Google, Oracle settlement talks fail, trial to begin April 16 After nearly 20 months of private settlement talks, public posturing, and legal jousting, Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc. will finally go to trial over Oracle's assertion that Page & Co.'s Android infringes upon Ellison & Co.'s Java patents and copyrights. "Despite their diligent efforts and those of their able counsel, …
Google gets Java for a settlement fee. This way Oracle monetizes its acquisition and gets continued use of Java. Google gets to continue its Android development "as-is" and will be the good shepherd Java needs. Wishful thinking perhaps, but probably the best outcome.
I'm sorry, but if you take an objective look at the way Google manages Android and Oracle manages Java, Oracle are still doing more things right. For starters, all the major development work on Java is done in the open via OpenJDK, which allows anyone to get their hands on the most up to date code. Compare that to Android, where Google plays favourites with the device manufacturers and then may or may not release the latest code to the rest of us once their favoured partners have got a head-start in the market. Then there's community involvement. For all it's flaws, the JCP still provides a way for people outside of Oracle to have an influence on the direction of the project. With Android there is no community input whatsoever - you eat whatever sugar laden concoction Google says you should eat.
Oops - I've just gone and defended Oracle on the Reg forums. Downvote away!
"Oops - I've just gone and defended Oracle on the Reg forums. Downvote away!"
No need to downvote - Oracle has ended up doing the right thing with the way Java is being developed, despite some fumbling early on. As you point out, the rolling development via an OpenJDK codebase with Oracle branded releases based on it, has turned out to be open and effective. The only rumblings were over the inclusion of a subset of Project Coin features in the 7.0 release - but in the real world (in other words, the world with those of us who can see that closures are just a syntactic nicety to shut the Lisp bores up) we were very happy with what made it into 7.0.
"...all the major development work on Java is done in the open via OpenJDK..."
Sorry, but that couldn't be further from the truth in most major enterprise environments.
Overall, the argument you are presenting is based on a very narrow view of Oracle operations. Oracle has made great strides at the enterprise level of both eliminating the major open source competitor (MySQL) to their DB product as well as pushing new models for Java to monetize as much as possible. Support policies have become more and more narrow, and while they don't affect small development efforts, large / complex operations that depend on Java have seen major changes in the past 2 years that the Sun acquisition has been completed.
If you are downvoted, it won't be because of some ambiguous issue with Oracle, but because your statement is naive on the face of how Oracle is actually handling Java in general.
You must have missed the bit where this is being tried in the US. Over here you are only allowed to sit on a trial if you are completely incompetent in any of the technical areas which will be heard by the court. So jurors just sort of spin the roulette wheel and play Pat Sajak only without Vanna turning the letters.
has gpl had a real run it the courts? re oracle doing it right. that's rubishh. oracle got custody of a bunch of gpl code from sun and have done the dirty in every case. Java jcp switch. Jenkins. MySQL. libre office. Go read the license page for virtual box. they are trying to claim that gpl is only valid for personal use. my employer will not allow use of virtual box because lawyers are too scared of the new licensing. which IMHO is disgraceful. oracle act like they own gpl code
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