You won't like this, but.... Sun's documentation specified that the APIs were copyright, and in an email on March 24, 2006, Andy Rubin wrote that: "Java.lang a

You won't like this, but.... Sun's documentation specified that the APIs were copyright, and in an email on March 24, 2006, Andy Rubin wrote that: "Java.lang apis are copyrighted ... Sun owns the brand and ip [and} Sun gets to say who they license the tck to" (edited for clarity). That was before Sun went open source. By 2007, Google was making serious efforts to "scrub" its code for references to Java. In 2010, it said the "bad words" were "Java, License and Patent". On April 9, 2008 Google's Alan Donovan wrote an internal email to java-users@google.com explaining how to turn off "Sun proprietary API" warnings issued by the Java compiler. http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful-infringement.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2016/05/heres-mountain-of-willful... It's pretty clear that (a) Google knew it was using copyright materials and (b) trying to conceal the fact, rather than taking out a license. On May 9, 2014, the Federal Circuit court ruled that the Java APIs are copyrightable. https://www.eff.org/files/2014/11/10/oracle_v_google_13-1021.opinion.5-7-2014.1.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2014/11/10/oracle_v_google_13-1021... Arguing that bad laws are bad does not stop them from being laws....