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Comment by derekp7 | Hacker News Reader

When presenting this to someone, is it helpful to use a human language analogy? For example: In english, when you refer to a "car", you are talking about a machine that moves people on roads. Whereas when you refer to a "boat", you are talking about something that floats on water. What Oracle wants Google to do, is to make up a new name for "car" and "boat", and try to get all developers to adopt these new definitions when using Google's products.

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That doesn't sound very clear to me. I think a better analogy would be: Google and Oracle both made cars. Google put the gear shift in the same location as Oracle.

I think an even better analogy would be:

Google and Oracle and a bunch of other companies all make cars. All of the cars have a gearshift with the same pattern, because long ago the company who built the first car encouraged other carmakers to copy their design. But then Oracle buys the company who built the first car and tries to sue Google (and only Google) for copying their shift pattern.

Did Sun encourage others to copy the design though (genuinely asking)? They allowed others to use their designs. I have been under the impression that while Java was open-sourced, there was a a specific clause in the license to prevent what Google did.

Did Sun encourage others to copy the design though (genuinely asking)?

My understanding, which may be incorrect, is that Sun intended for their JVM to be the reference version, and they envisioned a lot of companies creating their own competing (but compatible) JVMs.

I don't recall any hints or suggestions "copying" the Java API would be a problem. I believe Sun planned on making money by charging for Java implementations to be tested against the TCK in order to earn the Java label.

I had read somewhere long time back that mobile devices were explicitly excluded from this in the license.

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