The Patent portion just ended with Google walking away with a clean sweep, i.e. the patents weren’t violated. For coverage - look at www.groklaw.net where the trial has been extensively reported on. What EVER you do - do NOT pay attention to the FOSS patents blog run by Florian Mueller - he is literally ON Oracle’s payroll.
There is SO MUCH law predating this trial that says that APIs can’t be copyrighted, I have to believe the judge would be reversed if he goes that way. He REALLY shouldn’t have even allowed the claim to proceed because of all the per-existing decisions.
Thanks.
The rule of law prevailing would mean that licensing agreements are upheld.
If one does not want to license, one should simply not use the API.
If any developer (an individual person) had created Java and the API and published it in the same way, and intended to make money from the API (or perhaps just control the course of it’s development) and get the lanuage widely used by having a more pure GPL of the language, they’d feel very much the same as Oracle America, Inc. does. They would want to see people either NOT use their API or use it and abide by the licensing agreement.
Opensource is and has been fantastic as part of the software landscape, in that it provided a private-sector initiative that restrained the MS Operating System monopoly.
However, proprietary work of services (works for hire) and products is still the lifeblood of revenue that pays for a good bit of our wonderful technology sector of the economy.
I always hear the response that the theory is that “software businesses will make money off the services”, that the software “should be free”. No one will go and work for a company for a year and not get paid. No one will start a software company if their products can be acquired for free and they have no paying customers. Companies will sometimes contribute the work of a small number of their employees towards opensource work. But they have other workers who generate revenue for the company. Many people are opensource contributors on their own in their spare time. But somehow they need to make a living and they have some other source of income.
The cost to businesses for software is largely maintenance. I’ve been asked by angry users why are we doing this upgrade ? They don’t like the idea of $100k in labor (services) going out the window - and they have no new features. This is why the idea of having an opensource “community” generating constant software changes may not always be appealing. Depends on which software we’re talking about. Mission-critical systems are often still developed completely custom in house, and that’s one of the big reasons; no forced upgrades except for the tools it’s built with.
I took a few minutes to review Oracle’s Corrected Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
Google in this case is trying to get the benefits of using Java without complying with the owner’s licensing terms.
If they don’t like it, they should simply develop their own software.
If an opensource product has gotten too commercialized, it will naturally phase out of use by those who prefer opensource software for the given application.
All google had to do was very simple: do not emulate the Java API at all. Do not try to have any compatibility at all, have people do their development work who never saw the Java API in their life. Make it their own world.
But then they would lose all compatibility. Exactly ! Then they would be doing their own work and would be on 100% solid legal ground.
Some developers don’t understand that it’s wrong to steal other people’s code. If the other person puts it into the public domain, you’re not stealing it, that is 100% legal as long as you abide by the license agreement. If the other person does not put it in the public domain and wants customers to be more restrictive - read the license agreement. If you want to use it after you find out the terms and the cost, go ahead and license it. If you don’t, then don’t use it.
Licensing not “smelling very good” to me is one of the reasons why I do not use Java at all.