кит или слон

[avva]

Начался судебный процесс Оракла против Гугла, по поводу использования Джавы в Андроиде.

Обе стороны подготовили слайды, в которых объясняют свои точки зрения простым и понятным непрофессионалам языком. Или по крайней мере пытаются.

Презентация Оракла: Google Is Liable For Infringement

Презентация Гугла: Google Made Fair Use of the Java language APIs in Android

Забавно их почитать и сравнить.

Кто победит, как вы думаете: слон или кит?

Comments

[angerona.livejournal.com]

No, Google's main argument is that Sun used to give out those cars for free. Not only did they do that, they also encouraged everybody to come get those cars, because they are free. When Oracle bought Sun, they said "and we are also buying a great company that gives out cars to everybody for free. Yay, what a great thing!"

And then they turned around and said: "wait a minute -- we should be charging for that. Hey, all of you who got our cars when we gave them out for free -- pay up! We made them! Who cares that we said you could have it for free? We now want money, so pay up."

Mind you, Oracle didn't actually make those cars. Sun did. Oracle bought Sun for pennies, and they didn't value java as part of that purchase, either.

Oracle's current money-making strategy is this: if we put a bucket under every spigot, even if we get only drips from those spigot, that's a lot of drops! Do you think it's only Google they are after? They are doing this to every single big company (many times over, too) -- demanding money left and right for what Sun promised would be free. In most of those cases, if Sun wasn't giving out those promises, the companies wouldn't have used Java -- there were plenty of alternatives.

There's even a bigger catch in there for those other companies.

Sun said: "use Java, Java is great and free." Company X wanted to design a product using its own proprietary APIs, but its customers listened to Sun's ads and said: "hey, company X, why are you using your own API? Use Java -- it's free and great, just listen to Sun." Company X grumbled, but used Java. Now company X finds itself on the receiving end of demands from Oracle that talks about how "we made it, so we must be paid. Who cares what Sun told you?"

I find myself wanting to diversity our stock portfolio (read: get rid of all those oracle stocks :) ) so that I can wish it to lose without any reservations :)

[igorlord.livejournal.com]

Sun Always required those who wrote code implementing Java APIs to take a license. Only those who USED the APIs could do it without a license. Just as Oracle presents it, there are many licenses to choose from, including a free open source license. Google decided to take none of them. Incidentally, nonfragmentation is a required in every licence, and Google decided to ignore that, too.

[meshko.livejournal.com]

IANAL but I think this case is very similar to Sun vs MS. There are differences -- I think MS did purchase the license, but was extending the language. My technical understanding is the same as Igor's -- Sun always required licenses for implementing your own Java and was pretty strict about that.
This one boils down to whether the APIs are copyrightable and it's a tough question. From the point of view of effort that goes into them they should be. From the point of view of what would make a better world, they shouldn't.

[angerona.livejournal.com]

My point was this: Sun knew what Android was doing and approved it. Whether they charged someone else for it is irrelevant. I may be selling my books to everyone, but if I see Pushkin come up to my book stand, pick up my book and start walking away with it, I may nod, rather than telling him pay up. Sure, I may wish that he'd paid, but I may be satisfied with the idea that he'll read my book and tell others about it, and not demand payment. In this case, would I be justified in asking him for damages several years later?

Similarly here, Google relied on approval from Sun. Maybe Sun wasn't thrilled, but they did give their approval, both in private communications and public PR announcements.


http://j.mp/JCTB7B (Wired)

"Taking the stand during the ongoing court battle between Google and
Oracle over the use of the Java programming language on Google's
Android mobile operating system, Jonathan Schwartz - the former CEO of
Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java - said that Java has always been
free to use and that although Sun didn't necessarily like the way
Android used Java, it had no intention of stopping it."

So it seems that Google understood Sun's "nod of approval" correctly, if even Sun's former CEO thinks so.

[meshko.livejournal.com]

Well, if you say that public approval suggests forfeiting of the right to demand anything in the future then so be it. Intuitively it doesn't make sense to me because I'm trying to not think of relationships between companies as relationships between people, but obviously you know better.

[angerona.livejournal.com]

Obviously there is no settled legal point here, else there would not be a lawsuit :).

So this is just my personal opinion. I don't see why in contracts corporations need to be handled very differently than people.

[igorlord.livejournal.com]

I also do not see an approval to use without a license here.

What I read is that Sun did not like the way Google was using Java, but it had no intention of getting into a legal fight with Google.

As for the other instances where Sun was publicly overjoyed at Google choosing Java for Android, I do not see it as a joy over Google using Java for Android w/o a license. Instead, I read in it the joy that Google found Java so good that it decided to use it for Android.

[angerona.livejournal.com]

As we've already discussed :), we have a disagreement here about different interpretations. In my mind, it's really hard to distinguish "joy over Google using Java for Android the way they are using it (without a license)" from "joy that Google found Java so good" -- and, since it was Sun that was making those pronouncements, the burden for the lack of clarity should be on them, not on Google.

[igorlord.livejournal.com]

> since it was Sun that was making those pronouncements, the burden for the lack of clarity should be on them, not on Google.

If this were the only statement Sun made, yes.

But given that Sun and Google have been in talks about a license and the history of Sun requiring a license from all other companies who wanted to use implement Java APIs, the burden is on Google to show that Sun's waived its right to require a license.

[igorlord.livejournal.com]

http://avva.livejournal.com/2433985.html?thread=85606337#t85606337

Also, I think there is a difference between a poorly written license and a flagrant disregard for the license terms. Google has demonstrated the latter both in its behavior and the intentions (as shown by the internal emails).

In my view, there is no question of the license terms being broken. There is only one question: "Could Sun/Oracle require others to obtain a license for writing code that implements Java APIs or not?"