2 ms·

>>Oracle is doing a lot of heavy lifting and most of it is released through Openjdk as 100% OSS under the GPL. At some point they are going to want see some pr

by kamaal 8y ago

>>Oracle is doing a lot of heavy lifting and most of it is released through Openjdk as 100% OSS under the GPL. At some point they are going to want see some profits in return given how many Android phones are being sold. And needless to mention how much of world's software runs on Java today.

threeseed 8y ago
Oracle took over Java 8+ years ago. Don't you think if they wanted to "see some profits" they might've done it already ?
- kamaal 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google.... Oracle has sought upward of US$8.8 billion in damages due to the commercial success of the Android system. Nothing wrong with it, of course. If a company wants customers to pay for their products, then they are right. People just need to know before hand, than being sold on it as free, and then asked to pay $XK per installation box a few years down the lane.
  - pron 8y ago
    BTW, Microsoft has already extracted billions from Android due to litigation or threats of litigation over patents.
    - FactolSarin 8y ago
      Your comment is irrelevant. Besides the fact that other companies like Apple wielded their parents against Android, the big difference is Microsoft's patents weren't open source. The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. And if you want to talk Microsoft, the most relevant thing to the discussion is that .Net Core includes explicit language in it's lisence that allows for re-implimenting it, and in fact despite the whole "Microsoft is evil" meme, they never sued Mono, a re-implimentation of their non-Open Source .Net Framework.
      - pron 8y ago
        > The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. While OpenJDK is, indeed, very much open source, Android did not use it -- although I think it does now -- as they didn't want to use its open source license. Google, on the other hand, uses OpenJDK extensively, and have even forked it internally, without any complaint from Oracle [1]. So no open-source software was the subject of the lawsuit (well, no Oracle open-source software). > they never sued Mono, a re-implimentation of their non-Open Source .Net Framework. That is not about benevolence but the simple fact that Mono did not harm their business in any way (few people used it; Microsoft did, however, sue or threaten to sue over the wildly successful Android). On the other hand, licensing Java for use on mobile devices was Sun's main income from Java. Companies don't generally do things on principle, but for business reasons, nor do they refrain from business out of principle. Both Oracle and Microsoft sued (or threatened to) over Android for business reasons, and Google chose not to use the open-source Java for business reasons. [1]: https://video.oracle.com/detail/videos/featured-videos/video/2630310903001 https://video.oracle.com/detail/videos/featured-videos/video...
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Actually Android still doesn't use 100% of OpenJDK, that is just PR from Google supporters on the Android story, easily proven by looking into AOSP source tree, What Android does is to use a subset of OpenJDK, and even that is pretty much dependent on which Android version one is talking about. So it is still impossible to get a random jar from Maven Central and be certain that it will work of the box on Android, even on Android P.
        AstralStorm 8y ago
        Android does not use whole OpenJDK, only parts of its library, that are vetted and open. The compiler is used by Android Studio and Gradle plugin, but the bytecode is rebuilt again with d8 or dex. Google has written their own compiler in the past but decided it was unnecessary. The critical patented parts are not in Dalvik nor in J2SE library.
        8y ago
  - icebraining 8y ago
    While I don't agree with their tactics, Google was - by their own word - not using Java. This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java.
    - kamaal 8y ago
      >>This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java. That depends on how commercially successful your product is. I don't think it would even make logical sense for Oracle to go after every single start up that uses Java. But lets say tomorrow news came out that a big reason for AWS's success is Java, then all of a sudden you are going to see Oracle want some of that money. Please note I'm not saying expecting people to pay is necessarily wrong. I'm only saying people need to know what they are signing up for.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        And all I'm saying is that Google was not using Java, they were using an alternative implementation of the same APIs (derived from Apache Harmony). The difference is that using Java™ gives you a license to the copyright and patents (and hence protection from Oracle), whereas using something else does not.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - simion314 8y ago
        Apple could install a free Java version and Oracle could do nothing about it, the problem was that Google was not using Java.
vbezhenar 8y ago
Oracle has been selling Java support for a long time, they do have a profit. They just did some rebranding to distinguish between paid Oracle Java and free Oracle OpenJDK build. Probably it helps them to sell more support subscriptions, but it doesn't change anything really, if you want free Java, it's still there and it's still as good.

by kamaal 8y ago

threeseed 8y ago

Oracle took over Java 8+ years ago. Don't you think if they wanted to "see some profits" they might've done it already ?

kamaal 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google.... Oracle has sought upward of US$8.8 billion in damages due to the commercial success of the Android system. Nothing wrong with it, of course. If a company wants customers to pay for their products, then they are right. People just need to know before hand, than being sold on it as free, and then asked to pay $XK per installation box a few years down the lane.
- pron 8y ago
  BTW, Microsoft has already extracted billions from Android due to litigation or threats of litigation over patents.
  - FactolSarin 8y ago
    Your comment is irrelevant. Besides the fact that other companies like Apple wielded their parents against Android, the big difference is Microsoft's patents weren't open source. The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. And if you want to talk Microsoft, the most relevant thing to the discussion is that .Net Core includes explicit language in it's lisence that allows for re-implimenting it, and in fact despite the whole "Microsoft is evil" meme, they never sued Mono, a re-implimentation of their non-Open Source .Net Framework.
    - pron 8y ago
      > The reason Oracle's behavior is so bad, and raises the question of whether Java is really Free Software anymore, is they sued Google over re-implimenting an ostensibly Open Source language. While OpenJDK is, indeed, very much open source, Android did not use it -- although I think it does now -- as they didn't want to use its open source license. Google, on the other hand, uses OpenJDK extensively, and have even forked it internally, without any complaint from Oracle [1]. So no open-source software was the subject of the lawsuit (well, no Oracle open-source software). > they never sued Mono, a re-implimentation of their non-Open Source .Net Framework. That is not about benevolence but the simple fact that Mono did not harm their business in any way (few people used it; Microsoft did, however, sue or threaten to sue over the wildly successful Android). On the other hand, licensing Java for use on mobile devices was Sun's main income from Java. Companies don't generally do things on principle, but for business reasons, nor do they refrain from business out of principle. Both Oracle and Microsoft sued (or threatened to) over Android for business reasons, and Google chose not to use the open-source Java for business reasons. [1]: https://video.oracle.com/detail/videos/featured-videos/video/2630310903001 https://video.oracle.com/detail/videos/featured-videos/video...
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Actually Android still doesn't use 100% of OpenJDK, that is just PR from Google supporters on the Android story, easily proven by looking into AOSP source tree, What Android does is to use a subset of OpenJDK, and even that is pretty much dependent on which Android version one is talking about. So it is still impossible to get a random jar from Maven Central and be certain that it will work of the box on Android, even on Android P.
      - AstralStorm 8y ago
        Android does not use whole OpenJDK, only parts of its library, that are vetted and open. The compiler is used by Android Studio and Gradle plugin, but the bytecode is rebuilt again with d8 or dex. Google has written their own compiler in the past but decided it was unnecessary. The critical patented parts are not in Dalvik nor in J2SE library.
      - 8y ago
- icebraining 8y ago
  While I don't agree with their tactics, Google was - by their own word - not using Java. This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    >>This lawsuit has really nothing to do with people using OpenJDK/Oracle Java. That depends on how commercially successful your product is. I don't think it would even make logical sense for Oracle to go after every single start up that uses Java. But lets say tomorrow news came out that a big reason for AWS's success is Java, then all of a sudden you are going to see Oracle want some of that money. Please note I'm not saying expecting people to pay is necessarily wrong. I'm only saying people need to know what they are signing up for.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      And all I'm saying is that Google was not using Java, they were using an alternative implementation of the same APIs (derived from Apache Harmony). The difference is that using Java™ gives you a license to the copyright and patents (and hence protection from Oracle), whereas using something else does not.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - simion314 8y ago
      Apple could install a free Java version and Oracle could do nothing about it, the problem was that Google was not using Java.

vbezhenar 8y ago

Oracle has been selling Java support for a long time, they do have a profit. They just did some rebranding to distinguish between paid Oracle Java and free Oracle OpenJDK build. Probably it helps them to sell more support subscriptions, but it doesn't change anything really, if you want free Java, it's still there and it's still as good.