10 ms·

Who does the work is immaterial to a lot of people. When Oracle bought Sun, literally everyone knew they'd move to a paid commercial license eventually. Which t

Who does the work is immaterial to a lot of people. When Oracle bought Sun, literally everyone knew they'd move to a paid commercial license eventually. Which they did. I personally am amused at this sequence of events. It happened to other Sun products as well; open office, and mysql primarily. Commercial licensing didn't work for those open source projects either. What did Oracle actually gain from the Sun acquisition? With this news it seems like nothing. No tears shed for Larry.

kmonsen 5y ago
They got an Android lawsuit against Google over Android.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Rightfully so, we don't need Google's own flavour of J++.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Apparently not rightfully so since the courts struck it down.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Unfortunately, hence the Java community got screwed by your employer and now have to put up with Android Java.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        I'm not employed by Google, and never have been; not everyone who disagrees with you has been paid off to do so.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        You have an history defending Google's actions to screw the Java community in name of Android Java, so that is a natural thought. And no, not an Oracle employee, but actually employed by one of the Java main contributors, quite easy to find out which one, although I speak in name of the Java community unable to write proper Java on Android, while ISO C and ISO C++ are fully supported.
        monocasa 5y ago
        Admin or dang, I thought paid shill accusations were pretty verboten here?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - Shared404 5y ago
    ... Really? Do we really want it to be possible to copyright API's?
    - kaba0 5y ago
      That was not decided in the lawsuit, only that in this case google copy was fair use.
      - nextaccountic 5y ago
        But for fair use to exist there must be copyright, right?
        kaba0 5y ago
        Yes, and since code is copyrightable, and API is code, the default is that APIs are copyrightable. What was decided that this reuse by Google was fair use (which might give precedent to similar issues, but in itself doesn’t mean that APIs would not be copyrightable)
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Someone had to make the work to create them, they did not ask a genie for them.
  - lmm 5y ago
    Maybe they should've given out TCK licenses then? You know, the thing that exists to prevent fragmentation of Java except you're not actually allowed to use it?
    - kaba0 5y ago
      TCK is free for OpenJDK forks, and I believe IBM has more than enough money to pay for it. Also, java is one of the few languages with complete specifications, instead of saying that here is the reference implementation, what it does is the spec.
      - lmm 5y ago
        > TCK is free for OpenJDK forks, and I believe IBM has more than enough money to pay for it. But it's not available at any price for independent implementations like Dalvik (I'm sure if it were merely a matter of money Google would've paid up). Most people who built the Java ecosystem were bait-and-switched: we were told the language would be free and the trademarks etc. were just to stop incompatible implementations, but that turned out to be false. > Also, java is one of the few languages with complete specifications, instead of saying that here is the reference implementation, what it does is the spec. Allegedly. Given that there are no independent published implementations (various organisations claim to have independent implementations but none of them are readily available), we should be sceptical in practice.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        No it wasn't a matter of money as the emails revealed during the case proved.
        kaba0 5y ago
        > But it's not available at any price for independent implementations like Dalvik Then how are there plenty of independent JVMs that can legally call themselves Java?
        lmm 5y ago
sharms 5y ago
Just to specific answer the question of what did Oracle gain, I believe they made back all of their investment across their Exadata line of products which were sold to large commercial enterprises, running on custom SPARC silicon.
- pengaru 5y ago
  You sure about that SPARC bit? According to [0] v1 ran on HP commodity hardware, and the subsequent history repeatedly mentions intel xeon processors... [0] https://flashdba.com/history-of-exadata/ https://flashdba.com/history-of-exadata/
  - sharms 5y ago
    I worked for a few places (Fortune 10) that bought many of them they used the SPARC M7 / T7 processors
    - sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
      Many governments as well, all over the world.
    - Sylamore 5y ago
      "it depends". The v2 box we had back in ~2009 was Intel and Linux on the compute side but SPARC and Solaris for the storage side. It had horrible throughput though for the 1st year or so that we owned it, but it eventually got better after some software upgrades. All the equipment was Sun branded though (except for the Infiniband switches, I think those were Mellanox, but it's been more than a decade so don't quote me)
- toyg 5y ago
  Yeah, this. Larry bought SUN to complete his vertically-integrated stack: "You want Enterprisey Business App X? We sell you the whole server! No more worrying about hardware requirements, just roll this box in your datacentre and configure away; we guarantee it will work great." That, and ensuring their beloved Java stack (on which they had bet the farm) would survive. Everything else (MySQL, OpenOffice, VirtualBox, etc etc) was just bonus. The acquisition made a lot of sense. I was a lowly minion in Oracle when talks between SUN and IBM fell apart, and I told everyone I met "it would be great if we bought them"... After the acquisition, I expected MySQL to die a horrible death and actually it kinda survived (although barely), which I thought was somewhat magnanimous. I was hoping they would just offload some of the stuff that simply didn't make sense (Oracle selling word-processors and chat clients, really...?), but sadly some busybody repackaged them into embarrassing products. And for years they went "business as usual" for Java, actually re-igniting development in a suspiciously proactive manner, which was great... until the day the license changed.
pjmlp 5y ago
Except no one else bothered to acquire them, so they were fine with uncle Larry putting the greens on the table.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  And that makes Sexual Harassment Panda a very sad panda... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_XoAVvbQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_XoAVvbQg

kmonsen 5y ago

They got an Android lawsuit against Google over Android.

pjmlp 5y ago
Rightfully so, we don't need Google's own flavour of J++.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Apparently not rightfully so since the courts struck it down.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Unfortunately, hence the Java community got screwed by your employer and now have to put up with Android Java.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      I'm not employed by Google, and never have been; not everyone who disagrees with you has been paid off to do so.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        You have an history defending Google's actions to screw the Java community in name of Android Java, so that is a natural thought. And no, not an Oracle employee, but actually employed by one of the Java main contributors, quite easy to find out which one, although I speak in name of the Java community unable to write proper Java on Android, while ISO C and ISO C++ are fully supported.
        monocasa 5y ago
        Admin or dang, I thought paid shill accusations were pretty verboten here?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- Shared404 5y ago
  ... Really? Do we really want it to be possible to copyright API's?
  - kaba0 5y ago
    That was not decided in the lawsuit, only that in this case google copy was fair use.
    - nextaccountic 5y ago
      But for fair use to exist there must be copyright, right?
      - kaba0 5y ago
        Yes, and since code is copyrightable, and API is code, the default is that APIs are copyrightable. What was decided that this reuse by Google was fair use (which might give precedent to similar issues, but in itself doesn’t mean that APIs would not be copyrightable)
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Someone had to make the work to create them, they did not ask a genie for them.
- lmm 5y ago
  Maybe they should've given out TCK licenses then? You know, the thing that exists to prevent fragmentation of Java except you're not actually allowed to use it?
  - kaba0 5y ago
    TCK is free for OpenJDK forks, and I believe IBM has more than enough money to pay for it. Also, java is one of the few languages with complete specifications, instead of saying that here is the reference implementation, what it does is the spec.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > TCK is free for OpenJDK forks, and I believe IBM has more than enough money to pay for it. But it's not available at any price for independent implementations like Dalvik (I'm sure if it were merely a matter of money Google would've paid up). Most people who built the Java ecosystem were bait-and-switched: we were told the language would be free and the trademarks etc. were just to stop incompatible implementations, but that turned out to be false. > Also, java is one of the few languages with complete specifications, instead of saying that here is the reference implementation, what it does is the spec. Allegedly. Given that there are no independent published implementations (various organisations claim to have independent implementations but none of them are readily available), we should be sceptical in practice.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        No it wasn't a matter of money as the emails revealed during the case proved.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        > But it's not available at any price for independent implementations like Dalvik Then how are there plenty of independent JVMs that can legally call themselves Java?
        lmm 5y ago

sharms 5y ago

Just to specific answer the question of what did Oracle gain, I believe they made back all of their investment across their Exadata line of products which were sold to large commercial enterprises, running on custom SPARC silicon.

pengaru 5y ago
You sure about that SPARC bit? According to [0] v1 ran on HP commodity hardware, and the subsequent history repeatedly mentions intel xeon processors... [0] https://flashdba.com/history-of-exadata/ https://flashdba.com/history-of-exadata/
- sharms 5y ago
  I worked for a few places (Fortune 10) that bought many of them they used the SPARC M7 / T7 processors
  - sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
    Many governments as well, all over the world.
  - Sylamore 5y ago
    "it depends". The v2 box we had back in ~2009 was Intel and Linux on the compute side but SPARC and Solaris for the storage side. It had horrible throughput though for the 1st year or so that we owned it, but it eventually got better after some software upgrades. All the equipment was Sun branded though (except for the Infiniband switches, I think those were Mellanox, but it's been more than a decade so don't quote me)
toyg 5y ago
Yeah, this. Larry bought SUN to complete his vertically-integrated stack: "You want Enterprisey Business App X? We sell you the whole server! No more worrying about hardware requirements, just roll this box in your datacentre and configure away; we guarantee it will work great." That, and ensuring their beloved Java stack (on which they had bet the farm) would survive. Everything else (MySQL, OpenOffice, VirtualBox, etc etc) was just bonus. The acquisition made a lot of sense. I was a lowly minion in Oracle when talks between SUN and IBM fell apart, and I told everyone I met "it would be great if we bought them"... After the acquisition, I expected MySQL to die a horrible death and actually it kinda survived (although barely), which I thought was somewhat magnanimous. I was hoping they would just offload some of the stuff that simply didn't make sense (Oracle selling word-processors and chat clients, really...?), but sadly some busybody repackaged them into embarrassing products. And for years they went "business as usual" for Java, actually re-igniting development in a suspiciously proactive manner, which was great... until the day the license changed.

pjmlp 5y ago

Except no one else bothered to acquire them, so they were fine with uncle Larry putting the greens on the table.

DonHopkins 5y ago
And that makes Sexual Harassment Panda a very sad panda... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_XoAVvbQg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_XoAVvbQg