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Oracle wants it both ways | 380 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Proof of concept
Authored by: hardmath on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 09:27 AM EDT
Reading the nighthacks comments by James Gosling led me to
think of his disappointment with Google in a clearer light.

He basically says Sun's highest ideal was the
interoperability that gives developers freedom to move
programs from platform to platform.

From the evidence developed at trial it seems no one at Sun
doubted that Apache had accomplished the daunting task of
building an open source implementation of the Java spec,
they just did not wish to provide a license-compatible TCK
for the purpose of demonstrating that.

By opening the Android platform and porting the first third
or so of Apache Harmony to Android, Google has at least
given Oracle a proof of concept for putting a fully JavaSE
compliant implementation on smartphones.

If they were of a mind to do so, of course. The years spent
rationalizing JavaME and its deliberate fragmentation of the
mobile Java platform have doubtless created confusing within
Oracle as well as without as to what business model is being
executed.

--hm


---
"Prolog is an efficient programming language because it is a very stupid theorem
prover." -- Richard O'Keefe

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

On this, Oracle was going to be contrary either way
Authored by: mcinsand on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 09:35 AM EDT
I have no doubt that, had Google not used the (Harmony?) SSO and API's, Oracle
would have sued Google for fragmenting the market. Oracle was going to be
litigating anyway, whether Google copied the compliant specifications or created
a variant.

The irony is that Oracle's Java does not run the main Java applications that I
keep running on my home PC: KoLmafia, Minecraft, and Minecraft_server. Those
require OpenJDK. This is somewhat interesting to me, since, until last year, I
was still operating under the dated assumption that sticking with Sun/Oracle was
the safest way to go. This might be like a lot of lingering paradigms, such as
Windows being easier to install/maintain/use (total bullfeathers today). Oh,
yeah. I converted a laptop a month or so to Kubuntu because of...wireless
drivers. The de/reinstalled, updated Windows driver kept giving a BSOD every
few hours. Kubuntu hasn't crashed, yet.

Regards,
mc

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google leaves no stone unturned
Authored by: scav on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 09:37 AM EDT
Exactly. Otherwise the original author of an API could
present a moving target, adding or changing parts of it and
then suing every other implementation because they are
suddenly no longer "completely compatible".

Surely the non-protectability of an API is because of its
functional and factual nature. This is present before anyone
(even the designer) implements it, when there is a single
implementation, and when there are multiple implementations
whether complete or not.

Technically, it still remains to be seen whether it is
possible for Oracle to bamboozle Judge Alsup on this their
umpteenth attempt after a long history of failing to do so,
of which he himself is not unaware. But I would be flat out
*astonished* if they can.

---
The emperor, undaunted by overwhelming evidence that he had no clothes,
redoubled his siege of Antarctica to extort tribute from the penguins.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Oracle wants it both ways
Authored by: jez_f on Thursday, May 24 2012 @ 09:48 AM EDT
Oracle seems to want:
Android not to copy the SSO of the 37 APIs
Android not to fragment Java

Surely by implementing the SSO of the 37 APIs Google has made Android much more
compatible than if it had created it's own. So trying to do one thing that
oracle wants will automatically cause the other.

A program can use java.lang in both rather than having to be rewritten to say
android.lang

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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