Jonathan Schwartz says Google's Android didn't need license for Java APIs | Hacker News Reader

Jonathan Schwartz says Google's Android didn't need license for Java APIs

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23 pointstaylorbuley13 comments

testimony of Sun co-founder Scott McNealy essentially nullified everything said by former CEO Jonathan Schwartz less than 30 minutes prior.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57422366-92/oracle-turns-to...

1. McNealy affirmed to Oracle counsel David Boies that Java was "extremely valuable" to Sun and that it involved "lots of intellectual property."

2. Going over the restrictions that Sun had in place through licensing, McNealy explained that the "most important one, with respect to Java, is to maintain compatibility because that was one of the most important value propositions that we offered."

3. In an effort to null the testimony the jury heard from Schwartz less than 30 minutes prior, Boies asked if it was ever Sun's policy to allow any company to implement an incompatible version of Java so long as they didn't call it Java. "I don't recall that was ever a strategy that we pursued nor allowed in the marketplace," replied McNealy.

4.When asked if he saw Schwartz's November 2007 blog post (now a notable piece of evidence bounced around by both sides to their own -- but different -- advantages in this case) praising Google's announcement of Android.... McNealy asserted that it was company policy that those kinds of blogs were not corporate, but rather personal.

5.Boies asked about if allowing an incompatible version of Java to exist on the market would adversely affect Sun's economics. After a long explanation, McNealy finally said it would have a "negative" effect. "It was a very clear corporate strategy for the Java platform to stay compatible," McNealy said.

Yeah, and both he and Jacobs came off as jerks.

Java's value to Sun and whether or not an incompatible version of Java would have affected Sun are irrelevant to the copyright claim, in any case. Sun's actions were their actions. It's rather common for companies to use trademarks and conformance tests to encourage compatibility without having a copyright leg to stand on.

> "I don't recall that was ever a strategy that we pursued nor allowed in the marketplace"

is a pretty good testament to that, seeing how Harmony and Classpath certainly did exist, and Sun did not try to shut them down. The only control Sun really had was being completely flakey about the compatibility kits.

edit: wrong lawyer's name

It doesn't really nullify it at all.

There's a big difference between not encouraging something and having the ability to forbid it. The strategy of making Java an open platform accelerated adoption, at the risk of having it replicated. This happened before as well -- remember the Microsoft-Sun dispute re: Microsoft J++?

Also consider the fact that there are at least two major POSIX-compliant implementations of Unix-like systems on the market today. BSD was a cleanroom implementation of AT&T Unix -- very similar conceptually to what is happening in Oracle vs. Google.

It's also absurd to claim that the public writings of the CEO or other officer of a corporation, published on a corporate website, are merely "personal opinion".

1. all versions of BSD prior to 4.3 BSD(?) incorporated proprietary AT&T Unix code and were, therefore, subject to an AT&T software license.

2. Google's chief Java architect: it's 'likely' I copied Sun code found in Android, 'I'm sorry' if I did

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/19/2961128/google-chief-java-...

If Oracle can prove that Google willfully broke Sun/Java copyright and license, Google needs to pay up.

You do know that he was agreeing to have copied 9 lines from one file, Timsort? And you do know that those 9 lines are just a range check? I mean:

    private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) {
        if (fromIndex > toIndex)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
                       ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
        if (fromIndex < 0)
            throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
        if (toIndex > arrayLen)
            throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
    }

Literally a rangeCheck.

And not only that, 9 lines written by the stealer himself ( http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~martin/webrevs/openjdk7/timsort/... ) and given to Sun/Oracle!

Still, i agree with, Sun/Oracle do have the copyrights for that. Google needs to pay up, is ten bucks alright for this?

Apparently you're not familiar with what it means to claim you've implemented a "clean room" version of something.

Even a few lines of copied code explodes the whole claim.

Here's news to you: The Judge plans to inform jury that structure, sequence and organization of Java APIs are copyrightable.

I was trying to avoid a full dissertation into the family tree of Unix -- since 4.3BSD came out in the mid-80s, I think that the point stands that it is possible to legally reproduce a clone of complex software and APIs.

What the chief architect did or didn't do isn't relevant to the testimony of Jonathan Schwartz or rebuttal by McNealy.

Schwartz's testimony basically said that Sun was most concerned about protecting the Java trademarks and wider ecosystem, and while he wasn't necessarily happy with what Google did, he didn't see it as actionable. (Perhaps he thought that Google & Sun would eventually reconcile?)

..and yet when Oracle's lawyers noted that Schwartz "wasn't talking about Sun's legal position, but rather its business agenda." Schwartz said he was not a lawyer and therefore not an expert in copyright, patents and license agreements. Schwartz also said "I'm there to define our business strategy -- not to write our contracts."

Here's the main thing about his testimony: Schwartz "endorsement" is not a license agreement or a permission to break copyright/patent laws.

Edit:

and if you look at Jonathan's blog post it clearly says in the header "JONATHAN'S BLOG".

McNealy asserted that it was company policy that those kinds of blogs were not corporate, but rather personal

He was the fricken CEO of the company, writing on a blog hosted by the company.

Also, and more importantly he didn't believe he was speaking as a private citizen.

When Schwartz started the blog, he made it clear he was writing as an officer of a public company[1].

Indeed, he wrote to the SEC to ask that his blog be recognized "as the exclusive vehicle through which the public can be fairly informed"[2].

Given that, it is hard to argue that he wasn't speaking for Sun. Indeed, given his letter to the SEC it might well be argued that it was illegal for it NOT to be corporate strategy.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20040701053111/http://blogs.sun.c...

[2] http://www.webcitation.org/5wUC3JBDO

Schwartz also said 30 min. prior.

Schwartz said his blog post was like a press release, an official Sun statement, but there was a lot left unsaid.

"We didn't like [what Google was doing with Android], but we weren't going to stop it by complaining about it," Schwartz said, explaining that Google could have chosen to work with Microsoft, a major competitor for Sun, or an open-source Java implementation. "At least with Java they could be part of the Java community," he said. Without the Java community, Google would have to "reinvent a whole community," Schwartz said.

And a few months ago the Judge said this...

Sun offered Google a three-year, "all-in" royalty license for Java for $100 million, which Google rejected, Van Nest said. The offer was made when Google was just starting Android's development.

But if Google tried to negotiate a license for Java, Alsup asked, doesn't that show Google knew it was going to infringe Sun's patents all along?

"Tell me why there's not wilful infringement here?" The Judge asked.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/072211-google-sun-offe...

Are you trolling?

I don't say that lightly, but your response here has nothing to do with what I said at all.

Otherwise, yes: you have correctly identified one aspect of this case.

Good guy Schwartz does the right thing.

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