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Oracle wants $9.3B for Google’s use of Java in Android
- jezclaremurugan 11y agoWill miss groklaw badly. Followed the previous time almost entirely on groklaw.
- rpgmaker 11y agoWhat is Pamela Jones doing nowadays? I understand her decision to shutdown groklaw because of govt spying but I can't help but think that, overall, it was a net loss for everyone involved.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoYeah. Government spying is like that. I miss PJ and Groklaw, too.
- 102030485868 11y agoI can't see this ending well for Oracle.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- signa11 11y agoafaik, the real issue is that the dalvik-vm is api compatible with oracle(sun)-jvm. iirc, api is not 'copyrightable' which seems to suggest that it might not be so good for oracle. but then again, cases like these depend a lot on proficiency of presiding judges. wasn't there an earlier judge, who learned some elementary programming while preparing for this case, and who ended up favoring google...
- pjmlp 11y agoIf it were api compatible Java Android wouldn't be the second coming of J++, where apparently thanks to some strange events it is ok for Google to fork Java, break WORA where even many Java 6 libraries cannot run on Android, not to mention about later versions, and some devs seem to think it is ok. While with Microsoft everyone went out with their pitchforks. Android Java is nothing more than Google's J++.
- curt15 11y agoJ++ got into trouble for trademark issues because MS called their incompatible implementation Java(TM) and caused brand confusion. Android does not do this.
- pjmlp 11y agoThe fact is that Google forked Java, there is no difference at all.
- curt15 11y agoBut Google doesn't call its fork Java(TM), which makes all the difference between this case and J++. The practice of independently implementing and modifying an API has never been questioned until now. It was not in dispute in J++ and it's in fact the reason why software projects like GNU/Linux (which is at most an approximation of AT&T Unix and has never received any sort of certification) are able to exist.
- iheartmemcache 11y agoI was thoroughly impressed with the judge who presided over the last ruling -- IIRC he went so far as to learn at least the basics of Java to the point where I remember being impressed by the insight of the questions he posed. There are subsets of law one can specialize in ranging from medical malpractice to obscure patent litigation, but as far as I know there are no factors linking a presiding judge to a specific specialty. I really think other judges should follow the example he set and at least develop a core understanding in a similar fashion. Edit: http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/wha/oraclevgoogle http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/wha/oraclevgoogle the original Alsup opinion http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/05/09/oracle_google_appeal_opinion.pdf http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/05/09/oracle_google_appeal_opinio... The appeal opinion -- which, as it stands, rules that programming APIs are in fact copyrightable. (Also, look at the list of counsel -- heavy hitters, damn.) Oracle appeals from the portion of the final judgment entered against it, and Google cross-appeals from the portion of that same judgment entered in favor of Oracle as to the rangeCheck code and eight decompiled files. Because we conclude that the declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection, we reverse the district court’s copyrightability determination with instructions to reinstate the jury’s infringement finding as to the 37 Java packages. Because the jury deadlocked on fair use, we remand for further consideration of Google’s fair use defense in light of this decision.
- kabdib 11y agoJudge Alsup has a long history of handling technical cases. He's no dummy.
- iheartmemcache 11y agoI'm aware. I was making a larger critique w/r/t the justice system especially concerning higher level court decisions and the justices (more likely, their clerks) who draft opinions.
- kabdib 11y agoWas pretty sure you were aware. Things could be worse. This could be decided in East Texas, for instance. That well-known hotbed of technical innovation ... /s
- curt15 11y agoThis case seems unusual in the fact that the code in question was already free to use and fork under the terms of OpenJDK, so paying Oracle for a license was not the only alternative. How would one calculate damages relative to the scenario where Google simply used OpenJDK as they are doing now?
- tyingq 11y agoMaybe Google is doing things that the "Classpath Exception" doesn't cover, which would expose them to parts of of the GPL that don't work for them?
- luxsy 11y agoCan't we tell Oracle to S a D already ?
- thecatspaw 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jessaustin 11y agoI think their customers already have! Many times!
- akadien 11y agoOracle should pay Google for using Java in Android and keeping the language somewhere around edge of hip and cool. I wonder how long it will be before Google flips to Go or JavaScript for Android.
- pjmlp 11y agoIt will never happen. In spite all of this, Android Team has given zero support for anything other than Java on Android, even for its own languages. The NDK is anemic, because "In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++. When examining whether or not you should develop in native code, think about your requirements and see if the Android framework APIs provide the functionality that you need." http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html And the Go and Dart teams had to work on their own even for the NDK integration. The results of their work aren't even described in any of the official Android documentation sites.
- Cthulhu_ 11y agoNever say never, that's what I thought about Apple and objective-C, and they just invented a new language for it. True, it runs in the same runtime, but it does allow them to slowly move away from 20 years of history. Mind you, the obj-C runtime / Foundation isn't badly set up at all, I'd argue it's better than the Java SDK.
- pjmlp 11y agoAs the one that raised the Go support ticket for Android, back when I was still following Go I doubt it. That ticket was raised before Go 1.0, so I very much doubt it.
- vetinari 11y agoGo and Java stdlib have very different opinions about the basic types, used by every app (like strings or maps, heck, even about concepts what is a class and class hierarchies, or how the stack is supposed to look like). So unless you want to wage a perpetual war at the border between your app and Android base libraries, forget Go, or about any language that does not run on JVM.
- hathym 11y agoThat's the same amount they had thrown at Sun Microsystems.
- protomyth 11y agoactually a bit more since Sun cost Oracle about $7.4B.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- brudgers 11y agoRecently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376439
- mentaat 11y agowhy is google not investing in dart as the language for android? dart feels like its stuck in limbo - abandoned by the chrome team and loosing mind share to typescript.
- tyingq 11y agoFYI, Oracle is pushing this agenda to squeeze Java shops in other places as well. The tack they are taking is to define any computer that does "one specific thing" as an embedded device and ask you for $300+ per "device", plus some other lofty fees. (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/price-lists/java-embedded-price-list-1977272.pdf http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/pricing/price-lists/java-...) So, if you're using Java in a kiosk, ATM, media player, etc, they may be coming for you. My guess is that this just spawns a mass migration to OpenJDK, but perhaps they trap enough Java shops that it's worth the effort?
- CaptainZapp 11y agoReminds me of the good burghers of SCO and that little shitty they tried to pull off in the beginning of the century. It didn't end well.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoSure it did. Linux.
- justinlardinois 11y agoBoth the Linux kernel and the GNU OS predate Caldera acquiring the Santa Cruz Operation and turning into a lawsuit house.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoBut SCO preceeded Linux. If there'd been a cheap version of SCO in the first half of the 1990s, I doubt I'd have looked twice at Linux. My employer at the time did look at SCO, but WFWG solved the problem for us. But your sequencing is dead on. It's a messy story.
- justinlardinois 11y agoAh. I think the original commenter was referring to the lawsuits, not to SCO's business model when it actually had products and services.
- geodel 11y agoI think replacement of Java in Android is coming slowly and likely without any help from Android team. Looking at gomobile and CLs on golang-dev etc I feel Go support in Android is worked on by small focussed team rather than order from top management.
- namelezz 11y agoKotlin in Android looks promising.
- jinst8gmi 11y agoKotlin relies on the Java APIs and libs, so wouldn't really help.
- ausjke 11y agoGoogle should have acquired Sun instead of buying dropcam/boston-dynamics/motorola and such.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- godzillabrennus 11y agoHow amazing would that have been? Zfs might have helped the world move forward a lot faster... Sigh... Let's give Oracle 10 years from now to fade from relevance as yet another fucked by cloud vendor and Google can then orchestrate a hostile takeover.
- ausjke 11y agoTo speed that up, just buy Postgresql and use that to smother both Oracle DB and to some extent, mysql. Defence only helps that much, offence can do it a lot faster on their own DB territory.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoBetter yet, buy EnterpriseDB that's actively targeting Oracle's market. Put a bunch of money into expanding it with conversion tools from Oracle to not Oracle API's it will use.
- russellbeattie 11y agoGiven how much Google owed Sun in terms of technology and employees pulled from Sun over the years, I always thought not buying the company was an especially cynical move. Sort of like, "Ha! We got all their stuff for free and now they're gone! We win!" Payback's a bitch - though in this case it's not just going to be Google that pays. Oracle is vicious.
- kaendfinger 11y agoDart is a very viable alternative to Java already for Android. See https://flutter.io/ https://flutter.io/ P.S. Dart actually has a Java-to-Dart converter hidden somewhere. I can't find the link, but the static analyzer was ported from Java to Dart using it. Perhaps they could expand that effort?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- known 11y agoHow the number $9.3 billion is derived?
- tracker1 11y agoReported earnings from Android, one would guess.. though as Google mentions, this is likely ALL they've earned from Android as a platform, nut just the impact of those specific methods.
- sidcool 11y agoThat might be legal but in my opinion not ethical.
- yyhhsj0521 11y agoOracle has a legal department twice the size of its developing department :-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sokoloff 11y agoRelated: http://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-org-charts-2011-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-org-charts-2011-6
- bliti 11y agoI just wished google would use C++ for Android. It's does away with all this nonsense. I'm looking forward to the day where I have to pay oracle for every android app download I get even if the app is free...
- mr_overalls 11y agoC# is such a nice language, and Microsoft has been making such strides toward openness and cross-platform with .NET lately. Imagine if Microsoft granted Google a perpetual license to use C#.
- jinst8gmi 11y agoBrainfuck probably has an equal chance of being selected as C#. The problem is more that the APIs and all of the existing apps. Google can't just wake up one morning and decide that everything will be now in language XYZ because there are literally millions of apps for Android which have been written in Java against Java APIs. C# would also be an unusual choice for a company that does zero(?) C# work.
- mr_overalls 11y agoI don't know. Weirder things have happened. And we're talking about a decision with billion-dollar ramifications. http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/05/microsoft-and-google-collaborate-on-typescript-hell-has-not-frozen-over-yet/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/05/microsoft-and-google-collab...
- V-2 11y agoNow it's too late, but unlike Brainfuck, Google did consider C# as an option, see my comment (sibling comment to yours)
- tracker1 11y agoThey're already working with MIT and a patent release. https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/LICENSE.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
- V-2 11y agoAnd Google briefly considered adopting C# instead of Java back in the day. As a .NET dev turned Android dev (and not liking Java 6 one bit) I regret they didn't go down that path... http://www.wired.com/2012/04/android-google-oracle/ http://www.wired.com/2012/04/android-google-oracle/ In another 2005 e-mail admitted as evidence by Oracle, Rubin tells Google co-founder Larry Page: “If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language, or 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”
- jorgecastillo 11y agoIf this teaches us anything, is that you should avoid as hard as you can, giving others rope, with which they can hang you. I avoid Java anywhere I can, so for me, Java is only for mobile apps on Android. I also invite anyone reading this comment, to read the following story, which always comes to my mind in this sort of events: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=MacBasic.txt
- Negative1 11y agoCould someone with a legal background please explain what Oracle would have to prove to win this?
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoDisclaimer: I don't have a legal background. If I understand correctly, Oracle would have to prove that Google's use of the Java API did not fall under the fair use exception in copyright law. That is, if I write something, you can't publish it as your own. That's copyright. But there are exceptions within the law. One exception is fair use (others are criticism, parody, and there may be more, but fair use is the one in play in this case). Note that fair use was in the original trial, and the jury deadlocked on whether that was a valid defense for Google. Below here, my understanding is less solid. But I think that one category of fair use is interoperability. That is, if I have a copyright interface (like, say, an API), you can copy that API in order to interface to something. To what degree, and what the boundaries are, I'm not sure.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoYet another reason I push updating the old Modula, Oberon, or Component Pascal languages instead of using C# or Java. Both are controlled by scheming, money-hungry companies that try to eliminate competition and innovation outside their firms. Best not to be tied to such companies at all.
- criddell 11y agoWhat's the argument that Google should pay Oracle? Is there something in the Java license? Has Google's use of Java somehow damaged Oracle? Are they worse off now than they would be if Android were built on a different technology?
- fpgeek 11y agoI really don't understand what Oracle's lawyers are thinking. Yes, coming up with ever-more-creative theories about why Google owes Oracle might have some tactical advantages, but any victory in court on those terms would be pyrrhic. It doesn't matter how many billions Google coughs up if the next phone call is IBM demanding the company for using SQL. Aren't Oracle's lawyers looking past the next move? Are they that confident that their API arguments will lose? Do they really have that much faith in the hairs they're splitting between Google's API reuse and Oracle's? Or is their advice being colored by all the follow-on legal work there will be because Oracle is going down this path?
- puppetmaster3 11y ago1. Oracle's lawyers are idiots as they can't show it's same. For example run apache http client jar on android and java. It's same. Idiots. 2. If Oracle's dumb lawyers win, I'm happy. I get paid a salary to work. Why should companies get code for free, why do they need me. Copying and violating a license is bad. Even GPL and other code I write, respect the license. 3. To summarize, would you want Google to violate GPL?