iPhone
I guess that no Java on iPhone was a good call :)
Oracle has mounted a no-holds-barred legal attack on Google's Android operating system in a lawsuit that accuses the internet giant of deliberately infringing patents and copyrights Oracle holds for the Java platform. In a complaint filed late on Thursday, 12 August, Oracle asked a federal court in Northern California to seize …
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This is nothing to do with open source, this is Oracle sabre-rattling with some shiny patents it has acquired. Like others have said, the vagueness of the patants makes many VMs vulnerable, it's just google is first in the firing line.
Yes, Java's open source nature meant that accidental or intentional patent infringement is facilitated much better, but it happens with closed source propietry software too.
The real criminals, the people who approve software patents in the US.
And I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it would help.
Actually, I'd like to see a Playmobil of the bad-movie clash of the dinosaurs - the Larry Triceratops in deadly battle with the Sergey/Larry Tyrannosaur, perhaps with a Jobsian Pterodactyl screeching encouragement overhead. I just wish I knew in advance who the little mammals surviving in the bushes would be.
So now we know why Oracle really bought Sun.
What next? They sue everyone else claiming any implementation of Linux violates SUN Unix intellectual property? Same lawyer as SCO? Should be obvious what will happen. Oracle's days are numbered. Doesn't Google have more money than them anyway? Find a work around or pay them to go away and STFU so the rest of us can get back to waiting on FLASH to show up on our Android and Palm Pre handsets.
Forgive me for being a bit cynical, but you have to wonder why Oracle didn't sue any of the wireless carriers or handset makers. Could it be that Google has something Oracle wants other than deep pockets? The value of Sun in the long term to Oracle may be its IP vault. "Sue the bastards" isn't much of a business strategy but if you're sitting on top of Sun (dwindling value), it may be all you have.
Larry strikes me as more of a Go player than a Chess master. I wonder what his endgame looks like here? Quash OSS as a philosophy? Make all bow on bended knee to The Larry? Pardon me if I look elsewhere for my DB, HW and Middleware needs..
Oracle has the ability to destroy Java, and I'm thinking that this is a significant first step.
Not all of what MS puts under the .Net Framework brand is part of the core that was submitted to
ECMA, but, for what its worth, they've made a pledge to not charge anything rather than a RAND amount. So you can implement the CLI/CLR and C# but you may be taking risks if you try to implement ASP.Net or WinFoms
Its a programming language and programming languages are excluded from copyright protection. The vast number of standard library classes can be copyrighted but as mentioned they are all open source.
The only thing you need a license for is Sun's virtual machine. Google didn't want to, partly to avoid royalties, and partly because its rubbish. So Google made their own virtual machine, and compile Java to code for that machine (instead of Java byte code). If in the process they infringed some obscure patents sun had on virtual machine implementation then that can hardly be called wilful.