Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

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Signed by

        1. Harold Abelson.*
        2. Alfred V. Aho
        3. Tom Ball.*
        4. John Perry Barlow
        5. Brian Behlendorf
        6. Richard A. Belgard
        7. Jon Bentley
        8. Matthew Bishop
        9. Joshua Bloch
        10. Dan Boneh
        11. Gilad Bracha.*
        12. Eric Brewer.*
        13. Frederick Brooks
        14. Rick Cattell
        15. Vinton G. Cerf.*
        16. William Cook
        17. Ward Cunningham
        18. Mark Davis.*
        19. Jeffrey Dean.*
        20. L Peter Deutsch
        21. David L. Dill
        22. Les Earnest
        23. Brendan Eich
        24. Dave Farber
        25. Stuart Feldman.*
        26. Edward W. Felten
        27. Jeremiah Flerchinger
        28. Martin Fowler
        29. Neal Gafter
        30. John Gage
        31. Allan Gottlieb
        32. Miguel de Icaza
        33. John Hennessy.*
        34. Tom Jennings
        35. Mitchell Kapor
        36. Alan Kay
        37. Brian Kernighan.*
        38. David Klausner
        39. Ray Kurzweil.*
        40. Kin Lane
        41. Ed Lazowska
        42. Doug Lea
        43. Sheng Liang
        44. Barbara Liskov
        45. Paul Menchini
        46. James H. Morris
        47. Peter Norvig.*
        48. Martin Odersky
        49. Tim Paterson
        50. David Patterson.*
        51. Alex Payne
        52. Tim Peierls
        53. Simon Phipps
        54. Bill Pugh
        55. Larry Roberts
        56. Guido van Rossum
        57. Avi Rubin
        58. Bruce Schneier
        59. Curtis Schroeder
        60. Barbara Simons
        61. Dave Snigier
        62. Alfred Z. Spector.*
        63. Bjarne Stroustrup
        64. Gerald Jay Sussman
        65. Brad Templeton
        66. Ken Thompson.*
        67. Michael Tiemann
        68. Andrew Tridgell
        69. Josh Triplett
        70. Jeff Ullman.*
        71. John Villasenor
        72. Jan Vitek
        73. Phillip Wadler
        74. James H. “Jim” Waldo
        75. Dan Wallach
        76. Peter Weinberger.*
        77. Frank Yellin.*

Asterisk:

"presently Google employees, consultants, and/or directors. Those amici are signing this brief as individual computer scientists whose work in the field long preceded their affiliation with Google. They are not signing this brief on behalf of Google or at Google's request."

I think it was a tactical mistake to include the folks affiliated with Google. Amicus briefs are supposed to be from parties who have an interest in the dispute, but not a personal stake in either party. Including so many people affiliated with Google will come across negatively.

Unfortunately, it's just a background fact that Google employs a lot of well-known computer science figures. So this was bound to happen unless they explicitly forbade them from signing this, which I also don't think is good.

I find "30. John Gage" interesting in that he was Chief Scientist at Sun. I always thought that Google's Dalvik was a hack around Sun's business model for Java, in bypassing the need to license JVM. The fact that John Gage signed the brief seems to imply that he considers Google's hack to be less ominous than Oracle's attempt to change the game.

The Java class/jar file formats are inherently slow and Dalvik's dex code fixes that problem. I don't think the licensing hack would have worked since you can't escape patents by making syntax changes.

Well, that is what the courts are discussing at the moment. It may or may not work, but the origins of Dalvik as a "licensing hack" are well-known.

It probably depends whether the people reading it know who the people signing it actually are. Vint Cerf, Ken Thompson and Ray Kurzweil now work for Google but that doesn't mean they aren't still Vint Cerf, Ken Thompson and Ray Kurzweil.

It also doesn't mean that they're not still Google employees.

What are you proposing then? A conflict of interest requirement for amici? Nobody motivated to write one would ever be allowed to.

Like the earlier post said, amicus curiae briefs are filed on behalf of people who are not parties to a case. They may have an interest, but it can't be "we're suing/being sued in this particular case." Maybe it's different for employees of a firm, but Google is certainly a party to the case.

If you know any of the back story of those names you would have known that none of them would need to affiliate with any company. They are basically the deity of our age. Without them we would not have modern computers and the only handhelds we have are rocks.

Yet, affiliate they have, which makes this inappropriate, regardless of their accomplishments.

Everyone who owns a mutual fund has a stake in Google.

And possibly Oracle as well.

I thought Guido van Rossum was with Google now.

He was, but has since moved to Dropbox.

He's with Dropbox, I believe.

It is interesting that eg Rod Canion was not included in this.

So why do you believe Rod Canion is somebody expected to be in this list? It's a letter signed by the people who made some significant contribution to the "scientific" not to the "business" aspects of computers.

Although I can imagine the "letter from the companies that are competition from both Oracle and Google" would also at least have some impact in media.

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