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Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

      Should we pretend that companies don't act selfishly?

As I've said in another comment, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like real people. For example, corporations can exercise human rights.

Corporations can even be convicted of criminal offences, and it would be stupid to not hold them to the same standards as real people.

I don't know were this trend is coming from (that companies shouldn't be accountable for anything other than making money) but it doesn't do any good.

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True as far as you went, but most people are not charged with a fiduciary responsibility to other people. This does tend to take some wiggle room out of corporate behavior, particularly where shareholder lawsuits are a possibility.

I'll make no distinction. People act selfishly too, and there is no law against it. I might vote against welfare, then fall on hard times and plea for welfare. Am I breaking the law? Should the welfare office say "Well, sorry, you used to be against welfare so we can't grant your request?"

But being a hypocrite is not a crime. The original question was: what legal relevance does that have? I have the same question, although I suspect the answer is "none." Although anything that makes Oracle look bad might help Google by biasing a judge, even if only a little.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppal

Hypocrisy isn't a crime, but it can invalidate a claim if you publicly state one interpretation of law and later state another.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure estoppel only applies to legal facts and promises. Merely stating that you think things should be a certain way and then changing your mind when something else would be more beneficial is not grounds for estoppel. Unless Oracle successfully sued for openness or told somebody that it would not do this, I don't see how they could be estopped.

I gathered it was related to the Unclean Hands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_hands) claim - but I am just a coder.

Edit: Because "The defendant has the burden of proof" that was included as (part of?) the proof they would need to provide

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