Linux and Open Source

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols & Paula Rooney

The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

By Dana Blankenhorn | August 18, 2010, 5:10am PDT

Summary: Could this suit be a nonsense meant to rile people up, for the sake of riling them up, more for partisan advantage than anything else, for light rather than heat, because we can.

Amid all the Sturm-und-Drang over the Oracle-Google suit, there are some voices notably absent.

The Free Software Foundation has not issued a press release. Neither has the Linux Foundation. Nor the Open Invention Network. Linux Defenders 911 has not replaced its penguin “bat signal” with a Drudge-like police strobe.

It’s the mystery of the dogs that don’t bark. Why? (Aren’t these things from Babykind in the UK cute?)

You might reply, elementary my dear Watson. This isn’t really an open source issue. Google is using Java ME, not the GPL version of Java, in Android.

Most reporters, of course, have gone all Inspector Lestrade on this story. (I include myself in this condemnation.) We are buying the Google line. Or predicting the end of open source. Depending on our views and preconceptions.

Without taking a firm stand on the merits of the case, Groklaw is also stoking the fires, writing that the end result of all this needs to be the end of software patents, which are now proven to hamper innovation. “Groklaw will cover this litigation soup to nuts,” they add.

Surprise.

Individual advocates are speaking up, of course. Florian Mueller, who agrees with Groklaw on the evil of software patents, is attacking the OIN. Bradley Kuhn says it’s a black mark against both Java and Google, as well as software patents.

But as I paged through all the news analyses yesterday (including our own), each using the controversy to promote their own agenda (page views in my case), a very strange thought occurred to me.

Could this be the anchor baby of open source advocacy? (You were wondering when those slippers would come back into the story, weren’t you?)

That is, could this suit be a nonsense meant to rile people up, for the sake of riling them up, more for partisan advantage than anything else, for light rather than heat, because we can.

Until I hear something official from people who really matter — folks like Eben Moglen, Jim Zemlin, and Keith Bergelt — my suspicion of that is going to grow.

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Google Inc., Lawsuit, Oracle Corp., Silence, Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.

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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

Dear Dana, actually Android does not use JavaME; it uses the default JavaSE environment (any you like) to convert from java source to JVM bytecode, then convers the JVM code into Dalvik codes that are then compacted in APK files. The execution engine is totally different from Java, and certainly not based on JavaME.
cdaffara@...
18th Aug 2010
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in depth analysis

@cdaffara@...
for an in depth analysis of someone actually in the know, have a look here: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/08/14/how-oracle-might-kill-googles-android-and-software-patents-all-at-once/
banned from zdnet
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

@banned from zdnet "in depth analysis of someone in the know"??? Actually, the post seems a little bit skewed. Not only its overall discussion of Android seem not very accurate ("it sells only because it is the only phone sold by Verizon"?) but the overall coverage of the patent issues, the history of Android, the role of Oracle in OSS communities seem written by my 5 year old daughter.
For starters, it was not Google that "stole" Java; the Dalvik machine comes off the acquisition of Android Inc. by the very talented Andy Rubin. Android does not use any form of Java inside the VM, but only to convert source code into JVM bytecode using OpenJDK or the Sun VM, and then a second converter turns JVM bytecode into Dalvik, that is (given the fact that Daniel seems not to have looked into the code itself) quite different from Sun implementation. So, "Google took Sun?s Java and modified it to the point where it thought it wouldn?t have to pay Sun to license Java within Android." is quite unsubstantiated, and IMHO plain wrong. Also, the image of Oracle as OSS stalwart is a little bit strange, given the fact that after the Sun acquisition they disappeared from major projects like OpenOffice and OpenSolaris (forcing them to fork under the name Illumos). And OpenSSO, by the way (one of my favorite projects), and several others, including the HPC ones. Other comments, like "a dark cloud over the already dismal climate of the Android software platform" is hardly what would I call an unbiased analysis.
I would not claim to be a perfect writer, but at least noone called me out for such an outright bias in my posts.
cdaffara@...
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

@banned from zdnet

But he is NOT "in the know". Neither are you. Give up the pretense.
mejohnsn
18th Aug 2010
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biased

@cdaffara

biased yes. but something your 5 year old could have written seems a bit off. he is certainly more in the know and insightful than any of the clueless bloggers here. would be interesting if someone like you with your knowledge would engage in the discussion at roughlydrafted.com
banned from zdnet
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

for partisan advantage than anything about it is bank that website attacked from the site support from any soldier site to the light home page is great else
musdahi
19th Sep
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

The FSF it's against software patent, but also against using software under patent (or private software in general). Google on Android used Java, so why the FSF would have to intenrvene in this war between two private corporations (Google and Oracle)?
idl3
18th Aug 2010
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Distinction between software patents and patent-encumbered software

@idl3 You accurately portray the FSF's position but it's a utopian one (not your fault as the messenger). There is no such thing as patent-unencumbered software. The FSF calls Linux ("GNU/Linux") a "free" operating system but very significant organizations with lots of patent expertise in house pay royalties for their use of Linux: Amazon (which itself is a patent aggressor, so they know how to attack and will know how to defend themselves), Salesforce (that blowhard gave up about six weeks after a lawsuit was actually field), Samsung, HTC, TomTom, and who knows how many others. Far be it from me to like the idea of software patents and royalties that are paid on them, but if the FSF wants patent-unencumbered software, it has to use stuff that was open-sourced more than 20 years ago (and - very importantly - not changed since then):
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/07/richard-stallmans-mono-and-dotgnu.html
FlorianMueller
19th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

Even Java ME has been released under GPL (in PhoneME project).
S P Arif Sahari Wibowo - http://www.arifsaha.com/
18th Aug 2010
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sun = brett favre of IP

This really goes back to Sun's inability to decide whether to make Java a true open standard or protect it as intellectual property. Now that Sun has been absorbed into the Oracle Borg, it should become clear that Oracle wanted Sun for Java and intends to fight for it. That's not to say that the situation isn't complex, because there ARE unencumbered Java runtimes out there.
GDF
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

@GDF So is Tavaris Jackson now Mark Shuttleworth? (Football season coming.)
DanaBlankenhorn
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

Could this be the anchor baby of open source advocacy?
No way, it is about Larry's greed and lack of focus on the 2 evils: M$ & Apple.
Linux Geek
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

You know why you not hearing anything out of FSF etc. Its because Google took ALL the Linux changes out the main line Linux kernel. Android is open but it's not all that open. So why would the people you are keeping the sauce from choose to help you?
tymiles
18th Aug 2010
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You may be right

@tymiles Then they should say so.
DanaBlankenhorn
18th Aug 2010
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RE: The deafening silence in the Oracle-Google lawsuit

@DanaBlankenhorn

They should? Why? They say what is most in their interest to say. That means a little 'soft shoe' for things they don't want broadcast too widely.

But the question illustrates a more important aspect of the case: a lot of people have been commenting on the nature of the IP in Android without first coming to understand it clearly themselves.

Unfortunately, this practice extends back much further in time than just this lawsuit. Remember all the confusion over which apps CyanogenMod could legally copy and which they could not? Remember all the recrimination against Google for defending their own IP?

The same general class of confusion continues. So please, everyone, study the license types and IP issues before you add to the confusion.
mejohnsn
18th Aug 2010
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