8 ms·

I’m not sure if I have the timeline correct but I thought Java was owned by Sun Microsystems at the time when they made these decisions. I’m sure they rightly a

I’m not sure if I have the timeline correct but I thought Java was owned by Sun Microsystems at the time when they made these decisions. I’m sure they rightly assumed Sun Microsystems would never do this. It is sad to see what Oracle is doing with Sun Microsystem’s creation.

ProAm 9y ago
This is what Oracle does with every acquisition. You wring as much revenue out of a product as possible and when you cant get anymore you toss it aside and go acquire another product/company. This is what will happen to Netsuite which was recently acquired.
malux85 9y ago
It is sad. When I was young, about 16-19, I had a friend who worked for Sun Microsystems and he was an amazing mentor, and maybe twice a year I got to meet some of his colleagues too. They embodied 'the hacker' spirit that I believe hacker news represents - long grey hair, very open minded, very friendly, and loved being passionate about tech discussions while keeping an open mind and a willingness to be wrong. These people turned me into who I am today by showing me a form of non-vain, open, intellectual curiosity that I try and emulate - the persons age, race, gender, religion -- all irrelevant -- it was about the ideas. Though they would look down on you if you used the wrong editor (go vi!) but they would smile and show you the way.
- pgwhalen 9y ago
  I don’t mean to be overly negative, but I hope you recognize the irony in describing your image of a hacker as someone with long, grey hair, and proceeding to say that superficial traits like appearance don’t matter, only ideas.
  - malux85 9y ago
    I did notice that after submitting it, and made a mental note in correcting it in the future. It was more for comic effect / appeal to stereotype - but that failure is mine. I'm always learning :)
snarf21 9y ago
It is beyond sad. Oracle bought Sun exclusively to sue Google for its use of Java in Android. (I know someone involved in the lawsuits.) We really need to fix our patent system on the software side.
- dagw 9y ago
  We really need to fix our patent system on the software side. While this might be true, it's worth noting that this is a copyright case and not a patent case.
  - dmoy 9y ago
    Oracle tried really hard to also make it a patent case, but aslup threw that stuff out.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  If Google cared 1 second about Sun they would have bought it, after being a major contributor to its downfall.
- dec0dedab0de 9y ago
  Oracle bought Sun exclusively to sue Google for its use of Java in Android. I think MySQL had something to do with it too. Even if just to capture the mindshare of all the developers using it at the time.
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    Yeah, at the time they were also talking about being like Apple and being a software and hardware company...so the Sun hardware was part of it too.
pjmlp 9y ago
Like school bullying, they assumed that they could get away with it, because Sun was out of money to sue them. Here is the latest Gosling interview on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be&t=57m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be...
- todd3834 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing this video! This has definitely widened my perspective.
Justsignedup 9y ago
The following is the fun history: - Java is created / owned by Sun. - Sun was fearful of MS's EEE approach (embrace, extend, exterminate) where MS took a thing, built their own, pushed their own tooling, added their own proprietary instruction, boom windows lock-in. So Sun basically made their contract: Java is free but only if you DO NOT introduce any new instructions, and implement a 100% compatible VM, nothing added or removed. - Sun was making _some_ money out of mobile. - Google introduced this pre-compiled java stuff. It used Java but compiled into binary. Sun was kind of excited. Java everywhere. Even though it violated the terms sun put out, sun was happy to get more java out there. - Google / Sun had a more or less truce. - Oracle bought sun. Sun didn't have much business left as Linux was obliterating their Unix business. - Oracle saw the primary income from Sun as a lawsuit against google. And licensing on every Android phone period. And thus today.
- TuringNYC 9y ago
  And given the paltry sum of the Sun acquisition, this is the M&A miss-of-the-decade for Google's M&A group.
- BenoitP 9y ago
  It is sad that us developers -actors in the very resource they are fighting for (our mindshare)- do not get any say in this. Java belongs in a Foundation.
- monocasa 9y ago
  > Oracle saw the primary income from Sun as a lawsuit against google. And licensing on every Android phone period. I think they see the Sun acquisition more as controlling the Cobol of the 21st century. Putting a stick in Google's eye is just icing on the cake.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Sun wasn't happy at all, see Gosling interviews. They just didn't had enough money to sue and decided to make juice out of lemons.
zach43 9y ago
> they rightly assumed Sun Microsystems would never do this Interestingly, the article includes a quote from a Sun Microsystems co-founder who agrees with Oracle's stance on this: > Among Oracle’s supporters in the case is Sun co-founder Scott McNealy, who said Java was created to be a platform-neutral system where programmers could “write once, run anywhere.” > Java “is the foundation upon which our digital world is built,” McNealy said in a filing with the court. “Google stole that foundation, used it to build Android, and destroyed Oracle’s market in the process.”
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > Java “is the foundation upon which our digital world is built” I think McNealy is taking rather too much credit for Java here. Yes, it's widely used. The foundation? The foundation? Hardly.
- monocasa 9y ago
  > Interestingly, the article includes a quote from a Sun Microsystems co-founder who agrees with Oracle's stance on this And yet Sun's CEO previously took the stand in support of Google.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
Well, one could argue that, had Google paid for the license, Sun wouldn't have been bought by Oracle.

ProAm 9y ago

This is what Oracle does with every acquisition. You wring as much revenue out of a product as possible and when you cant get anymore you toss it aside and go acquire another product/company. This is what will happen to Netsuite which was recently acquired.

malux85 9y ago

It is sad. When I was young, about 16-19, I had a friend who worked for Sun Microsystems and he was an amazing mentor, and maybe twice a year I got to meet some of his colleagues too. They embodied 'the hacker' spirit that I believe hacker news represents - long grey hair, very open minded, very friendly, and loved being passionate about tech discussions while keeping an open mind and a willingness to be wrong. These people turned me into who I am today by showing me a form of non-vain, open, intellectual curiosity that I try and emulate - the persons age, race, gender, religion -- all irrelevant -- it was about the ideas. Though they would look down on you if you used the wrong editor (go vi!) but they would smile and show you the way.

pgwhalen 9y ago
I don’t mean to be overly negative, but I hope you recognize the irony in describing your image of a hacker as someone with long, grey hair, and proceeding to say that superficial traits like appearance don’t matter, only ideas.
- malux85 9y ago
  I did notice that after submitting it, and made a mental note in correcting it in the future. It was more for comic effect / appeal to stereotype - but that failure is mine. I'm always learning :)

snarf21 9y ago

It is beyond sad. Oracle bought Sun exclusively to sue Google for its use of Java in Android. (I know someone involved in the lawsuits.) We really need to fix our patent system on the software side.

dagw 9y ago
We really need to fix our patent system on the software side. While this might be true, it's worth noting that this is a copyright case and not a patent case.
- dmoy 9y ago
  Oracle tried really hard to also make it a patent case, but aslup threw that stuff out.
pjmlp 9y ago
If Google cared 1 second about Sun they would have bought it, after being a major contributor to its downfall.
dec0dedab0de 9y ago
Oracle bought Sun exclusively to sue Google for its use of Java in Android. I think MySQL had something to do with it too. Even if just to capture the mindshare of all the developers using it at the time.
- youdontknowtho 9y ago
  Yeah, at the time they were also talking about being like Apple and being a software and hardware company...so the Sun hardware was part of it too.

pjmlp 9y ago

Like school bullying, they assumed that they could get away with it, because Sun was out of money to sue them. Here is the latest Gosling interview on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be&t=57m42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYw3X4RZv6Y&feature=youtu.be...

todd3834 9y ago
Thanks for sharing this video! This has definitely widened my perspective.

Justsignedup 9y ago

The following is the fun history: - Java is created / owned by Sun. - Sun was fearful of MS's EEE approach (embrace, extend, exterminate) where MS took a thing, built their own, pushed their own tooling, added their own proprietary instruction, boom windows lock-in. So Sun basically made their contract: Java is free but only if you DO NOT introduce any new instructions, and implement a 100% compatible VM, nothing added or removed. - Sun was making _some_ money out of mobile. - Google introduced this pre-compiled java stuff. It used Java but compiled into binary. Sun was kind of excited. Java everywhere. Even though it violated the terms sun put out, sun was happy to get more java out there. - Google / Sun had a more or less truce. - Oracle bought sun. Sun didn't have much business left as Linux was obliterating their Unix business. - Oracle saw the primary income from Sun as a lawsuit against google. And licensing on every Android phone period. And thus today.

TuringNYC 9y ago
And given the paltry sum of the Sun acquisition, this is the M&A miss-of-the-decade for Google's M&A group.
BenoitP 9y ago
It is sad that us developers -actors in the very resource they are fighting for (our mindshare)- do not get any say in this. Java belongs in a Foundation.
monocasa 9y ago
> Oracle saw the primary income from Sun as a lawsuit against google. And licensing on every Android phone period. I think they see the Sun acquisition more as controlling the Cobol of the 21st century. Putting a stick in Google's eye is just icing on the cake.
pjmlp 9y ago
Sun wasn't happy at all, see Gosling interviews. They just didn't had enough money to sue and decided to make juice out of lemons.

zach43 9y ago

> they rightly assumed Sun Microsystems would never do this Interestingly, the article includes a quote from a Sun Microsystems co-founder who agrees with Oracle's stance on this: > Among Oracle’s supporters in the case is Sun co-founder Scott McNealy, who said Java was created to be a platform-neutral system where programmers could “write once, run anywhere.” > Java “is the foundation upon which our digital world is built,” McNealy said in a filing with the court. “Google stole that foundation, used it to build Android, and destroyed Oracle’s market in the process.”

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> Java “is the foundation upon which our digital world is built” I think McNealy is taking rather too much credit for Java here. Yes, it's widely used. The foundation? The foundation? Hardly.
monocasa 9y ago
> Interestingly, the article includes a quote from a Sun Microsystems co-founder who agrees with Oracle's stance on this And yet Sun's CEO previously took the stand in support of Google.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

Well, one could argue that, had Google paid for the license, Sun wouldn't have been bought by Oracle.