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FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patentsFSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patentsPosted Sep 9, 2010 18:26 UTC (Thu) by fandingo (subscriber, #67019)Parent article: FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents
The FSF's position on this doesn't make any sense. Google didn't and doesn't want a standard JVM. IcedTea was only allowed because it fully implemented the specification. Google could have modified IcedTea for their purposes, but then they would still be in the same position today: using a non-standard, patent infringing JVM.
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FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 9, 2010 19:21 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] > IcedTea was only allowed because it fully implemented the specification. That's not the issue here. Sun/Oracle didn't just "allow" IcedTea (based on OpenJDK). The important part here is that Sun and Oracle both distributed IcedTea under GPLv2, and that confers certain patent protections for people who want to exercise the freedoms that GPLv2 grants, which includes the freedom to make and distribute modified version. Google could have started from the IcedTea code and made their non-Java VM, and if there was a threat, they could have pointed at sections 6 and 7 of GPLv2 and said to Oracle: actually, you already gave a legal commitment not to use your patents to prevent what we did. There would be no need to rely on the promise in the Java specification.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 9, 2010 19:40 UTC (Thu) by trasz (guest, #45786) [Link]
The FSF's position didn't make any sense when they claimed that Mono was asking for trouble, while Java was safe, either. In fact, for the last few years, most of the FSF claims were either complete rubbish or just FUD.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 9, 2010 19:46 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
How so? Java is safe, google's implementation is not java.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 10, 2010 10:59 UTC (Fri) by danpb (subscriber, #4831) [Link]
Actually the FSF did explicitly warn about 'The Java Trap' for many years while there was no complete open source solution available:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html
Today they support Java based on the fact that it is now released under the GPL, but with the explicit caveat to ensure users choose a 100% free codebase (IcedTea) and not the commercial alternatives which include restricted code.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 9, 2010 22:57 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> IcedTea was only allowed because it fully implemented the specification. Google could have modified IcedTea for their purposes, but then they would still be in the same position today: using a non-standard, patent infringing JVM.
No. Not for phones. Sun/Oracle maintained that you had to use a particular flavor of Java for phones that was not the full JRE that you could run on servers or desktops.
I am not sure about this, but I am pretty sure that this is part of Oracle's patent/copyright case.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 10, 2010 0:57 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] While Sun/Oracle have Java ME, they don't compel you to use it in mobile devices. What is at issue here is that Google didn't meet the requirements of Sun's patent grant, and did not take other paths (like using Sun-distributed GPL code) that might have offered them patent protection. It sounds like a failure to perform due diligence to me. Not to say it's justice, I'm a "drain the swamp" guy where software patents are concerned.
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:33 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
The trouble with a lot of this speculation is that it is just that - and ill-informed at that.
Oracle is suing over copyright - huh! Dalvik is supposed to be a completely independent rewrite!
(Yep, they're suing over patents as well, but if they've done the same amount of due diligence over patents as copyrights ...)
And as far as I can tell, the problem with Google getting a free (gratis) Java Licence is that said licence explicitly BARS using it on a mobile phone.
I haven't got my head around all this, but as far as I can tell, Google COULD not licence Java and still do what they wanted. So they wrote the code they wanted from scratch, and they still got sued.
Oracle seem to be taking the attitude "it is a way of executing Java source code, therefore it must be infringing in some way shape or form". The fact that Java is just a language (like all the other computer languages) that anybody could implement a compiler/interpreter for, seems to have escaped their lawyers' comprehension.
Cheers,
FSF responds to Oracle v. Google and the threat of software patents Posted Sep 10, 2010 2:37 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
I think that with Android you use Java SDK in your development environment and build the software into bytecode using the regular Java (tm) interpreters and then that bytecode is then transformed into something you can use on Dalvik.
Maybe they are thinking that the bytecode generated by the Java (tm) runtime environment is then derivative work or something.
I just don't understand well, I guess.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too Posted Sep 10, 2010 19:01 UTC (Fri) by qubit (guest, #57802) [Link] No. Not for phones. Sun/Oracle maintained that you had to use a particular flavor of Java for phones that was not the full JRE that you could run on servers or desktops. Sun/Oracle can't have it both ways. There was no way for Sun to release a flavor of Java under the GPL while imposing an additional condition as to the particular family of devices on which it may or may not run. The act of running the Program is not restricted... and GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE...Version 2, June 1991... I find it very interesting that I've heard this statement repeated over and over again -- about how Sun "wouldn't allow" the so-called full version of Java to be run on phones. It's possible that Java originally had such a restriction before it was released under a Free Software license, but I believe the actual truth of the matter is that the full version of Java was just too much for small devices of the era to handle!
You can't have your cake and eat it, too Posted Sep 11, 2010 6:07 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> There was no way for Sun to release a flavor of Java under the GPL while imposing an additional condition as to the particular family of devices on which it may or may not run.
They could if they believed that the 'GPLv2 implicant patent license' is rather weak.
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