> You're saying that I can do whatever I want with OpenJDK until it cuts into Oracle's revenue stream, at which point Oracle will sue me and keep suing me until they find an argument that shuts me down?
Not at all. I'm saying that you can do whatever you want with OpenJDK/Java, but if you don't abide by either of their licenses -- the commercial or the open source license -- Oracle will come after you, but probably only if you pose a serious threat to them, or else they wouldn't bother. Do you know of a company of Oracle's size that acts any differently? In fact, Google expected the timid Sun to come after them, and it was only Sun's decline that stopped them.
> Free software is based on irrevocable legally-granted rights, not some horrible company's largesses.
It is, but free software does have a license, and you don't get those rights until you comply with the license. That applies to OpenJDK just as it does to Linux, both released under the same license, BTW. Google is adopting Java's open-source license just now. They had their reasons, but they most definitely did not until now.
> I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're just an ardent Oracle fan, not a paid shill
I am far from a fan. Oracle is a terrible company, and I wish it was a different company that had bought Java. But Google is worse. So I guess you could say that in this case, Oracle is the lesser of two evils. But what really bugs me is that the huge Google PR machine has done everything in its power (and quite successfully) to confuse everyone about this case, and convince people that the lawsuit has any bearing on them whatsoever. The ferocity Oracle's legal team is legendary, but it doesn't come close to the legendary manipulativeness of Google's PR. Employing paid shills is much more a Google thing than an Oracle thing; Oracle prefers lawyers.
I was, however, a fan of Sun.
> Please reconsider the effect Oracle's litigation has on the entire software ecosystem.
And what effect is that? I know that Google tries to convince people it has far-reaching effects, but the actual ruling doesn't seem to imply any of that.
> Consider that we wouldn't even have Unix if its view prevailed.
That's just Google PR talking. Let me make this short and hopefully clear: Google copied part of an Oracle/OSS API and broke compatibility in order to make a profit. They didn't try to build an interoperable alternative to Sun's Java, but to get into a ready-made market of Java tools and developers. The question of API copyrightability had never been settled, and whoever would have come after Unix after the ruling would (and certainly could) have done so before. Even if APIs are copyrightable, there's still fair use, two of those defenses -- interoperability and non-profit -- would apply to most implementations, but possibly not to Google's.
Sure, maybe APIs shouldn't be copyrighted (again, this is only language-level APIs) -- I can see good argument for either side -- but the effect of their copyrightability on the software industry is at worst minimal, and is most likely nil because of a thing called "fair use". I am not aware of another case where a replication of an API was done both not in order to build a compatible product and for profit.
Besides, their "view" wouldn't have even been made (as I said, Oracle didn't set out to make a legal point) if Google had only licensed Java in one of the two available ways, one of which they are finally doing now and the other they could have probably afforded at the time. Google knew full well that Sun would come after them, but hoped they could win in court.