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Comment by wh-uws | Hacker News Reader

And it all could have been avoided with a measly (for Google) 4 billion dollar Sun acquisition on Google's part years ago.

I honestly still dont understand why they didn't.

I ask this question with zero snark intended. Can someone please give me a good answer why Google didnt buy Sun?

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I think Google thought they had their bases pretty well covered. They had implicit, if not explicit, agreement from Sun that Sun wouldn't take action on Java. Then on top of that, the code they were using was clean room engineered based on decades old precedents in court that held that clean-room engineering an API was legally allowed. Then they probably felt that in the worst case scenario a switch to OpenJDK would get them out of trouble (and for the future it probably will). With 3 separate levels of protection I think they just felt the odds of them losing all of them were small.

My memory isn't clear, but was Apple/iOS considered the threat such that whether it were SUN or Oracle it would be an ally rather than a competitor?

I seem to remember that the (much more expensive) purchase of Motorola was considered as a defensive move specifically to counter Apple IP claims.

> I seem to remember that the (much more expensive) purchase of Motorola was considered as a defensive move specifically to counter Apple IP claims

Or more specifically, to counter the $4.5B Nortel IP that Apple, Microsoft et al outbid Google to get. In retrospect, the IP arms race was foolish and extravagant.

I don't think it was nearly as clear back then that this is how things would play out. Sun still controlled its own destiny when Android was nascent and it's my understanding that while Sun wasn't exactly thrilled about them building on Apache Harmony / Dalvik, etc., they weren't going to sue them over it either. Motorola on the other hand was literally telling Google and Wall Street that they were ready to go nuclear on other Android ODMs if someone didn't make them an offer (because their actual operating business wasn't cutting it anymore)

Sun wanted to sue, but lacked the money to do so.

Check the blogs of some ex-employees like Gosling.

The perspective in Sun was not unanimous. Frankly, I'll take Jonathan Schwartz' blog (CEO) over Gosling's.

So it is that time of the year again for me to quote Gosling:

"We were all really disturbed, even Jonathan: he just decided to put on a happy face and tried to turn lemons into lemonade, which annoyed a lot of folks at Sun."

Source: http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/my_attitude_on_oracle...

But believe on whatever Google sells.

Are we playing dueling quotes?

He is what Jonathan had to say for himself:

"I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of others from Sun in offering my heartfelt congratulations to Google on the announcement of their new Java/Linux phone platform, Android. Congratulations!"

source: http://web.archive.org/web/20101023072550/http://blogs.sun.c...

>But believe on whatever Google sells

Because if I disagree with you, I must be drinking Google's coolaid, right?

Edit: before you say the quote was part of "putting on a happy face", maybe have a look at what he had to say when he was called as Google's witness in Oracle v Google. It is also telling that he was called in by Google, rather than Oracle.

> Because if I disagree with you, I must be drinking Google's coolaid, right?

Well on HN, it seems Google cannot do no wrong and Oracle is the devil, regardless of them both being corporations and not really persons.

> before you say the quote was part of "putting on a happy face", maybe have a look at what he had to say when he was called as Google's witness in Oracle v Google. It is also telling that he was called in by Google, rather than Oracle.

1 - Yes it was part of "putting on a happy face"

2 - Usually when one gets called to the court, it is not easy to say no, regardless which side puts your name on. So Google lawyers just were faster than Oracle's.

3 - Ah but he testified on court. Well, having been born in a country just getting of dictatorship and where corruption is part of daily life, I don't believe people always "tell the truth and only the truth" when at court.

The fact is that Google forked and frozed the Java eco-system.

Now in 2016 we are stuck with a Java 6 and a half, with no future in sight for newer versions. With the community coming up with hacks to try to use newer language features.

Java 9 and 10+ will bring major language features making it even worse to keep Java applications portable between the real Java and Android Java.

Google just managed to do what Microsoft failed at, and yet Google gets the brownie points.

So no matter what evidence he shows to the contrary, you won't believe it because you can't trust anything. Except the pieces of info that agree with your theory. Gotcha.

Specially when former employees have reported another view of what happened.

I know being on Oracle side doesn't buy friends on HN.

You'll note Schwartz's quote sounds like any other corporate PR-speak when companies partner up and in no way constitutes the grant of a license. The thing then was that Sun still had hopes of getting Google to license Java without a lawsuit, simply because they couldn't afford one a they circled the drain. There are other accounts from people at Sun that corroborate that account. Nobody at Sun, including Schwartz, as incompetent as he was, liked what Google was doing.

Yeah, Google tried the "Schwartz said it's OK" defense during their trial, even putting him on the stand. Nobody bought it. That is the most telling thing of all.

I believe Google has yet to spend 4 billion dollars in this litigation matter, so they're still ahead regardless?

SUNW would have brought with it other value, not just the patent portfolio.

I doubt Google had any plans to sell big iron.

From the article, it seems Oracle is only claiming one billion in damages.

I think Google thought that the software patent issue was going to go the other way, where some sort of unwritten agreement of "Let's not screw this up for everyone" would be reached. So the idea of paying $4B just for patents wasn't something that would have been done. AFAICT Google had a slim patent portfolio because Google didn't think software patents were the right thing to do, either ethically or from a business perspective. Nokia [1] pressed the button on the mutually assured destruction after the sale of Sun to Oracle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars

Disclaimer: My opinions, not necessarily my employers. I wasn't with the company at the time.

Hindsight is 20/20. Naturally if they'd known the future they might have made different moves.

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