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And for those interested, here are Oracle's slides

http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/opening-slides-1...

Oracle's stack talks about all of the companies that DO "license java" for their HW. I assume that all of those companies are licensing the "JVM" but Google wrote their own VM instead of licensing the JVM? Which makes the contention from Oracle that the license is really for the API & the JVM and google's position is they would only need a license if they hadn't written their own VM?

I have no opinion on who's right, something better left to lawyers, I'm just trying to have a clear understanding of the positions of each of them.

I may not be correct here, but from what I can see the major point of contention is page 33 of the Oracle slides.

"When is license necessary:

1. Write applications on Java - No

2. Write classes that implement Java API - Yes

3. Download Java software components - Yes"

I think the stance from Google is that the answer to 2 is NO. And that 3 does not matter since they wrote their own Java software.

Notice how they conveniently left out Classpath and Harmony from their slides? They both violate #2 and Sun didn't care to sue them.

Deciding who to sue is up to them though, right? Just because they can doesn't mean they have to. Or does it for this to hold up?

IANAL, but I read that you have to sue to protect your property (copyright, brand name, etc). If you don't, you are waiving your rights on it, which is why Google may be using Classpath and Harmony as examples.

The requirement to defend ones IP generally only applies to trademark law, not copyrights or patents.

I don't think you're obligated to sue all infringers, and spend money chasing those those who don't harm your business and don't have the money to pay you should you win.

The rangeCheck slide is somewhat cringeworthy. What are they supposed to do, not throw exceptions when it's outside the range?

It really is, does that imply that we must obscure things just to be on the safe side, even though it is the most common-sensical thing?

I thought so, too, at first, but rangeCheck is a private method. It's used in implementing a public API. Calling a non-API method "rangeCheck" and using the same variable names is clear evidence of a non-clean-room implementation, in my opinion. And in the next slide, the engineer even refers to referencing the Sun code.

It's also quite possibly from Sun's open-source code, which they surely couldn't be held liable for.

That depends entirely on the license.

The graphical design in there is quite horrible. And the combo of the poor design choices and the dark style seems to scream "evil".

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