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Comment by chc | Hacker News Reader

Is this the same way Rubinius stole Ruby, Microsoft stole C++ and KDE stole JavaScript? I think the point here is that a language isn't really something you can own. An implementation, sure — but the language itself? Under what law? You can possibly copyright the text of the specification (but certainly not the facts therein), you can copyright the implementation, you can trademark the name and you can patent specific techniques used in the implementation, but what confers ownership of the language itself? I don't believe there is any precedent for a language being wholly "owned" in the sense that nobody else could independently implement the spec.

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It's not the language that they took, but the whole platform. They don't provide a compiler from Java to whatever bytecode Dalvik is using, but from Java bytecode to Dalvik bytecode.

Now I'm not saying they're doing anything illegal or in breach of any contract - I really don't know - and I don't know whether or not you could own a language in the legal sense - I have no idea about that either - but all of Google's actions seem to be in bad faith.

Whether or not it has any legal merit, the Java licensing was specifically meant to ensure compliant implementations. In addition, Sun didn't want other mobile implementations and tried to prevent that. Then Google went ahead, forked Java into a non-compliant implementation (and that would have been fine, too), but built their entire tool system in such a way as to allow many compiled Java libraries to run unmodified on an inferior JVM - sorry, a 'non-Java' VM - that they'd bought with the sole intention of circumventing Sun's licensing.

I don't know if Sun had a right to license Java as they did, and I don't know if Google did anything legally wrong. But what is clear that they've tried to stay as close as possible to Java (the whole platform - not just the language) without breaching the letter of the law in Sun's license. In fact, most of their technical effort was directed at precisely that - circumventing Java's licensing.

Now, I don't know why people are rushing for Google's defense as if they've been acting altruistically or something. Everything the did, or do, they do for profit.

There are no good guys in this story. There are simply two huge conglomerates in a business war. Oracle is trying to take advantage of Android's success where they've failed in the mobile arena, and Google is trying to take advantage of Java's popularity. Both companies are simply trying to exploit each other for their own benefit.

Whatever the legal outcome, I think both developers and consumers would benefit greatly if Android were to become a compliant Java implementation, and could take advantage of Oracle's superior VM.

Your only accusation of wrongdoing (either ethical or legal) seems to be that Google "acted in bad faith," but I have no idea what you mean by that. I believe that phrase normally means "used deception and subterfuge," but I don't see how Google did anything duplicitous.

You seem to think I'm "rushing to Google's defense as if they've been acting altruistically". This is incorrect. I don't know what your motivation is here, but I don't really have strong feelings about Google one way or the other. I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em.

All Google did is create its own implementation of a programming language. Never before in history has this been considered an evil thing. It happens all the time. I wouldn't call Rich Hickey or Guy Steele evil for "stealing" Lisp from John McCarthy, so out of consistency, I can't call Google evil for doing the same thing with Java. I also don't see how Google was deceitful in this, as you claim. They seem to have been quite up-front about what they were doing.

In fact, I'll go further: If any party acted in bad faith, it would have to be Oracle, which supported Google and Apache's alternative Java implementations up until it sued Google and gave Apache the middle finger.

Google did not just implement the language. In fact, they didn't implement the language at all: to the best of my knowledge they haven't even written a Java compiler.

All they did was write a translation tool that takes Java binaries and makes them run on a different VM, not covered by the Java license. Unlike others who implement languages to provide technical benefits, Google had no such intention. Their only consideration when choosing to re-implement a piece of Java or not was whether it would allow them to evade Java's legal restrictions.

My stake in this is that as a Java/other-JVM-languages developer, I don't like the fact that we now have two incompatible Javas. Now, Google explain their actions by saying that Sun were dragging their feet during negotiations, and maybe they're right. Maybe, thanks to Google we have an almost-Java thingy on a successful mobile platform.

I think the parties should settle, and I hope the result (whether money changes hands or not) would be bringing Android in the Java fold, and making it compatible.

I think and I maybe wrong, what they are after is the API design and for fragmenting the most fundamental thing that Java was based on - Write once run anywhere - as Android can't run what's was compiled for JVM.

Is it not the case? or are they just claiming Google used Java language?

As for me, I just am frustrated that Oracle might have a good case.

That's because its not Java. They are not allowed to call it Java. The only claims left from oracle at this point are that google used 'Java' (the language) without permission and they have used api interfaces aka function names and class names (ArrayList.GetItem() ArrayList.AddItem() stuff). There is no copying of the implementation anywhere. AFAIK if oracle wins this case, they can go ahead and sue Microsoft for providing ArrayList class in C#/.net - they almost have similar interfaces.

The more I think about this case, that more I hate Oracle. They are hurting Java's long term future for a few million bucks. Android provided lots of momentum for Java platform and if they end up switching to some other language (Go/python) everyone loses. Of course once oracle wins, there will be every one suing every one else having similarity in api interfaces.

I think you may be confusing means and ends here. They are not suing Google because they believe they've infringed on their copyright. They're using copyright as a legal argument to sue Google over the fact that they've used technicalities and tricks to circumvent Java's license.

So no one is going to sue anyone over similarities in APIs because everyone understands that is not the point. Your argument about Java's benefit may be right, but they might be wrong: Android has fragmented Java, and not just the language but the API and the bytecode as well.

Whoever is right in this case, let's get one thing straight: Google is not some innocent player here. They wanted Java's developers for their platform, they didn't want to pay Sun for the license, so they used a trick to bypass that license. That trick may be successful legally, but don't paint Oracle (well, at least not in this case) as some troll trying to go after innocent innovators who only have the community's interest in mind.

I'm not seeing where Android has caused fragmentation - which you keep mentioning.

Java is by definition fragmented. Java on phones has been fragmented for ages (pre-Android). Look at all the competing OS/APIs available for jme phones (BREW, Symbian, BlackBerry etc).

Java on phones has always been fragmented at the API level - wilfully ignoring this fact is basically saying that Java EE and Java SE and JavaCard are exactly the same and programs written for a giant cluster of enterprise machines that need to screen scrape terminals and connect to esoteric datasources, should run without modification on a Java capable phone circa 2007 - this is simply not the case and has never been the case. Face it Oracle are saying WORA is good and Android is killing WORA via 'fragmentation' - the reality is that WORA is basically a myth and marketing hype.

Oracle are a troll in so much as they fully supported an ASL licensed version of Java (APIs and vm) when they didn't own Java and then decided that having a truly open source implementation was a bad idea after they owned the IP.

Google cleanroom'd (and used libraries which had an appropriate license) - this was expensive and not necessarily the best thing to do - who knows apart from Andy Rubin I guess, but I cannot see how this was illegal, or even morally wrong as you are suggesting.

Google could reasonably point to the fact that Apache had been working for 6 years on a fully open source version of Java without any legal problems - why should they suddenly find themselves in trouble for using that software and adding their own vm?

Personally I think you're mistaken about the history of this case, who is acting in good faith and who isn't and the realities of developing Java programs for phones and in general. I'm honestly exasperated by people who seem to ignore the evidence that is in the open about what transpired when and then go on about how 'evil' Google has been over this whole thing. Google acted in their best interests as a company and what they did hasn't negatively impacted any Java developers that I know about. The only people that claim that Google has stolen Java or have destroyed Java or any other hyperbolic negative affect they claim seem to have a personal axe to grind and/or work for Oracle.

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