back to article Oracle: Google impurifying media's precious bodily fluids

Oracle says it would never give money to any outside blogger or journalist who writes about its ongoing litigation against Google – except Florian Mueller, that is. On the other hand, the database giant says Google employs an insidious "network of influencers" that it uses to "shape public perceptions" about the suit. Oracle …

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  1. Mikel
    Go

    At least Florian is outed now

    We won't see so many more reputable sources quoting him any more, except derisively.

    1. Michael Vasey

      Re: At least Florian is outed now

      You'd be so lucky. He outed himself months ago and he's still a regular Internet authority.

      1. Mikel
        Angel

        Re: At least Florian is outed now

        Time was when El Reg authors would just paste his email into their article submission form. At least that day is done. We have something to be thankful for.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: At least Florian is outed now

          Now they just past press releases? :)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        Re: At least Florian is outed now

        Describing him as an "Internet authority" is going a bit far don't you think? I suspect very few people take what he says seriously ever since his predictions regarding SCO vs IBM became 110% wrong.

        1. Tom 7

          Internet Authority

          anyone with a box of tissues can claim that.

          But he does write more wank than most.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At least Florian is outed now

      However Flo Mo did not disclose on each press release or blog article that was working for Oracle. Anybody in even his attempt at journalism should include full disclosure.

      And it just so happens that he announces his relationship just after the trial started, hmmm.

      Any claim that he had been critical of Oracle in the past makes things worse - as he never criticised Oracle during the trial, despite them not having a case to answer. It was after the money started flowing that he was under the "Oracle can do no wrong banner".

      I am quite amazed that El Reg's Andrew O didn't make it onto Oracle's list though, given his shocking coverage of the trial!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At least Florian is outed now

      Problem is, another two shills just popped up.

      Apple and Microsoft are the worst offenders of course, littering forums all over the world with their crap.

      XDA seems to be their current battleground, where not an hour goes past where an obvious paid shiller is trying to pretend their are a genuine consumer...

    4. Mikel
      Meh

      Missed this one

      Saw an article just today quoting FM and linking his website, on Forbes. I guess some people are slow to get the memo.

    5. SilverWave
      Happy

      Oracle says it would never give money... except Florian Mueller, that is

      hehe

      :-)

  2. Graham Dawson Silver badge

    They keep telling the truth about us, they must be funded by google!

    The vast conspiracy meme gets old...

    1. Turtle

      Payments Direct And Indirect.

      Yes, because it's not like Google funds the Berkman Center at Harvard and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.to the tune of millions dollars. And it's not like if they did fund these academic lobbyists, that it would effect the views emanating from said academic/lobbying institutions, right?

      Oh, wait...

  3. Paul Shirley
    FAIL

    channeling previous BSF client SCO

    You'd think Boies would warn Oracle that talking up some vast Google organised conspiracy against them was a bad idea - he cant have forgotten how well it worked for previous Boies client SCO (where most of the legal strategy was copied from).

    And just like SCO, the side doing the shouting seems to be the only side actually proved to be paying anyone posting favourable opinion.

    I wonder if Boies will find another mug to hawk this failed legal attack too. Haven't the Oracle fees covered the £30mil loss they made creating it for SCO? Then again, $30mil is a lot...

    1. Gordan

      Re: channeling previous BSF client SCO

      May they continue the way of SCO. I don't foresee many tears being shed for the company or it's products.

    2. Paul Shirley

      Re: or is it Boies getting revenge for SCO vs IBM?

      It occurs to me that maybe Boies is actually behind this fiaSCO. It's just so familiar from the SCO case, where SCO via it's lawyers persistently insinuated there was an IBM funded PR conspiracy. This time BSF reached trial and I'd guess Boies&co actually pushed the court to look for the imagined conspiracy.

      In SCO they went to great lengths (including sending private investigators after PJ) to implicate groklaw in particular and never tired of making threats that groklaw would be outed. Because the case collapsed they never managed to even try to interest the court in that. This time I suspect Boies expected to find groklaw on Googles list and finally get revenge.

      They fought a PR war in SCO and lost, badly. They fought a PR war in Oracle and lost, badly. It must be hard to accept the other side weren't playing the same secret game and still won. Of course believing either SCO or Oracle had a strong case is a sign of delusional beliefs!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    "Neither Google nor its counsel has paid an author, journalist, commentator or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case"

    Are they on crack? Even the BBC outed their $1 million connection to the EFF.

    Come on Google at least pretend you give a shit about laws or judge's orders.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The EFF is not an author, journalist, commentator or blogger.

      Google have stated that they fund organisations such as the EFF but do no exert influence on its members.

      So I'm wondering just what your problem is Larry.

  5. Gordan
    Holmes

    Simpler Explanation

    It could just be that most technically minded geeks dislike Oracle and their anti-OSS practices and farcical IP claims. Blogging about their long standing opinions is what a lot of geeks do. Implying a conspiracy here smacks of paranoid narcissism.

    1. Mike Flex

      Re: Simpler Explanation

      > It could just be that most technically minded geeks dislike Oracle and their anti-OSS practices and farcical IP claims.

      Or they are just ticked off by the horrendous pile of kludge upon kludge that is Oracle SQL.

      1. dotdavid
        Thumb Up

        Re: Simpler Explanation

        > Or they are just ticked off by the horrendous pile of kludge upon kludge that is Oracle SQL.

        Or indeed any of their products. Weblogic, OAS, I'm looking at you...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My horseshit meter pegged out; made a whining noise; and then exploded.

  7. David 164

    From what I understand that Google is also willing to print off lists of names of any one directly or indirectly receive money from Google that may or may not have commented on the trial. Given that Google adverts help funds a substantial part of the internet that could be a lot of names, Google have ask the judge to clarify his order and to decide whether he wants to receive a list of thousand probably into the low tens of thousands of names and how he wants those names delivered to him.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Then they should have clarified that with the judge when the order was issued? Google must have known then that the list would be quite long, right? Instead they did nothing and waited until the deadline to submit this.

      This makes it clear that Google is on a fishing expedition to see how much they can get away with. If they can avoid giving any names the better. This "see how much we can get away with" is their M.O. and worked out quite well so far even in this Java case.

      I suspect if the judge actually demands more than the nothing he got Google will move to legal l action to stop the judge's action, possibly claiming some sort of constitutional protection for those involved.

      1. David 164

        Then they should have clarified that with the judge when the order was issued?

        Google lawyers would have needed time to study the order and receive instructions from there client, in this case Google, on what they wanted clarification on and what the quantity of names there was, an the lawyers would have needed time to study the order and issue advice to there client.

        Nothing I have read have stated whether there was an opportunity before the deadline for Google to ask for clarification on the order, and we do not know whether Google requested an hearing before the deadline to discussed these points of clarification that Google wanted, we also do not know whether Google requested a hearing and was refuse or whether the judge choose to use this hearing to hear Google requests for clarification instead of setting aside more court time for a clarification hearing.

        What we do know is that the judge did not reprimand Google in anyway for not showing up with this information, which seem to suggest that the judge knew before hand that Google intended to ask for clarification on what the judge wanted.

        Of cause there are other opportunities for the judge to reprimand Google in some way for not fulfilling the order before the deadline. But I suspect the judge would have been more angry with Google if they have shown up with thousands of pages of names and just lump that onto the judge lap, than Google not meeting a deadline.

        Either way we will have to wait until the next hearing to get answers.

        I doubt the judge was happy with Oracle using the hearing to attacked Google and I would not be surprise if judge mention that at the next hearing as well.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Devil

          My Java is being unpurified by the Google. Eeek!

          Be still my bleeding Heart of Intellectual Property.

          Have the Koch brothers been linked to Google yet?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    One thing that puzzles me...

    ...is that why so many UK-based copyfighters, freedom of speech advocates and anti-surveillance campaigners make strange choices: They use Google and Apple closed source and privacy-invasive products. WTF is that all about?

    Not sent from my iPhone or my Android phone...any any other phone.

  9. xj25vm

    Thanks for this. Now, El Reg, can we be spared the dubious honour of having to read so many valuable quotes from the almighty Mr. Muller - maybe some of the articles can actually be researched, not just regurgitated.

    1. tom dial Silver badge

      Keep Florian

      F. Mueller provides an extensive stream of spin that on initial reading sometimes appears plausible but in hindsight often have missed the mark rather badly. Nonetheless, it represents a point of view that allows readers to refine their own thinking. Not only that, his posts occasionally are quite entertaining in the same sense as the U. S. Presidential campaign now beginning.

      My suggestion would be to accompany any report of Florian Mueller's "analysis" with a scorecard of past output.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Burn In Hell, Larry

    First, let me speak some truth about Google: They make money by collecting on stupid people's search queries, documents and email. They make a lot of high-quality open source available. They support Linux.

    Now, The Other Bitch, Oracle, claims the first bitch is bitchier than the second bitch. Larry Ellison grew obscenely rich by selling buggy software to corporate clients, whom he likes to screw if he thinks they will temporarily not contribute to more of his billions (see HP). He doesn't bother to fix serious security issues that affect millions of Java users for weeks.

    I don't get a cent from Google and I am no longer a big fan of them, despite what I wrote above, but I surely will roast Oracle for free, as they epitomize the sick greediness of some American tycoons. I will also call Google an extension of the National Security Agency, so both bitches get what they deserve.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Burn In Hell, Larry

      Google broke the Java "write once, run anywhere" model by taking Java and breaking compatibility.

      Google's patches to Linux for Android are no longer part of the main tree. They were criticised for not maintaining it properly.

      The latest Android version is only available to select OEMs at first. Development is closed.

      Google is a business, do not think they are some nice company who wants to give the world lots of free cool stuff. They have to make money from what they do.

      1. KjetilS
        FAIL

        Re: Burn In Hell, Larry

        Google broke the Java "write once, run anywhere" model by taking Java and breaking compatibility.

        No they did not.

  11. foo_bar_baz

    Two corporations

    Nuff said. Oracle the archetypical enterprise software vendor, in the worst possible meaning. Expensive, crap, evil. Google still retains a thin veneer of hipness, but the real corporate agenda (money and power) shines through.

    And speaking of Google shills, paging Bob Vistakin. I summon you in the name of The Blue Smoke, the bringer of life to all that is LAN and WAN.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Two corporations

      You don't make the sort of money Oracle do by being nice. If you were as rich as they would you give a shit? probably not.

  12. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    "Google impurifying media's........."

    "Impurifying"? Pardon? I sincerely hope that that is some form of satire or humorous meme that I have not understood, if not see icon.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Google impurifying media's........."

      It's a reference to Dr. Strangelove.

      POE, OPE....

      1. SilverWave
        Happy

        heh... It's a reference to Dr. Strangelove.

        Yeah I think the rest of the world got it :-)

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Black Helicopters

          Re: heh... It's a reference to Dr. Strangelove.

          Ice cream, Mandrake... Google is in children's ice cream!

      2. Arctic fox
        Thumb Up

        @AC 19th Aug. 00.38 Re: "Google impurifying media's........."

        Thank you very much indeed. It is always pleasant when somebody replies in a constructive fashion to a posting where the poster concerned openly admits that he may have not understood the reference without exercising their wit and wisdom at the hapless poster's expense. I much appreciated the extra clues in "POE, OPE" - strange the holes one discovers in ones education - hmm? :-)

  13. Steve Knox
    Joke

    Oracle just being a bitter ex?

    Microsoft, 2000: "Oracle has funded or supported numerous groups that have attacked Microsoft ..., such as ...the Computer & Communications Industry Association."

    2012: 'the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which Oracle says is funded "in large part" by Google.'

    Awww, did the CCIA dump Oracle for Google? Is that what's really got you upset, Larry?

  14. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "they don't keep track of what their staffers post"

    Yeah sure, as long as said staffers post what they're told to.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe

    Jacobs thinks the lizard people are also involved. Oh and the freemasons can't forget them.

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