I'm skipping a lot of details.
The problem the Raspberry-foundation faced was that it was initially not a "finished" product, more of a DIY kit. Once it became clear it was more of a "consumer" product it had to comply and be tested.
The same applies in the US where the FCC has the same role, but labs do the actual testing in both jurisdictions.
Race to the bottom? The Euro and Dollar are not in the same category.
I think you're confusing the Greek debts, or possibly the PIGS-countries, with a general European malaise. Have you looked at the value of the Dollar and Euro versus other currencies over the last year, five or ten years?
The Euro currency will "recover", from what little it has lost, because it's supported by strong Northern European economies like Germany, and the rapidly growing markets in Central and Eastern Europe (see Poland especially).
The Dollar only has power and dominance as long there's faith in the US currency and government. China has "funded" the Dollar for a long time, from what they've said and done lately it's clear that's not going to continue for ever. I expect the RMB/Yuan to become more important than it is, I'm not sure the Dollar will remain dominant in a multipolar world.
Yeah, I've read that mud apparently is not that effective either. The software uses both the opaque and IR information to work around it. I don't know for sure or how much work they need to do.
At least the speed cameras in my European country only sends the photo and information to a central computer and if needed human post-processing. If you obscure the license plate they will follow it up. They also collect the information for multiple violations on similar vehicles, they create composites and coordinate as the police force is a national unitary organization.
Most European countries cooperate and exchange information freely. If you receive a speeding fine somewhere in Scandinavia, and you're a Polish citizen, the Polish government will make sure you pay.
There are plenty of Polish and Baltic cars in the UK, they provide "cheap labor" all over Europe.
The question posed was if this was a big problem "in the EU".:)
The person who asked (cayenne8) obviously doesn't understand how diverse the European continent is and how little our countries have in common with eachother.
I don't see the big problem here, drivers and cars without insurance are a risk to other people's health and welfare.
The UK police force already monitors all cars on the road, from road side camera installations and police vehicle computers, matching licenses against the online database. Insurance companies feed the database, the police act on that information.
In other parts of Europe the police simply takes away their physical license plates if they don't pay their insurance. I have no problem denying [illegal] drivers the right to continue violating the law. We don't have the same cameras everywhere, but I would have no problem if we did.
I'm not sure if you're just joking or not. The system works even if you paint over your license plate, dirt is not a problem for the IR component of the cameras. Unless you remove the license plate or cover it with a solid object it's going to find your license number.
The UK police force has the same type of camera installed in every police vehicle. The computer connected to said camera does automatic database lookups on all vehicles it passes, alerting the officers driving with an audio recording and displaying the record on the screen. It also looks for prior records for the vehicle in question and its legal owner, if it has been used to sell drugs previously etc.
You can't escape fines in Western European countries, the government can and will forcibly take your money in some way or manner.
If you don't pay your [government issued] fines they will simply either require your employer to deduct it from your salary, depending on the amount owed possibly over several months/years, or take [legal] posession of your property eventually selling said vehicle or house. The same applies to court orders (damages) and due taxes.
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Yes, it seems you are correct, The Verge has a better summary.
Bloch testified that he wrote the original rangeCheck code, present in a file called Arrays.java, back in 1997. In court documents, Sun claims a copyright date of 2004 in connection with the rangeCheck code. Block began working for Google in 2004.
The exact same nine lines are also present in an Android file named Timsort.java, which Bloch testified he wrote in 2007.
When asked if he had copied the copyrighted Sun code directly for Timsort.java, Bloch initially responded "I don't recall." In a playback of his 2011 deposition, however, Bloch states that "the same order and same name is a strong indicator that it is likely that I did."
However, he noted that it was a good engineering practice to use the same method, and that he not only contributed the code to Android, but to the Java Development Kit as well (Timsort.java is now part of Java SE 7).
Are you sure about that?
Josh Bloch, who wrote rangeCheck, testified that “[a]ny competent high school programmer could write” that method. RT 815:13-16 (Bloch). Even Oracle’s expert Dr. Mitchell conceded that “a good high school programmer” could write rangeCheck with guidance. RT 1316:24-25 (Mitchell).
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120516083919975&query=rangecheck
To quote Google's lawyer in court today:
[PJ: Let me remind everyone that the testimony was that a contractor, Noser, did it, and it did it contrary to specific instructions from Google.]
Let me come back to rangeCheck. Every time I talk about this, I feel like I'm either saying it's important or it's not important. That's a false dichotomy. No one can say it's a big thing. But it was something that was copied, and it was important to TimSort, which had a significant performance advantage.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120515120106322&query=rangecheck
P.S. I admit that I could be wrong, I'm not following the case that closely, but this does seem clear cut?
Google did not copy it. Their contractor reverse engineered Sun/Oracle's code - despite being told by Google explicitly not to do so!
Google used Noser to provide additional resources and accelerate the completion(?) of Android.
On March 28, 2007, Google hired Noser to deliver a package of Java libraries. /See/ TX 30 (Statement of Work between Google and Noser, dated March 28, 2007)
On April 19, 2007, Andy Rubin wrote to Alan Eustace regarding the "Noser agreement": "This is our final java solution — consultants to take our java libraries as a starting place, and bring our java classes up to J2SE spec, in a clean room environment. They have signed up to a pretty aggressive schedule for quite a bit of work. This deal replaces the $18M approved acquisition that we decided to pass on. Barring any unforeseen surprises, I think this is our last big deal ($4M)." (TX 438.)
In the US it's legal to have monopolies as long as they're not "damaging". In the EU it's illegal to have a monopoly regardless, they're always damaging according to our law. Two fundamentally different approaches.
I think that's probably more a matter of the path of least resistance.
The US doesn't get its way at the expense of everyone else, just a little more in its favor sometimes. That's probably better than no progress at all in some areas. If the issue is of crucial importance even the US meets serious resistance (see ACTA, GM foods and WTO).
The EU is also attempting to lead by policy, such as the RoHS directive, and increasingly becoming more proficient/successful at it. Similar to how California sets the standard for the US in many areas. There are [some]gains for the majority despite the consequences, and someone needs to take the lead.
I am by no means an apologist for the US, I'm a European/Scandinavian, and while I have mixed emotions my aim is to be objective and try to view matters in a historical/anthropological perspective. It's obviously too broad a subject to answer with a few sentences :)
Thank you, I think it's fair to say the US receives plenty of feedback and most of it's negative. That's just the way humans work. We hardly praise people when things are just fine? :)
That wall will be built by the Americans themselves if it ever comes about. It is not so likely now that either Obama or Romney will end up as President.
However the United States has always had periods of voluntary and ideologically founded Isolationism. If you give them another shock to the system like 9/11 or internal forces such as the Tea Party pushes them in that direction they could very well decide to shut their doors to the greater world.
I don't think the world will be better off without the US, we might not like everythng the US does, but it has probably been more beneficial than bad. I'm not disregarding the wars, mistakes and indirect suffering, but whatever power leads the world in the future will have to make the same tough decisions. You can't have stability without the threat/use of force.
Oh, yes, like the treaties between the US and EU with regards to privacy and security.
The US government and its intelligence agencies say that the treaty does not matter, if it's owned by an American company [incorporated in Europe]it will still be subject to US laws and demands... That kind of treaty? Two-faced deception?
If a branch is incorporated in Europe it's a local, legal entity, it is only subject to European laws, regardless of foreign ownership. In fact the treaty should "cover" it from any American laws, but alas that's not the case.
You cannot trust branches of American corporations abroad to respect local laws due to the legal pressure they face at home. I don't blame them, they have no choice but to obey.
I see :) I suppose there will always be problems with this kind of legal framework, it's hard to create laws that are both capable and flexible.
I disagree. The fact that you can have it certified by one lab and have it accepted everywhere in Europe is not the issue. I don't really see why you object to that? That's a different matter from when and what products need to be certified. I fully understand your complaint in that regard.
I would hazard a guess at "we're covering our backs" is the real reason for the certification. Farnell and others probably didn't want to take any chances. I don't know who demanded what exactly but I did read as much on their blog.
It's helpful if you have some legal cover regardless. After all this is going to end up in schools and homes literally everywhere around the world. I would also rather do it just-in-case before something happens. The certification might not be necessary, but it sure is useful. As a "consumer" I don't mind it either.
The point being that CE certification and the mutual recognition is a good thing, when it applies another matter. The previous comment "attacked" it in general, which I find unreasonable. You wouldn't want to sell this device in the US without FCC approval either.
I'm sorry, I only know what I read on their website. As far as I can tell they're shipping them out as soon as possible subject to their certification papers being "approved" by the distributors in question. The CE certification itself is official and valid so there really is no reason for further delays.
No, actually, the Beagleboard is not a "finished" consumer product as far as I know. That's the major difference between the two. Finished products for sale to consumers are subject to taxes, whereas partially assembled products are not to the same degree.
The CE certification is not an evil conspiracy at all, every major country in the world has this type of legislation and testing!
The CE mark is just a one-size-fits-all procedure. If you have it tested in any [approved] European lab it will be accepted in every other European market! You don't have to have it tested in every country in Europe to sell it there. Think of the huge savings!
If you're English or British I can understand your deep seated and unfounded skepticism of all things EU, but this is not one of them.
They do have about 2000 in their hands now.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945
To quote a source on the web:
"If a product is not susceptible to ESD and fast transients, for instance, it will not fail as readily during normal use. This is not only important from a performance standpoint, but from a safety and legal liability standpoint as well. Therefore, it is useful to use interference generators in the product design and development stage, as well as in the CE mark certification process. "
http://www.conformity.com/artman/publish/printer_166.shtml
All electronics that are going to be sold, as finished products, in the European economic area (EEA) have to be tested and comply with European standards. It's the short answer, and I'm skipping a lot of details.
The problem the Raspberry-foundation faced was that it was initially not a "finished" product, more of a DIY kit. Once it became clear it was more of a "consumer" product it had to comply and be tested.
The same applies in the US where the FCC has the same role, but labs do the actual testing in both jurisdictions.
Race to the bottom? The Euro and Dollar are not in the same category.
I think you're confusing the Greek debts, or possibly the PIGS-countries, with a general European malaise. Have you looked at the value of the Dollar and Euro versus other currencies over the last year, five or ten years?
The Euro currency will "recover", from what little it has lost, because it's supported by strong Northern European economies like Germany, and the rapidly growing markets in Central and Eastern Europe (see Poland especially).
The Dollar only has power and dominance as long there's faith in the US currency and government. China has "funded" the Dollar for a long time, from what they've said and done lately it's clear that's not going to continue for ever. I expect the RMB/Yuan to become more important than it is, I'm not sure the Dollar will remain dominant in a multipolar world.
Yeah, I've read that mud apparently is not that effective either. The software uses both the opaque and IR information to work around it. I don't know for sure or how much work they need to do.
At least the speed cameras in my European country only sends the photo and information to a central computer and if needed human post-processing. If you obscure the license plate they will follow it up. They also collect the information for multiple violations on similar vehicles, they create composites and coordinate as the police force is a national unitary organization.
Most European countries cooperate and exchange information freely. If you receive a speeding fine somewhere in Scandinavia, and you're a Polish citizen, the Polish government will make sure you pay.
There are plenty of Polish and Baltic cars in the UK, they provide "cheap labor" all over Europe.
The question posed was if this was a big problem "in the EU". :)
The person who asked (cayenne8) obviously doesn't understand how diverse the European continent is and how little our countries have in common with eachother.
I don't see the big problem here, drivers and cars without insurance are a risk to other people's health and welfare.
The UK police force already monitors all cars on the road, from road side camera installations and police vehicle computers, matching licenses against the online database. Insurance companies feed the database, the police act on that information.
In other parts of Europe the police simply takes away their physical license plates if they don't pay their insurance. I have no problem denying [illegal] drivers the right to continue violating the law. We don't have the same cameras everywhere, but I would have no problem if we did.
I'm not sure if you're just joking or not. The system works even if you paint over your license plate, dirt is not a problem for the IR component of the cameras. Unless you remove the license plate or cover it with a solid object it's going to find your license number.
The UK police force has the same type of camera installed in every police vehicle. The computer connected to said camera does automatic database lookups on all vehicles it passes, alerting the officers driving with an audio recording and displaying the record on the screen. It also looks for prior records for the vehicle in question and its legal owner, if it has been used to sell drugs previously etc.
You can't escape fines in Western European countries, the government can and will forcibly take your money in some way or manner.
If you don't pay your [government issued] fines they will simply either require your employer to deduct it from your salary, depending on the amount owed possibly over several months/years, or take [legal] posession of your property eventually selling said vehicle or house. The same applies to court orders (damages) and due taxes.
What part of Europe do you live in? A majority of the gas stations in both Northern and Southern Europe are pre-pay.
How is it possible to write this garbage without mentioning that Apple had $4,000,000,000 in cash at the time?
Bill Gates's token $150 million investment pales in comparison! It was symbolic!
Also how is it "trolling" when Microsoft actually did violate Apple's patents?!
Thank you for reminding me of the TV that was always on in "1984". Ever present, ever vigilant and recording.
If only Orwell/Blair had known what we can do with technology today, he would have had a field day writing "2014".