3 ms·

is the entire Oracle argument, so far, that you can use Java, but can't cut and paste the APIs done by Oracle /Sun engineers? With what I've read, Google sure t

is the entire Oracle argument, so far, that you can use Java, but can't cut and paste the APIs done by Oracle /Sun engineers? With what I've read, Google sure thought they needed a licensing agreement

krakensden 14y ago
I thought part of the fallout of the ancient AT&T vs BSD case was that APIs are not copyrightable. Additionally, GNU Classpath seems to have always been considered A-OK by Sun and Oracle, and they have no license. You'd need a license to use Sun/Oracle source code. You'd need a different license to get the compatibility test kit so you could call your stuff Java(TM). If you thought there was patent liability, you ought to license that.
- ajross 14y ago
  AT&T vs. Berkeley never went to court, it was dropped once Solaris/SysV took off and it was clear BSD wasn't a threat to commercial Unix anymore.
- loverobots 14y ago
  Jurors are going to see a list of companies that license java, almost every name out there. And then Google emails and communications how they need a license, can't do without Java, maybe shouldn't get it now, or whatever. Either way it was a boneheaded move to invest billions (?) on Android without a relatively cheap Java license.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    Maybe it was a boneheaded move to use Java, the programming language, in the first place. If they used C/C++ they wouldn't have had any problems and considering how awesome Qt is, you can clearly make the development experience enjoyable. Then they could have introduced Google Go in the mix and/or Javascript, to appeal to the younger generation. Ironically, they could have used the ECMA parts of .NET and get away with it.
    - amalag 14y ago
      Why didn't they? They could have avoided being sued, this again goes to Oracle favor for this lawsuit, they wanted Java's advantages as a virtual machine implementation and not bare metal programming like C/C++.
      - krakensden 14y ago
        Of course, they wrote their own virtual machine, that is totally different from the JVM, so it's unclear to me that they got any advantage from Java's VM implementation. What they really got for free was much of the Java tooling and ecosystem. Which isn't nothing.
      - bad_user 14y ago
        What advantages does Java on Android have compared to Objective-C on iOS?

krakensden 14y ago

I thought part of the fallout of the ancient AT&T vs BSD case was that APIs are not copyrightable. Additionally, GNU Classpath seems to have always been considered A-OK by Sun and Oracle, and they have no license. You'd need a license to use Sun/Oracle source code. You'd need a different license to get the compatibility test kit so you could call your stuff Java(TM). If you thought there was patent liability, you ought to license that.

ajross 14y ago
AT&T vs. Berkeley never went to court, it was dropped once Solaris/SysV took off and it was clear BSD wasn't a threat to commercial Unix anymore.
loverobots 14y ago
Jurors are going to see a list of companies that license java, almost every name out there. And then Google emails and communications how they need a license, can't do without Java, maybe shouldn't get it now, or whatever. Either way it was a boneheaded move to invest billions (?) on Android without a relatively cheap Java license.
- bad_user 14y ago
  Maybe it was a boneheaded move to use Java, the programming language, in the first place. If they used C/C++ they wouldn't have had any problems and considering how awesome Qt is, you can clearly make the development experience enjoyable. Then they could have introduced Google Go in the mix and/or Javascript, to appeal to the younger generation. Ironically, they could have used the ECMA parts of .NET and get away with it.
  - amalag 14y ago
    Why didn't they? They could have avoided being sued, this again goes to Oracle favor for this lawsuit, they wanted Java's advantages as a virtual machine implementation and not bare metal programming like C/C++.
    - krakensden 14y ago
      Of course, they wrote their own virtual machine, that is totally different from the JVM, so it's unclear to me that they got any advantage from Java's VM implementation. What they really got for free was much of the Java tooling and ecosystem. Which isn't nothing.
    - bad_user 14y ago
      What advantages does Java on Android have compared to Objective-C on iOS?