News - Google and Oracle take the fight over Java in Android to court

[HEXUS]

The real question is, can a programming language itself be licensed?

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[aidanjt]

This is just ridiculous. That's like saying, well yeah, you can use English for free, but you have to pay for the words.

[cheesemp]

I don't understand what Oracle are looking for with this except a big cheque - its not like Java was even the reason they bought sun in the first place (MySQL being the real reason). Its just money driving this as usual with all these stupid patient cases!

[aidanjt]

I think a big fat cheque is more than enough of a reason to motivate Oracle to litigate. Microsoft is getting a free cut of the Android pie, they might as well.

[Biscuit]

hey we developed this thing and allowed people to use it for free... but we weren't expecting anything to be this successful so we want some money for it.

[crossy]

I think a big fat cheque is more than enough of a reason to motivate Oracle to litigate. Microsoft is getting a free cut of the Android pie, they might as well.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that Oracle probably should get a small license fee for the use of Java - not the billions that they're suggesting, (yes I know it says £630m in the article - but I'm sure I saw a billions figure in the initial foray by Oracle). In return, Google get to use the Java branding.

I'm probably being naive, but surely being able to claim that Android is "based on Java" would be good PR for Oracle, in which case being heavy handed with Google seems silly. That said, I'd take a lot of convincing to be persuaded that Oracle aren't just totally evil. It's been well know that Dalvik is a Java VM for a long time, so it looks to me like Oracle's deliberately waited for it to be successful before pouncing - nothing to do with copyright/license infringement and everything to do with extortion!

Small point though - I thought OpenSolaris was a community project - all be it one that Sun encouraged. From where I sit, Oracle's takeover of Sun just resulted in a lot of folks giving up on Solaris and moving to Linux. And as far as I'm concerned OpenOffice is a non-event compared to LibreOffice.

[J3FFW1SH]

hey we developed this thing and allowed people to use it for free... but we weren't expecting anything to be this successful so we want some money for it.

exactly that - although it has to be said that Sun Microsystems probably wouldn't have gone down this route.

[Saracen]

hey we developed this thing and allowed people to use it for free... but we weren't expecting anything to be this successful so we want some money for it.

Or rather, we bought the company that developed this thing, and .... etc.

I don't have a problem with a company developing a language, and then expecting to profit from commercialisation of it's efforts. I do have a problem with them developing it, getting everybody using it and only then trying to exert a commercial stranglehold on it. It's analogous to a drug dealer giving away his product until everyone's hooked, and then jacking the price right up, and shows, in my opinion, about the same level of morality.

If Java had been held close as commercially valuable and usable only by licence from day one, what chance it would have any significant market penetration? IMHO, next to zero.

It is valuable now because and only because of the degree of market penetration it has, and it has that only because it was freely available to use. The value is because we, the users, are using it, and because a vast array of independent developers developed for it.

In my view, not only has this horse has bolted, but it bolted so long ago that the disused stable is near to collapse. This is sheer, naked opportunism by Oracle, and stinks.

[crossy]

If Java had been held close as commercially valuable and usable only by licence from day one, what chance it would have any significant market penetration? IMHO, next to zero.

Wasn't this the position that C#/.NET was in - Microsoft held it as a Windows-only technology, but now they've seen sense and allowed some degree of open sourcing (e.g. Mono) then it's starting to take off? Certainly that seems to be the buzz around the programming-related sites that I follow - now it's cross-platform to a degree (Windows, Linux, iOS and Android) and available on reasonable license term it's worth considering.

In my view, not only has this horse has bolted, but it bolted so long ago that the disused stable is near to collapse. This is sheer, naked opportunism by Oracle, and stinks.

True - then again, I'd quietly argue that Oracle is possibly due some small return on the continuing investment in Java. I can kind of see their point that Google is perhaps "ripping them off" by duplicating the API. Where I differ is in what's owed - I would have thought that some figure <$5 per device would be incredibly generous to Oracle, and I would have thought $1-2 more realistic.

No, where I think they're being particularly idiotic is that they (Oracle) seem to be insistent that Google stops using Dalvik. That's kind of like Mercedes Benz trying to stop other car companies using petrol engines.

Never thought I'd be in the position of defending Oracle - a company which I have little, (tending to "no"!), respect for.

[Scribe]

Frankly I just wish Google had gone C++, realising that Android runs almost exclusively on ARM and simply made a standard API for future x86 compiling options.

[crossy]

Frankly I just wish Google had gone C++, realising that Android runs almost exclusively on ARM and simply made a standard API for future x86 compiling options.

I thought Intel's aim was to remove that exclusivity - didn't they say that they were working on porting ICS?