6 ms·

Of course, if you don't conform, Oracle will sue you into oblivion. Java is free software as long as you use it in exactly the way Oracle wants, right? It's for

Of course, if you don't conform, Oracle will sue you into oblivion. Java is free software as long as you use it in exactly the way Oracle wants, right? It's for this reason that Java is poison to any of my projects. I'll choose Node-fucking-JS over Java, because nobody is going to sue me for using JavaScript the way I want.

pjmlp 11y ago
No one expects JavaScript to run unchanged across all VMs anyway.
pron 11y ago
> Of course, if you don't conform, Oracle will sue you into oblivion. What? OpenJDK is as free as they come. No conformance with Java necessary, you can do with it whatever you damn well please. You can use it to implement .NET if you want. Oracle has never (to the best of my knowledge) sued anyone for the use (or modification) of OpenJDK.
- rewqfdsa 11y ago
  Okay, so can I modify it so that it doesn't conform to the Java specification? Can I modify it bit-by-bit until it's bytewise identical to Harmony? Of course I can't. Because if I do, Oracle will sue me. Oracle is lying. They claim to be offering free software, but will sue you once you take advantage of that freedom. It's a fucking trap. Do you really expect the technology community to embrace Oracle technology after Oracle spits in their food and shits in their sink?
  - pron 11y ago
    > Okay, so can I modify it so that it doesn't conform to the Java specification? Can I modify it bit-by-bit until it's bytewise identical to Harmony? Absolutely (on both counts, although if it is identical to Harmony you may be in violation of the license due to a collision between GPLv2 and ASL, as ASL imposes further restrictions which GPLv2 does not allow -- see the next paragraph). > Because if I do, Oracle will sue me. They will not. In fact, they explicitly allow you to do whatever you want with it. They are not placing any restrictions; their own license (same as Linux's) does not allow them to do so (section 6 says: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein"). Oracle sued Google, not you. They didn't sue them for using Java, and they certainly didn't sue them over OpenJDK. Of course, it has been Google's PR department's strategy to make you think that the lawsuit may apply to you, but it doesn't. The circumstances leading to the lawsuit were very unusual. > Oracle is lying. Maybe about other things (I don't know a large company that doesn't lie), but not about this. > They claim to be offering free software, but will sue you once you take advantage of that freedom. It's a fucking trap. Again, to the best of my knowledge, that has never happened. > Do you really expect the technology community to embrace Oracle technology after Oracle spits in their food and shits in their sink? I don't expect anyone to do anything other than to understand the facts and then make their decisions[1]. Oracle has earned the distrust of many developers, but I don't find Google to be any more likable. Personally, I'll take Oracle's old-school greed over Google's sneaky espionage and manipulative PR, but that's just me. ---- [1]: I am willing to bet that very few people understand what the Oracle v. Google court case is all about, and the loudest voice was by far Google's PR.
    - Oletros 11y ago
      > [1]: I am willing to bet that very few people understand what the Oracle v. Google court case is all about, And what it was about?
      - pron 11y ago
        First, we should separate the motivation for the lawsuit from the legal arguments. Corporations don't go to court to win legal arguments; they go to court to defend or promote their business. I) The motivation for the lawsuit was that at the time, Java's main revenue stream was licensing Java IP (either an actual implementation or the permission to implement the spec) for use in mobile devices. That was how Sun made money off of Java. Java's commercial license allowed people to freely implement the specification as long as they pass the compatibility test, unless the implementation was for use in mobile devices -- this required a paid license. Google then created an implementation of (a part of) the spec, and didn't reach a licensing agreement with Sun (they couldn't agree on a price; I think Sun wanted $25M for the first five years or something). Google used Java IP to directly attack said IP's main revenue source. That is not to say that what they did wasn't legal, but that is why what they did mattered to Sun (and then Oracle) enough to sue them. Google needed Java because developing a language ecosystem suitable for phone application takes years. Google knew that such a lawsuit is forthcoming -- you can't come at a company like that and not expect one -- but hoped that they could defend their actions in court, at least on legal grounds. So that's what the lawsuit was about. II) Now for the legal case. Oracle wanted to get their (in their view -- fair) share of Android no matter how, so they used -- as anyone does -- any legal argument they could think of which would get the desired business result, from patents to copyright. Some stuck, some didn't. In the end, it was the API copyright argument that convinced the (appeals) court. But before I say a few words about that, let me reiterate: Oracle didn't set out to copyright APIs; they set out to get a share of Android, which attacked their main Java revenue stream directly using their own IP. Anyway, Google claimed that APIs aren't copyrightable, but Oracle won that round. Now, I will not go into this question itself -- there are good arguments for both sides -- but only into its ramifications. Google started a massive PR campaign to convince people that that ruling is disastrous for them, but it isn't, and for several reasons. First, it applies only to language-level APIs; not REST protocols, recently also referred to as APIs. This is not open to interpretation. Web "APIs" are not copyrightable for completely other reasons, reasons which are impossible (as much as anything in law is impossible) to argue against. Second, the court ruled that some of Google's argument regarding the copyrightability of APIs are really fair use arguments, and this is the second crucial point: if something is copyrighted, that does not mean you may not freely use it for some purposes. When it comes to interfaces, one fair use defense has been interoperability[1]. Courts have ruled it legal to "violate" copyright for the purpose of creating components that are interoperable with the original. This means that if you implement an API in order to break vendor lockin, you're probably within your right to do so. However, that is not what Google did in this particular case (Android is not interoperable with Java, only very, very partially). So while Google may still lose the fair-use question (which is still on the table), nearly all other implementors would still be protected by fair use. To sum up the legal issue, while it has been in Google's best interest to cause panic, the ruling does not apply to any other player but Google because: 1. It only applies to language-level APIs; it does not and cannot apply to web APIs and other protocols (either software or hardware). 2. Implementing an API is protected by the interoperability fair-use defense, even if Google's particular (and highly unusual) use isn't. And in any case, unless you use a company's (language-level) API against it, there is little chance they'll come after you; if you do, well, you knew they'd come after you even before this court case. III) Finally, it is important to note that all along Google had the option of freely using OpenJDK. The use of OpenJDK does not require conformance with the Java standard; it is completely unencumbered. The reason Google opted not to do it was because at the time they were afraid phone manufacturers would not like OpenJDKs license, GPLv2 + the classpath exception, even though Android also make use of Linux, which is also licensed under the GPL. This reasoning seems to have changed now. [1]: https://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/Copyrights/Copyright-Fairuse.htm https://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/C...

pjmlp 11y ago

No one expects JavaScript to run unchanged across all VMs anyway.

pron 11y ago

> Of course, if you don't conform, Oracle will sue you into oblivion. What? OpenJDK is as free as they come. No conformance with Java necessary, you can do with it whatever you damn well please. You can use it to implement .NET if you want. Oracle has never (to the best of my knowledge) sued anyone for the use (or modification) of OpenJDK.

rewqfdsa 11y ago
Okay, so can I modify it so that it doesn't conform to the Java specification? Can I modify it bit-by-bit until it's bytewise identical to Harmony? Of course I can't. Because if I do, Oracle will sue me. Oracle is lying. They claim to be offering free software, but will sue you once you take advantage of that freedom. It's a fucking trap. Do you really expect the technology community to embrace Oracle technology after Oracle spits in their food and shits in their sink?
- pron 11y ago
  > Okay, so can I modify it so that it doesn't conform to the Java specification? Can I modify it bit-by-bit until it's bytewise identical to Harmony? Absolutely (on both counts, although if it is identical to Harmony you may be in violation of the license due to a collision between GPLv2 and ASL, as ASL imposes further restrictions which GPLv2 does not allow -- see the next paragraph). > Because if I do, Oracle will sue me. They will not. In fact, they explicitly allow you to do whatever you want with it. They are not placing any restrictions; their own license (same as Linux's) does not allow them to do so (section 6 says: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein"). Oracle sued Google, not you. They didn't sue them for using Java, and they certainly didn't sue them over OpenJDK. Of course, it has been Google's PR department's strategy to make you think that the lawsuit may apply to you, but it doesn't. The circumstances leading to the lawsuit were very unusual. > Oracle is lying. Maybe about other things (I don't know a large company that doesn't lie), but not about this. > They claim to be offering free software, but will sue you once you take advantage of that freedom. It's a fucking trap. Again, to the best of my knowledge, that has never happened. > Do you really expect the technology community to embrace Oracle technology after Oracle spits in their food and shits in their sink? I don't expect anyone to do anything other than to understand the facts and then make their decisions[1]. Oracle has earned the distrust of many developers, but I don't find Google to be any more likable. Personally, I'll take Oracle's old-school greed over Google's sneaky espionage and manipulative PR, but that's just me. ---- [1]: I am willing to bet that very few people understand what the Oracle v. Google court case is all about, and the loudest voice was by far Google's PR.
  - Oletros 11y ago
    > [1]: I am willing to bet that very few people understand what the Oracle v. Google court case is all about, And what it was about?
    - pron 11y ago
      First, we should separate the motivation for the lawsuit from the legal arguments. Corporations don't go to court to win legal arguments; they go to court to defend or promote their business. I) The motivation for the lawsuit was that at the time, Java's main revenue stream was licensing Java IP (either an actual implementation or the permission to implement the spec) for use in mobile devices. That was how Sun made money off of Java. Java's commercial license allowed people to freely implement the specification as long as they pass the compatibility test, unless the implementation was for use in mobile devices -- this required a paid license. Google then created an implementation of (a part of) the spec, and didn't reach a licensing agreement with Sun (they couldn't agree on a price; I think Sun wanted $25M for the first five years or something). Google used Java IP to directly attack said IP's main revenue source. That is not to say that what they did wasn't legal, but that is why what they did mattered to Sun (and then Oracle) enough to sue them. Google needed Java because developing a language ecosystem suitable for phone application takes years. Google knew that such a lawsuit is forthcoming -- you can't come at a company like that and not expect one -- but hoped that they could defend their actions in court, at least on legal grounds. So that's what the lawsuit was about. II) Now for the legal case. Oracle wanted to get their (in their view -- fair) share of Android no matter how, so they used -- as anyone does -- any legal argument they could think of which would get the desired business result, from patents to copyright. Some stuck, some didn't. In the end, it was the API copyright argument that convinced the (appeals) court. But before I say a few words about that, let me reiterate: Oracle didn't set out to copyright APIs; they set out to get a share of Android, which attacked their main Java revenue stream directly using their own IP. Anyway, Google claimed that APIs aren't copyrightable, but Oracle won that round. Now, I will not go into this question itself -- there are good arguments for both sides -- but only into its ramifications. Google started a massive PR campaign to convince people that that ruling is disastrous for them, but it isn't, and for several reasons. First, it applies only to language-level APIs; not REST protocols, recently also referred to as APIs. This is not open to interpretation. Web "APIs" are not copyrightable for completely other reasons, reasons which are impossible (as much as anything in law is impossible) to argue against. Second, the court ruled that some of Google's argument regarding the copyrightability of APIs are really fair use arguments, and this is the second crucial point: if something is copyrighted, that does not mean you may not freely use it for some purposes. When it comes to interfaces, one fair use defense has been interoperability[1]. Courts have ruled it legal to "violate" copyright for the purpose of creating components that are interoperable with the original. This means that if you implement an API in order to break vendor lockin, you're probably within your right to do so. However, that is not what Google did in this particular case (Android is not interoperable with Java, only very, very partially). So while Google may still lose the fair-use question (which is still on the table), nearly all other implementors would still be protected by fair use. To sum up the legal issue, while it has been in Google's best interest to cause panic, the ruling does not apply to any other player but Google because: 1. It only applies to language-level APIs; it does not and cannot apply to web APIs and other protocols (either software or hardware). 2. Implementing an API is protected by the interoperability fair-use defense, even if Google's particular (and highly unusual) use isn't. And in any case, unless you use a company's (language-level) API against it, there is little chance they'll come after you; if you do, well, you knew they'd come after you even before this court case. III) Finally, it is important to note that all along Google had the option of freely using OpenJDK. The use of OpenJDK does not require conformance with the Java standard; it is completely unencumbered. The reason Google opted not to do it was because at the time they were afraid phone manufacturers would not like OpenJDKs license, GPLv2 + the classpath exception, even though Android also make use of Linux, which is also licensed under the GPL. This reasoning seems to have changed now. [1]: https://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/Copyrights/Copyright-Fairuse.htm https://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/C...