Oracle suing Google over Java use in Android

In other Android news, this can't be good:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/oracle-sues-google-over-java-patent-infringement-in-android/

That Oracle lawsuit is insane. Java was released under the GPL, for god's sake, which explicitly decries software patents.

Someone get some popcorn. This is going to be a good one.

On a side note, you've gotta have some serious balls for your legal firm's domain name to be mofo.com.

Apparently the OpenJDK stuff (Aka Java GPL) doesn't cover Java ME (mobile editions). This article from 2007 has some good info in it.

http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/

And theres already talk that this was in the works for a long time, due to the Java lawsuit with Microsoft. Seems that one lawsuit brought in more money to Sun for Java then any of their other actions, so Google looks like a prime target now. Guess Oracle has to find some way to pay for their expenses in buying out Sun.

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Aug-13.html

A good one indeed. This is probably going to be messier then the SCO System V lawsuits.

SCOracle ><

There are two problems with that:

1. Java ME (now called PhoneMe) is licensed under the GPL
2. Android doesn't use Java ME

Wow. There are no words . . .

I'm looking forward to Google getting bitch-slapped myself. Time for them to face the music of their double-speak and rhetoric.

You can bet that Oracle went into the Sun acquisition with this goal in mind.

It's always difficult to predict the future on these things, but here's my ten cent guess:

Oracle may well hold one or more patents which read on Google's Android phones. Google, without a doubt, holds a stack of patents which read on Oracle's database products. I'm reasonably confident that neither company is interested in lawsuit armageddon, so a cross-licensing agreement seems obvious. I wouldn't even be surprised if this lawsuit represents a breakdown in prior talks along exactly these lines.

Cooler heads will inevitably prevail and life will more on.

I found this to be a good writeup of the situation. Looks like Java licensing is in general a mess, due to Sun using the GPL in parts but also trying to ensure the GPL doesn't come into effect for any code that touches it. Google went their own route with mobile instead of JavaME, and in doing so had other rules they may not have fully followed. Rules that were likely put in place after Microsoft tried to change Java back in the late 90s.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/...credibility.ars

As for Oracle, it is a shame they are doing this with Java, as it does cast into doubt their commitment to OSS. I'm betting this is why Apple stayed away from ZFS, sensing Oracle would look for easy lawsuit money for something after millions of Macs transitioned to it.

Their commitment to OSS? They dropped Opensolaris like it was hot. The Google thing sounds more as if they believe that Java can generate more money for them if they use it as a lawsuit engine, than if they develop it as a product. The saddest thing here is that they may in fact be quite correct about that.

Peter

Ok, commitment to OSS might be a bit strong. As the Ars article points out, they are at least trying to spread a perception of supporting it by attending Linux conventions and such. Really have to wonder that the motivation there is.

I'm also more concerned about the future of MySQL now. It was weird enough with Sun buying it, then Oracle buying Sun.

My bet would be that Oracle, being around much longer than Google, has a way bigger stack of patents that could effect Google's daily operations.

And since Oracle hasn't had any innovation since, like, 1988, it's that much more unlikely that Google has any relevant patents.

Oracle bought the rights to InnoDB, MySQL's best backend, some years ago, and they didn't kill MySQL with that.

Both MySQL and InnoDB are GPL2 licensed. The worst thing that could happen is that Oracle stops developing them, but there's nothing preventing it being picked up by someone else.

Okay, the worst thing is that Oracle starts enforcing patents against the (users of the) products, assuming they have any that are valid and relevant.

Oh, I forgot about the automatic patent licensing that wasn't included in GPL2. Crap.

We'll have to wait and see how relevant those patents are to Dalvik's reimplementation.

You are assuming that number of patents = number of innovations. I don't think that is really true. It's more like number of patents = number of lawyers.

"Welcome to the new decade: Java is a restricted platform, Google is evil, Apple is a monopoly and Microsoft are the underdogs."

Ouch. My head hurts now.