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It's a shame that there was no one like judge Alsup in the appeals court. Now it's about legal phrases and licensing terms instead of common sense all over aga

It's a shame that there was no one like judge Alsup in the appeals court. Now it's about legal phrases and licensing terms instead of common sense all over again.

BoorishBears 9y ago
Unpopular opinion: I feel Google should be punished for what they did to Java. Maybe the mechanism being used is wrong, but Android bastardized Java and as an Android developer I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java. Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too little very late.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  So you want Swing apps on Android?
  - anonymouse12 9y ago
    Quit shilling for your employer. No one takes this argument about a piece of technology (swing) that has not been relevant for over a decade and a half seriously. Look up the history of innovations that Java and in particular the hotspot JVM brought to the mainstream. Enough with this false narrative that java and the jvm sucked and was in decline and Google swooped in and saved it. Some of the creators of your beloved V8 and Go Lang were the very same folks who helped create the hotspot JVM. Google basically pulled a fast one by not buying a license and they knew the consequences even at the time this occurred.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    Someone flagged the comment before I could post my response, but here it was (re: Google didn't save Java on the client): Java on the server was not in decline, but Java on the desktop was declining, had declined. Applets were dead, very few success stories around Java Web Start. And the main three 'consumer' success stories for Java on the frontend were Limewire, Minecraft, and IntelliJ/Eclipse. As a consumer facing technology, Java was a complete failure. No sane person wanting to ship a commercial, consumer app to end users would consider Java as a first choice. I have been a Java developer from the day HotSpot Alpha was released, I say this as someone who loves the platform. Personal Java failed. I worked for years on J2ME apps, Java on high end Nokia Phones, Java on Palm devices (Ghost VM), etc. All these platforms amounted to nada. Flash was far more widely used for front end user facing apps than Java. Ditto for Visual Basic. The relevance of the Swing comment is the people complaining about the fragmentation of Java's write-once-run-anywhere promise, which was always more of a promise than a reality. If you want to make a viable mobile Java, you had to remove Swing, Java2D, CORBA, JMX, and a ton of other JDK libraries, which is exactly what Sun did with the various profiles as well. But once you do that, you have "fragmentation" If Google had not produced Android, I can bet the leading platform today for mobile development that is not from Apple, would either be Xamarin based C#, or some scripting language like Lua or Python on top of a Linux widget toolkit. Java would not be in the mix at all. Or perhaps it would FlashMX sitting on top of Linux (ugh)
- vijaybritto 9y ago
  They made billions of people access and use technology. Java was just a tool to help them achieve it. Sorry, your complaint is not really making sense here
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    It’s like I have a brand that makes widgets and gives out the plans to our widgets. Larry finds plans to one of my old widgets and builds it into his awesome product and millions of people learn how to use the old version of my widget. But my old widget kind of sucks and I’ve been releasing new widgets that fix a lot of issues. Millions of people are gnashing their teeth over the old widget but Larry won’t update which version of my widget, he’s occasionally using parts of my new widget blueprint so now he’s creating Frankensteins of my widget that don’t even have a version. But they’re still my widgets, Larry calling them by my brand name, people are conflating them with my widget, people making tools for my widget now have two diverging targets. People are saying my widget sucks because of issues I fixed ages ago. It almost reminds me of J++ in a way, but with more subtlety.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      That sounds like a trademark complaint, not a copyright issue.
      - BoorishBears 9y ago
        Well if you look at my comment I mention this being the wrong mechanism for them being punished
- wstrange 9y ago
  Android arguably saved Java by making it much more relevant than it otherwise would have been.
  - headhuntermdk 9y ago
    But isn't that the point? That Google uses the Java infrastructure, but when it comes down to licensing, it isn't Java anymore? Google made a business decision to not buy a license and time will tell if that was a good decision or not.
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    Android popularity (or demise) does have 0 impact on server-side Java. We don't share the toolset, we don't run the same JVMs etc. Call it Jiva if you like. Google should go Kotlin way, it will be better for everybody.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    Whaaa? I mean Java is undoubtedly more popular because of Android but it's not like it was hurting before. Sure, there aren't a lot of consumer-facing applications running Java but it's pretty much the standard on the enterprise side of things.
    - dlanouette 9y ago
      Java on mobile was (virtually) dead before Android. Now it's thriving and relevant again.
      - dagw 9y ago
        Java on mobile was (virtually) dead before Android. Now it's thriving and relevant again. Perhaps, but is that a good thing if you're Oracle? Especially considering the fact that it's Google Java that's thriving and not Oracle Java.
        dlanouette 9y ago
- jbob2000 9y ago
  Java was literally dying before Google released Android. It was just something you did if you were in university or working on a legacy system. Everyone was moving to Ruby, JavaScript, and C#.
  - krzyk 9y ago
    I don't think so: https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02wxtgw,%2Fm%2F07sbkfb https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02... From that you see that interest in Java is slowly declining since 2004, release of Android didn't even move it up a bit.
    - oh_teh_meows 9y ago
      Look again. The downward trend of Java was arrested and it stayed on a plateau when Android began becoming popular; then come 2015 they both came down together. If we're using Google Trends as a proxy for what happened, then I'd say there's some truth to Android saving Java from its decline.
- mtgx 9y ago
  On the other hand, Java was on a decline before Android, and since then it's more popular than ever. Just think how many new developers have had to "learn Java" just so they can build Android apps. I understand the fragmentation issue, but I think it's a minor one and the net benefit for the Java ecosystem was much larger. Also, Oracle is simply in the wrong trying to copyright APIs, and it has gotten a lot of hate from developers over that + all the other things they've done to Sun's previous projects that also made developers hate them. With its developer-hostile attitude, is it any wonder developers are no longer interested in having anything to do with Oracle? https://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracles-lack-of-developer-appeal-is-killing-its-cloud-business/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracles-lack-of-develop... Like what is this nonsense from the article: > Oracle said its APIs are freely available to those who want to build applications for computers and mobile devices, but draws the line at anyone who wants to use them for a competing platform or to embed them in an electronic device.
  - dastbe 9y ago
    This argument that Java was dying before the arrival of Android is super suspect. At best, you could say java was stuck in a rut between 6 and 7 (similar to c++ up until c++11), but it’s industry usage had not waned.
- intrasight 9y ago
  The court isn't going to care if what Google did was damaging to the Java ecosystem. They only care if Google broke copyright law. Also, all software stacks are fragmented. Consider the alternative - some kind of machine overlord dictatorship ;)
- lmm 9y ago
  Java was only popular in the first place because people assumed it was a free-enough language that anyone could implement. Everyone assumed the TCK license was a technicality right up until Apache Harmony was (entirely unreasonably) denied one; most of the JCP members expressed shock and dismay at that. That was the decision that lead to Android being "Java-but-not-Java". If they'd been granted a TCK license like they should've, they'd've implemented proper Java (confirmed by the TCK) and we'd be in exactly the same situation as if Google had used OpenJDK all along.
- curt15 9y ago
  >Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too little very late. What functional changes accompanied Google's switch to OpenJDK? Doesn't Android still use its own incompatible VM?
- oconnor663 9y ago
  > real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java Even 100% running with that, damaging an ecosystem isn't against the law. You could argue that Google damaged the Erlang ecosystem by not basing Android on Erlang. Ecosystems compete with each other all the time, and it's hard for one to grow without damaging another.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    I didn’t say it’s against the law, or imply it. If anything I implied the opposite with the comment about the wrong mechanism. Actually my mistake, I assumed that you mean copyright, if you mean all laws in general, I feel there’s probably a way for Oracle to litigate, similar to how J++ went down
- cgmg 9y ago
  > Android bastardized Java > I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java Your feelings are not a legal basis for punishment.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    Did I say they were? You’re patching into the use of the word feeling. This just seems like a replay of J++. No one outside of Oracle or Google can determine the facts behind those statements you quoted, so the best outsiders like us can do is go based on “feelings” based on basic reasoning
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  Its not the courts purpose to ensure the health of the java ecosystem its purpose to decide what the law is now and going forward.

It's a shame that there was no one like judge Alsup in the appeals court. Now it's about legal phrases and licensing terms instead of common sense all over again.

BoorishBears 9y ago

Unpopular opinion: I feel Google should be punished for what they did to Java. Maybe the mechanism being used is wrong, but Android bastardized Java and as an Android developer I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java. Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too little very late.

cromwellian 9y ago
So you want Swing apps on Android?
- anonymouse12 9y ago
  Quit shilling for your employer. No one takes this argument about a piece of technology (swing) that has not been relevant for over a decade and a half seriously. Look up the history of innovations that Java and in particular the hotspot JVM brought to the mainstream. Enough with this false narrative that java and the jvm sucked and was in decline and Google swooped in and saved it. Some of the creators of your beloved V8 and Go Lang were the very same folks who helped create the hotspot JVM. Google basically pulled a fast one by not buying a license and they knew the consequences even at the time this occurred.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  Someone flagged the comment before I could post my response, but here it was (re: Google didn't save Java on the client): Java on the server was not in decline, but Java on the desktop was declining, had declined. Applets were dead, very few success stories around Java Web Start. And the main three 'consumer' success stories for Java on the frontend were Limewire, Minecraft, and IntelliJ/Eclipse. As a consumer facing technology, Java was a complete failure. No sane person wanting to ship a commercial, consumer app to end users would consider Java as a first choice. I have been a Java developer from the day HotSpot Alpha was released, I say this as someone who loves the platform. Personal Java failed. I worked for years on J2ME apps, Java on high end Nokia Phones, Java on Palm devices (Ghost VM), etc. All these platforms amounted to nada. Flash was far more widely used for front end user facing apps than Java. Ditto for Visual Basic. The relevance of the Swing comment is the people complaining about the fragmentation of Java's write-once-run-anywhere promise, which was always more of a promise than a reality. If you want to make a viable mobile Java, you had to remove Swing, Java2D, CORBA, JMX, and a ton of other JDK libraries, which is exactly what Sun did with the various profiles as well. But once you do that, you have "fragmentation" If Google had not produced Android, I can bet the leading platform today for mobile development that is not from Apple, would either be Xamarin based C#, or some scripting language like Lua or Python on top of a Linux widget toolkit. Java would not be in the mix at all. Or perhaps it would FlashMX sitting on top of Linux (ugh)
vijaybritto 9y ago
They made billions of people access and use technology. Java was just a tool to help them achieve it. Sorry, your complaint is not really making sense here
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  It’s like I have a brand that makes widgets and gives out the plans to our widgets. Larry finds plans to one of my old widgets and builds it into his awesome product and millions of people learn how to use the old version of my widget. But my old widget kind of sucks and I’ve been releasing new widgets that fix a lot of issues. Millions of people are gnashing their teeth over the old widget but Larry won’t update which version of my widget, he’s occasionally using parts of my new widget blueprint so now he’s creating Frankensteins of my widget that don’t even have a version. But they’re still my widgets, Larry calling them by my brand name, people are conflating them with my widget, people making tools for my widget now have two diverging targets. People are saying my widget sucks because of issues I fixed ages ago. It almost reminds me of J++ in a way, but with more subtlety.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    That sounds like a trademark complaint, not a copyright issue.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      Well if you look at my comment I mention this being the wrong mechanism for them being punished
wstrange 9y ago
Android arguably saved Java by making it much more relevant than it otherwise would have been.
- headhuntermdk 9y ago
  But isn't that the point? That Google uses the Java infrastructure, but when it comes down to licensing, it isn't Java anymore? Google made a business decision to not buy a license and time will tell if that was a good decision or not.
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  Android popularity (or demise) does have 0 impact on server-side Java. We don't share the toolset, we don't run the same JVMs etc. Call it Jiva if you like. Google should go Kotlin way, it will be better for everybody.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Whaaa? I mean Java is undoubtedly more popular because of Android but it's not like it was hurting before. Sure, there aren't a lot of consumer-facing applications running Java but it's pretty much the standard on the enterprise side of things.
  - dlanouette 9y ago
    Java on mobile was (virtually) dead before Android. Now it's thriving and relevant again.
    - dagw 9y ago
      Java on mobile was (virtually) dead before Android. Now it's thriving and relevant again. Perhaps, but is that a good thing if you're Oracle? Especially considering the fact that it's Google Java that's thriving and not Oracle Java.
      - dlanouette 9y ago
jbob2000 9y ago
Java was literally dying before Google released Android. It was just something you did if you were in university or working on a legacy system. Everyone was moving to Ruby, JavaScript, and C#.
- krzyk 9y ago
  I don't think so: https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02wxtgw,%2Fm%2F07sbkfb https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F02... From that you see that interest in Java is slowly declining since 2004, release of Android didn't even move it up a bit.
  - oh_teh_meows 9y ago
    Look again. The downward trend of Java was arrested and it stayed on a plateau when Android began becoming popular; then come 2015 they both came down together. If we're using Google Trends as a proxy for what happened, then I'd say there's some truth to Android saving Java from its decline.
mtgx 9y ago
On the other hand, Java was on a decline before Android, and since then it's more popular than ever. Just think how many new developers have had to "learn Java" just so they can build Android apps. I understand the fragmentation issue, but I think it's a minor one and the net benefit for the Java ecosystem was much larger. Also, Oracle is simply in the wrong trying to copyright APIs, and it has gotten a lot of hate from developers over that + all the other things they've done to Sun's previous projects that also made developers hate them. With its developer-hostile attitude, is it any wonder developers are no longer interested in having anything to do with Oracle? https://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracles-lack-of-developer-appeal-is-killing-its-cloud-business/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracles-lack-of-develop... Like what is this nonsense from the article: > Oracle said its APIs are freely available to those who want to build applications for computers and mobile devices, but draws the line at anyone who wants to use them for a competing platform or to embed them in an electronic device.
- dastbe 9y ago
  This argument that Java was dying before the arrival of Android is super suspect. At best, you could say java was stuck in a rut between 6 and 7 (similar to c++ up until c++11), but it’s industry usage had not waned.
intrasight 9y ago
The court isn't going to care if what Google did was damaging to the Java ecosystem. They only care if Google broke copyright law. Also, all software stacks are fragmented. Consider the alternative - some kind of machine overlord dictatorship ;)
lmm 9y ago
Java was only popular in the first place because people assumed it was a free-enough language that anyone could implement. Everyone assumed the TCK license was a technicality right up until Apache Harmony was (entirely unreasonably) denied one; most of the JCP members expressed shock and dismay at that. That was the decision that lead to Android being "Java-but-not-Java". If they'd been granted a TCK license like they should've, they'd've implemented proper Java (confirmed by the TCK) and we'd be in exactly the same situation as if Google had used OpenJDK all along.
curt15 9y ago
>Google has started to make it right with the switch to openJDK and Desugar, but in a lot of ways it’s too little very late. What functional changes accompanied Google's switch to OpenJDK? Doesn't Android still use its own incompatible VM?
oconnor663 9y ago
> real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java Even 100% running with that, damaging an ecosystem isn't against the law. You could argue that Google damaged the Erlang ecosystem by not basing Android on Erlang. Ecosystems compete with each other all the time, and it's hard for one to grow without damaging another.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  I didn’t say it’s against the law, or imply it. If anything I implied the opposite with the comment about the wrong mechanism. Actually my mistake, I assumed that you mean copyright, if you mean all laws in general, I feel there’s probably a way for Oracle to litigate, similar to how J++ went down
cgmg 9y ago
> Android bastardized Java > I feel real damage has been done to the health of the Java ecosystem by having billions of devices run fragmented Java-but-not-Java Your feelings are not a legal basis for punishment.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  Did I say they were? You’re patching into the use of the word feeling. This just seems like a replay of J++. No one outside of Oracle or Google can determine the facts behind those statements you quoted, so the best outsiders like us can do is go based on “feelings” based on basic reasoning
michaelmrose 9y ago
Its not the courts purpose to ensure the health of the java ecosystem its purpose to decide what the law is now and going forward.