Comments on: Google’s Andy Rubin didn’t believe Android needed Java API licensing

By: Scott Karbon

Scott Karbon — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:27:00 +0000

That’s not really what’s in question. The argument is that Google basically rewrote some of Oracle’s patented APIs.

Though I really don’t understand why they want to go through with this. They’re exploiting a technicality here – basically they released 99% of Java under the GPL, and then used the “linking exception” to keep core parts as their own IP. If you took the non-GPL’ed code out you’d have something that doesn’t work. I mean seriously – part of what they’re talking about is the code that does array range checking. Not exactly something that’s optional.

By: Birch

Birch — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:08:00 +0000

If oracle wants to kill Java development, they’ve figured out the perfect way to do it. The message to us devs should be – if your Java app is successful, expect a lawsuit.

By: Birch

Birch — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:08:00 +0000

If oracle wants to kill Java development, they’ve figured out the perfect way to do it. The message to us devs should be – if your Java app is successful, expect a lawsuit.

By: jhdale

jhdale — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:41:00 +0000

But to do that, they would not just have to prove that a license is needed (which the court could decide), but to prove that he believed they did need a license. That would be pretty difficult to prove.

By: jhdale

jhdale — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:41:00 +0000

By: faucets

faucets — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:34:00 +0000

I agree. I think that it goes even deeper. I was involved in a dispute with Silicon Graphics. They tried to go after us because we had independently developed a compatible GL 4.0 library. It used the API only. Like Google we developed our own code to implement the API. Since we had independently developed our own implementation of the API, there was nothing that they could do.

If you allow Sun to require a license for an API then all hell will break loose in the software arena. That would mean that you couldn’t develop compatible products without permission from the creator of the API. For example a .pdf reader written by a third party would have to license the .pdf API from Adobe. Ridiculous.

By: faucets

faucets — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:34:00 +0000

By: Piperj01

Piperj01 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:12:00 +0000

I have worked with for-profit compainies since 1999 using Java. Never has any company I know of obtain any kind of license from Sun to develop code using Java and its libraries. This is the worst nightmares about Oracle’s intention for Java that Java programmers have had coming true.

By: Piperj01

Piperj01 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:12:00 +0000

By: Iam

Iam — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:07:00 +0000

But now he’s on record, stating that he did not believe they needed a license. if he lies under oath, he can become criminally charged and be held in contempt.

By: Iam

Iam — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:07:00 +0000

But now he’s on record, stating that he did not believe they needed a license. if he lies under oath, he can become criminally charged and be held in contempt.

By: jhdale

jhdale — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:56:00 +0000

“We did not believe that we needed a license from Sun.”

What else is he going to say? Get up on the stand and say they did believe they needed a license but decided to infringe instead? Of course he said that.