> everyone in the industry is saddled with huge potential liabilities until a massive multi-year relicensing project can be completed to confirm who is committed to never trying Oracle's tactics when they fall on hard times. That is a doom and gloom scenario for anyone who takes legal threats seriously and doesn't have an IBM-class mutually assured destruction IP portfolio.

This multi-year cross licensing project wouldn't be a big impediment. It happens all the time in standards setting organizations, and wouldn't slow down progress significantly.

The worst case scenario would be trolls somehow obtaining the copyright to a foundational API and collecting money from everyone. That would be a pretty big annoyance, but that too would't be a doomsday scenario. Patent trolls have been active for decades and have had minimal impact on overall progress.