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I think it is part of the law | 697 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
I think it is part of the law
Authored by: jbb on Tuesday, May 08 2012 @ 07:50 PM EDT
I remember that Oracle's lawyers really harped on this point. They grilled witnesses about it and they made sure the question was presented to the jury.

Your speed limit analogy fails because the speed limit is a cold hard fact so you are comparing your opinion to a fact. In the actual case the question was if Sun gave Google the impression that a license was not needed. For this to happen you have to show two things: first, that Sun made those statements, and second that Google relied on them.

Of course, in the bigger picture this is grossly unfair because Oracle admitted to the judge they were asking him to make new law. Sun's admission that no license was needed and Google's assumption that no license was needed both reflected what was common knowledge at the time. It would be extremely unfair to penalize Google (for not relying on Sun for their common knowledge) just because Oracle is now asking the judge to make new law.

Unfortunately, the law is not always fair and the law does not always make sense.

---
Our job is to remind ourselves that there are more contexts
than the one we’re in now — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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