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Oracle seeks $9.3B for Google’s use of Java in Android
- gboudrias 11y agoMan, Oracle really does not give a shit about its reputation.
- nickpeterson 11y agoSome background on the shift to Oracle from Bryan Cantrill (creator of DTrace at SUN Microsystems) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc He wasn't thrilled about it.
- krebby 11y agoBest quote from this video (there are a ton): "Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison".
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- reiger 11y agoBryan is a smart funny guy, but he's an opinionated asshole that represents everything wrong with silicon valley engineer "rockstar" culture. I didn't rewatch the video, but have seen it and met him dozens of times back in the OpenSolaris then Joyent days. He seems to simplify things to portray cause and effect that do not exist due to the complexity of real life. I trust his ability to engineer a brilliant product, but I don't trust his ability to create a lovable product - it's all about the engineering goodness to him, and not solving the real world problems. Joyent's financials and yearly change of directions will probably back that up... Oracle is Oracle - there are good things and bad things about a process driven company with 2000 products, but understand there is massive bias in Bryan's video - he didn't get his way and he wants people to know it.
- nickpeterson 11y agoOh, I understand that, but I find the video entertaining, and I will say that I often have trouble finding viewpoints from places like Oracle, IBM, and SUN. Ever notice how there are tons of videos/tech talks from Microsoft, Google, and the Open Source crowd, but places like Oracle/IBM/SAP it feels very vaulted?
- reiger 11y agoAs a former product manager from one of the vaulted companies we had tons of video around business benefits and use cases, but very little on the implementation part. Look for the curated video channels for the big vendor players.
- dogma1138 11y agoYou wouldn't give a shit either if you could get nearly 10bln dollars for it. Most people would sell their mother for that amount, and it's a bit hard to come to your investors and say well guys we could've gotten 10bln which would give you a heck of a dividend but we cared about our reputation too much so we passed on it.
- crispyambulance 11y agoYeah, but how much have they expended on this legal adventure already? It has been going on for ~6 years now and there's no end in sight, no clear victory for anybody. Doesn't Oracle have better things to do?
- dogma1138 11y agoConsiderably less than 10bln, say even if they spent 100m on legal fees, that's still about 1% of what they would end up earning that's 1:100 return on investment no one would in their right mind would pass on that.
- crispyambulance 11y agoOK, but it is still a roll of the dice and there are costs beyond legal fees. 1:100 is _highly_ unlikely. Lawsuits are a crappy way to make money for a software company.
- nxzero 11y agoCreating a startup to service the CIA is a pretty crap move too; Oracle's launch was largely fueled by creating the database for the CIA in the late 1970s.
- dogma1138 11y agoYou mean like Google(Keyhole/Google Earth) and Facebook which both received funding from the CIA through their investment company In-Q-Tel? https://www.iqt.org/ https://www.iqt.org/
- mercurial 11y agoBig Corp doesn't care about this sort of thing, and Oracle's reputation in the community can hardly get any worse.
- veb 11y agoBig Corp doesn't care when it comes to potentially getting $10 billion dollars, that's for damn sure. How many people here would just go "oh nah, it's OK... go ahead, we don't want any money. Do your thing Google!".
- ilostmykeys 11y agoOracle is a dumpster for talent.
- chris_wot 11y agoWhat was the reason that the appeals court overturned the ruling on APIs? For $9.3 billion - surely it is is economically viable for Google to spend 10 million on a coordinated and public campaign to lobby lawmakers to change the law? If they did it publicly then they'd have huge support. Heck, Google could even openly label Oracke as greedy, conniving bastards and almost certainly no amount of protest from Oracle would be convincing! All Google need to point out is that Oracle are screwing a majority of Android users. A side note: they must truly be regretting choosing Java.
- justincormack 11y agoChanging the law would not be retrospective though.
- USANEEDSHELP 11y agoThis may be one of the reasons Google invented Go (language). I wouldn't be surprised to see if future versions of their platforms are Go-lang only. Make Java obsolete
- codecamper 11y agoI'd be happy with golang for Android -- but if Google is interested in that, they seriously have the project understaffed. Seems like just a few engineers on the go mobile project. It's been alpha stage for almost a year.
- fleetfox 11y agoI thought impetus is behind dart, not go. I don't know much about mobile. Maybe someone could elaborate?
- mikelward 11y agoIsn't Dart for browsers? And it looks like WebAssembly might overtake Dart there. Maybe that would work for Chrome Web Apps on Android, I haven't tried. For native apps, I think it's still mainly Java, tho JetBrains is promoting Kotlin as an alternative.
- wodenokoto 11y agoThe way I remember it dart was released to replace javascript as an actual viable sane language for apps, which means it could double as a longterm replacement for smartphone apps as well. Mozilla resisted dart in the browser and focused heavily on improving javascript which left dart dead in the water.
- vegabook 11y agoNo clue why you are being downvoted as this is an important point: Android's Java forcefeed is negative in more ways than one. We need multiple alternatives (yes yes Kotlin I know but more). Many programmers dislike Java and will do anything to avoid having to use it.
- codecamper 11y ago9.3 billion for doing squat and not improving a damn thing. get real.
- carterehsmith 11y agoFor the record, it was not Oracle that was "doing squat". Oracles's JDK keeps improving, and btw Oracle is paying for most of it. Since Android "fork", Oracle added generics and lambdas and G1 and bazillion other improvements. The company that was "doing squat" was Google. Their shitty (and incompatible) Java implementation is where Oracle's was 6 years ago.
- bipin_nag 11y agoI am afraid you are digressing. Oracle maintains and has rights for the language Java and Oracle JVM. Google has power over Android. codecamper isnt talking about what improvements current Java has or how how shitty the Android java is. IT is about Android itself. Google contributed most to Android, Oracle did not.
- carterehsmith 11y agoThat is not what "digressing" means. When someone talks on topic, that is not "digressing". Why not check an online dictionary, they are free and super helpful.
- vatotemking 11y agoIm afraid you are digressing from the points given by bipin_nag. :-)
- cm3 11y agoWhat does the API ruling mean for the rest of us? If I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to bury me? If Oracle thinks they can ask for 9.3 billion and are likely expecting to get 1 or 2, it sounds scary. But I hope this will lead to more and more open APIs without a single entity holding the keys and people being very scared to use closed and copyrighted APIs. If less people use it, its importance will equally be diminishing. That's the hope.
- dsp1234 11y agoIf I were to write an ISC licensed clean room implementation of Apple UIKit, would Apple be in the right to bury me? "The appeals court reversed the district court on the central issue, holding that the "structure, sequence and organization" of an API was copyrightable"[0] That's pretty clear. Even if you re-implement every function by hand, if you keep the same API, then it can be a copyright infringement. Note that you may still have other defenses such as license agreements, or fair use. But this ruling considers copying API/function declarations the same as actual code. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google....
- 0x0 11y agoHow did the original PC clones get away with reverse engineering / re-implementing the IBM BIOS? Or alternatives to MS-DOS like DR-DOS? Is it just that nobody thought to use this attack?
- gtirloni 11y agoDoes anyone have any insight/source on why Java was a good choice for Android at the time it was created? I got lost in a sea of garbage while trying to find anything about that. I would like to understand why Java and not something else.
- Mikeb85 11y agoIt's a fast, open source, memory managed language that already had very good traction. Google just underestimated the idiocy of the US court system.
- lcfcjs 11y ago"Fast" ... "Open Source" yeah right, the first one is absolute BS. The second one is exactly wrong and why Oracle thinks they deserve some money.
- hansjorg 11y agoJava was chosen by Android Inc. though, not Google.
- Mikeb85 11y agoYou're right, but Google released the first Android handsets. Actually I forgot when the Sun/Oracle sale happened. Android 1.0 was released before Oracle bought Sun. Though I suppose there was always the possibility of legal action by Sun.
- joezydeco 11y agoGoogle knew Java was a risk for Android and memos disclosed in the court case show that Google was trying to figure out possible solutions. Schmidt (being an ex-Sun executive) reached out to Sun to talk about an alliance. http://icdn4.digitaltrends.com/image/google-schmidt-610x452.png http://icdn4.digitaltrends.com/image/google-schmidt-610x452....
- greydot 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dlandis 11y ago> "In the first trial, a jury found Google had infringed Oracle’s copyright by copying into Android the "structure, sequence and organization" of 37 Java application programming interfaces" I don't think these trials have been about technically using Java as a whole have they? They are about specifically copy/pasting those 37 classes into the Android code base. If I remember correctly, all other part of Android were basically a clean room implementation that did not even allegedly infringe on anything. They just screwed up in those few places.
- pfg 11y agoIIRC the appeals court ruled that the "'structure, sequence and organization' of an API was copyrightable". So even if they hadn't copied a small number of classes¹, they'd still be liable if that decision holds. ¹ Or accidentally implemented them using the exact same code, which is quite possible given how trivial the code in question was - see rangeCheck
- nxzero 11y agoNever understood why Google didn't acquire Java from Sun.
- jincheker 11y agoI hate Java because I hate the company behind it
- ledriveby 11y agoCould CPU instruction sets be copyrighted? Could emulation become a crime?
- nxnfufunezn 11y agoExpected from Oracle.