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I think Oracle's case was incredibly full of merit, and an incredible PR campaign was run by Google to ensure nobody believed it. The idea that the whole of the

I think Oracle's case was incredibly full of merit, and an incredible PR campaign was run by Google to ensure nobody believed it. The idea that the whole of the software industry was under threat if Google wasn't able to wholesale violate Oracle's license terms for Java is absolutely laughable, but it's nearly a commonly held belief in the industry, propped up largely by organizations Google's Public Policy team has donated large sums to. Bear in mind, Google's internal correspondence covered knowing they needed to license Java, negotiating terms to license Java, and then when they didn't want to comply with Oracle's terms (which were literally: interoperability, because they wanted Android to run standard cross-platform Java apps), they chose to steal what they wanted instead. Andy Rubin (of "Larry Page gave me $90 million after I sexually harassed subordinates" fame) had a major bonus tied to launching Android on time, and just taking what he needed was the solution. Also, if Android had been GPL-licensed, they could've built on OpenJDK from the get-go legitimately, but again, stealing was preferable in Google's case to obeying license terms, because they wanted to appeal to manufacturer's pushing proprietary code. Oracle is not a hero, but Google was fighting against interoperability and open source licensing the entire way, and bought their way into public opinion.

realusername 6y ago
> propped up largely by organizations Google's Public Policy team has donated large sums to. Or just believed by developers who know what they are talking about you know... Nobody's really siding with Oracle in the industry because their case did not make much sense. > they chose to steal what they wanted instead They reimplemented everything you mean, there's no Oracle source code at all in Android and there's not even a JVM.
NobodyNada 6y ago
> The idea that the whole of the software industry was under threat if Google wasn't able to wholesale violate Oracle's license terms for Java is absolutely laughable Why is that? How is what Google did any different than what Stallman and Torvalds did when they created free reimplementations of the Unix API, or how the Wine and ReactOS projects reimplement the Windows API? The way I see it, the ability for us to write a drop-in-compatible replacement for proprietary software is a critically important right that allows us to defeat vendor lock-in, and it has fueled the growth of the software industry for decades.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL, the OpenJDK. The entire reason Google needed to rip off Java was so that they could Apache license Android. Also, Android wasn't a drop-in-compatible replacement. If it was, it might have a case, but the whole breakdown between Google and Oracle in negotiating was that Oracle had insisted on interoperability, and Google wanted to break compatibility. This is why the idea that the Supreme Court ruled on fair use is so freaking laughable, everything Google was trying to do was an antithesis to fair use, interoperability, and open source.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL, the OpenJDK. The initiative that led to OpenJDK started in 2006 with the release of the JDK (IIRC, minus some components Sun lacked rights to) in 2007. Android development started in 2003, with the first beta in 2007. OpenJDK wasn’t, in any meaningful sense, available for the development of Android.
  - D13Fd 6y ago
    > A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL So what? The question is whether what they did was fair use, and the Court held that it was. The availability of alternatives under other licenses isn't part of the analysis.
D13Fd 6y ago
Google's state of mind is irrelevant to the issues here. Whether its employees thought what they were doing was fair use or not just isn't part of the law.

realusername 6y ago

> propped up largely by organizations Google's Public Policy team has donated large sums to. Or just believed by developers who know what they are talking about you know... Nobody's really siding with Oracle in the industry because their case did not make much sense. > they chose to steal what they wanted instead They reimplemented everything you mean, there's no Oracle source code at all in Android and there's not even a JVM.

NobodyNada 6y ago

> The idea that the whole of the software industry was under threat if Google wasn't able to wholesale violate Oracle's license terms for Java is absolutely laughable Why is that? How is what Google did any different than what Stallman and Torvalds did when they created free reimplementations of the Unix API, or how the Wine and ReactOS projects reimplement the Windows API? The way I see it, the ability for us to write a drop-in-compatible replacement for proprietary software is a critically important right that allows us to defeat vendor lock-in, and it has fueled the growth of the software industry for decades.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL, the OpenJDK. The entire reason Google needed to rip off Java was so that they could Apache license Android. Also, Android wasn't a drop-in-compatible replacement. If it was, it might have a case, but the whole breakdown between Google and Oracle in negotiating was that Oracle had insisted on interoperability, and Google wanted to break compatibility. This is why the idea that the Supreme Court ruled on fair use is so freaking laughable, everything Google was trying to do was an antithesis to fair use, interoperability, and open source.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL, the OpenJDK. The initiative that led to OpenJDK started in 2006 with the release of the JDK (IIRC, minus some components Sun lacked rights to) in 2007. Android development started in 2003, with the first beta in 2007. OpenJDK wasn’t, in any meaningful sense, available for the development of Android.
- D13Fd 6y ago
  > A drop-in-compatible replacement was available under GPL So what? The question is whether what they did was fair use, and the Court held that it was. The availability of alternatives under other licenses isn't part of the analysis.

D13Fd 6y ago

Google's state of mind is irrelevant to the issues here. Whether its employees thought what they were doing was fair use or not just isn't part of the law.