back to article Opensourcers get personal over Ellison's Google fight

Open source advocates are asking you to write to Larry Ellison to protest about Oracle's damaging decision to prosecute Google over Java. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has also promised to gather information on prior art to attack the seven patents Oracle claims Google's violated in its implementation of Java on Android …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Java is dead

    Nobody in their right mind is going to sign off NEW Java projects now Oracle has it.

    In fact I think I'd rather Microsoft (of today) had it rather than Oracle. The only other company I can think of who would be worse than Oracle would be Cisco.

    Game over.

    It'll take a few years at most but if Java isn't already dead for future developers then its on a very tenuous life support system with an unpredictable hand on the power switch.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      You are wise beyond your age.

      Unless you are 15.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oh no

      It just smells that way. :-)

      But it's no more dead than COBOL. There are googolplexes of LOCs in production and it will remain that way for a very long time. Just because something is shitty doesn't mean you can't base mission-critical systems on it. Besides, Java is enterprisey and we all know how decisions are taken when that word is involved...

    3. Ben Holmes
      FAIL

      Does that mean...

      ...that the 9 million Java developers out there in the wild are dead too?

      Face it, if you want to build an enterprise system with 24/7 uptime where SLAs are a factor, then you do it in Java / JEE. You want tried and tested technologies, proven in the field of enterprise architecture. You want a massive support base of developers and support engineers. You want a decent licensing model, and in these times of austerity, development tools that don't cost the Earth (unless you want them to).

      Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the stunt Oracle are trying to pull on Google, but from their perspective they now control all the pieces in the enterprise stack. And they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

    4. THUFIR HAWAT
      Thumb Down

      If not Java, then what?

      At least on Linux, there's no C# option. This leave C++ and scripting languages, no?

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    FAIL

    Confusing Copyright, Patents and various "re-use licensing terms", are we?

    "The FSF has a vested interest in seeing the action defeated, as it was the group's GPL license that Sun Microsystems used to released Java under in 2006. A victory for Oracle, or some kind of closed-doors settlement with Google, could potentially leave Java open to further suits elsewhere while opening the door to trolling activities against the GPL."

    "trolling activities against the GPL" is some novel concept I haven't heard about yet.

    As Google did a re-implementation and doesn't use the existing GPL-ed code, the Oracle suit is only relevant insofar as "patent violations" may occur. "Restrictions on use" and other retarded stuff may or may not be relevant, though I don't see how they can be if Google built their stuff from zero.

    The GPL says that patents covering GPLed implementations "must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all", so one could suppose that the "ideas" whose implementation was GPL-ed earlier by Sun should be off-limits...

    ...but with such a national-socialist idea as patents, all bets are off.

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    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Most important point...

      ...Java came at the right time. A simple, safe language just when the Internet was discovered by the mainstream and lots of developers suddenly needed to start coding something more complex and than a filter in C.

      All the Java advantages you wanted could be had in in non-"spiky" (i.e. languages with a syntax sporting { } ) languages long before that. At university.

  5. midcapwarrior

    guess the check from google cleared

    FSF wanted to be sure before commenting

  6. Beelzeebub
    Flame

    Absofinlutely

    Oracle are evil, just like me!

  7. Rogerborg
    FAIL

    Oh noes, runsaway from teh Jaava!!!1!!!!

    Oracle just sued someone who created a commercial *competitor* to their JVMs!!!!! Surely next they'll sue their *actual* Java customers!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Epic comprehension fail there, TinFoil Hatters. Epic.

    If Oracle have a next target lined up, it's Microsoft, and C#.

    Happier now, Freetards?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Definitely

      ..Mr Orasalesman.

  8. Nathan 6
    FAIL

    Google is not your friend!

    Google, just like Oracle is a publicly traded company whose major purpose is to make money for their stock holders. If they were stupid enough to use technology which may violate someone elses patents, then that's their fault and have to deal with the consequences. Clearly, the smart business thing to do would have been to just use a license version of the Java VM in the first place. That would have probable cost next to nothing for them.

  9. gimbal
    Pint

    I see it as simply a domineering act on the part of Oracle

    "We own Java" is the message they seek to convey. Unfortunately, they may well not be the best stewards of the Java core API and broader library base - but time will tell whether any presently unknown circumstances may eventually serve to resolve that.

    The FSF's response, I'm afraid, is merely an attempt at piggybacking their own agenda onto the fundamental issues being actually called into light, with the lawsuit.

    Don't get me wrong, I love the principles embodied of successful free open-source software projects, such as the Linux kernel and the broader base of true-to-FOSS-principles Linux distributions (including Ubuntu). I'm sure that the approaches that the said projects have taken, to their successes, would not have included:: Conflation of principally unrelated issues, however.

    I feel that I can say that in good conscience, though I'm not personally aware of the exacting details of the lawsuit - such details that will have to be addressed, towards any useful end (or not) in the courts.

    As far as predicting Google's next move: I wonder if the lawsuit would disappear, if Google was to simply agree to license an Oracle-branded Java release, for release - in turn - on all Android platforms? Surely, Ovrakill could've taken another approach to as much - any approach becoming to actual friendly business relations, for instance - *if* they would recognize that objective, in the matters.

    Maybe Google can still actually save the situation, by giving the bully some scrap of their lunch, already.

    I'm sure that calmer heads may yet prevail, about the matters.

    Now, a beer for all the platitudes. Cheers.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Alien versus Predator

    Whoever wins, we lose...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    FSF - Viewpoints

    Well, this is an interesting one, isn't it?

    First, you have the FSF saying that Google should fight this suit. This is interesting because, as far as I can tell, this suit is being filed for similar reasons to the one Sun brought against Microsoft regarding Java a few years back (see XP SP1 vs SP1a and the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine).

    Then you have the FSF criticizing Google over patent "ambivalence", and for not buiding Android on a GPL-ed version of Java. I agree with criticism over the patent "ambivalence"

    In addition, Brett Smith's claim "Oracle is signaling to the world that they intend to limit everyone's ability to do this with Java, and that's unjustifiable." seems quite naive. Oracle aren't trying to limit what you can do with Java, they are trying to minimize the number of forked variants of Java out in the wild. As they are the core source for the Java runtime et all, they are the target of flak if a Java-based application has issues across various runtimes.

    As such, I believe Oracle are completely entitled to (and should thoroughly) pursue this suit fully.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      More ORApologists

      Google's Dalvik is completely different from the J2SE and J2ME runtimes. It does *not* use SUN's bytecode. Instead they have their own VM called Dalvik.

      Indeed they use Java as the source language and they use some techniques Oracle claims they own and they can use to demand licensing fees, despite those techniques being "made free" by GPLing J2SE.

      The argument "you can only freely use Java if you use our Java variant" is totally incompatible to the GPL/Open Source spirit and probably also the legaltiies of that. Surely it is a promise that SUN made broken by Oracle.

      They deserve to be hit with all possible means, including a full boycott of their technologies and products. Open Source developers should stop communicate with Oracle employees and stop to accept their code contributions.

      Mr Larry started this feud and he has to crawl out of the hole he has dug himself into.

      1. Victor 2
        FAIL

        bawwww

        too bad Google took the wrong decisions while trying to skip license responsibilities

        Google is evil too, never forget that... and all of you Lunix caught the bait

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Flame

          You mean

          ..too Bad They Trusted SUN and Oracle ? INDEED !

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    More ORAlternatives

    KOffice, SAPDB, OpenIngres, Inkscape,

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAPDB

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_%28database%29

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOffice

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_Office

  13. mhenriday
    Flame

    Every time I see a headline about Oracle,

    I'm reminded of the suggestion of Dick the butcher in Henry VI, Part 2 : «The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers». Opposed to capital punishment as I am, I think 30 years at hard labour would suffice for these transgressors, but please, let us do away with patents on the mathematical algorithms that go under the name «software» !...

    Henri

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