It's all about Oracle's lawyers talking with Google Lawyers and seeing how much of the Android pie Google is willing to give to Oracle.
Patent infringement is like having stock options. It's all about watching your stock price grow, then cashing in at the right time. I mean, so how long has the "open source" Android OS been distributed and Oracle hasn't been bothered until recently to look through it? Taking any of this seriously is a mistake.
So how's Oracle's income stream from J2ME coming along?
Pre-Android compared to post-Android?
I'm just talking about the 37 files referenced in the Apple Insider article.
"My opinions don't have anything to do with anything more than the files mentioned in the Apple Insider article and shouldn't be assumed to apply to all of the code involved in the Oracle vs Google suit."
If these files weren't used significantly to create Android how would their existence significantly affect Oracle's income stream from J2ME pre and post android? I'm not seeing the correlation between these files in particular and decreased income stream from Oracle. Now I can see Google being found liable for their existence in their repository, but for these files in particular I don't see how the damages would be more than 7 digits at the very most. It's my opinion on the relative insignificance of these files which caused me to post in this string. I have not expressed any opinion on the broader Oracle vs Google suit.
So how's Oracle's income stream from J2ME coming along?
Pre-Android compared to post-Android?
Here is the detail on the files I am talking about.
"The second set of 37 files is actually zipped up into one file called MMAPI.zip and tucked away in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one particular type of chip set. Florian really had to go digging for this one. I double-checked the make files and it?s clear this file is not shipped with Android either. Somebody uploaded it by mistake and it should simply be deleted." - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/o...n-android/2162
It's all about Oracle's lawyers talking with Google Lawyers and seeing how much of the Android pie Google is willing to give to Oracle.
Patent infringement is like having stock options. It's all about watching your stock price grow, then cashing in at the right time. I mean, so how long has the "open source" Android OS been distributed and Oracle hasn't been bothered until recently to look through it? Taking any of this seriously is a mistake.
Of course it is serious. If Oracle get $10 a licence and retrospectively it means that Google's business model is shattered, or the manufacturers is.
Maybe it's just me but date would seem a natural built in criteria so should be at the easy section not advanced. Just tried Blekko with .. /date ... at end of search (e.g. global warming/date) ... it works well as intended. It is beta so I assume that is why so many results have weird text issues. Hopefully it will get better. Their financial model seems to be the sharing of search tags as far as I can tell. There is a good into video.
The problem with Google date preferences is it only uses the page modification date in the header data, not whether the content on the page has changed or not. This is easily spoofed by SEO.
I am personally dealing with a competitor who has a high page ranking (as do I) and we are constantly swapping the top spot however I am updating my page with new content where he only re-saves his page and uploads it again to make it newer than mine. His content is still from 1999. Unfortunately for him though his content actually mentions our company because without that he would have no relevance whatsoever.
Here is the detail on the files I am talking about.
"The second set of 37 files is actually zipped up into one file called MMAPI.zip and tucked away in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one particular type of chip set. Florian really had to go digging for this one. I double-checked the make files and it?s clear this file is not shipped with Android either. Somebody uploaded it by mistake and it should simply be deleted." - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/o...n-android/2162
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Frivolous lawsuits are usually dismissed early in the proceedings.
Your solution would certainly add additional discouragement to frivolous suits. However, it would also discourage novel suits by all but the wealthy. This is America, and we like justice better than that.
New and novel causes of action are good for all of us. For example, many product liability lawsuits used to get thrown out as frivolous, but the law has since expanded to give us additional protections against defective and dangerous products.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, try to get the existing protections enforced more often, like sanctions which can be imposed on those who bring forth frivolous cases.
I understand that this affects not only frivolous lawsuits but the US is in serious need of tort reform and "loser pays" has several benefits.
I know this is an old article but I think it is a good read which points outs some of the advantages of the "loser pays":
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
I think Google is 100% liable for having these particular files within their repository. I just don't think that these particular files were used by Google in a way which significantly damaged Oracle based on the information we have about them. These do not appear to be central to Google's development process at all, they simply existed out in a branch of their repository. From my understanding the commercial gain or loss of the infringement is central to damages. I don't think these files in particular would cost Google a significant amount in damages should Oracle include them in their lawsuit. Since the code in these files wasn't used significantly during the development process and thus wasn't included in the code that shipped I don't think it's likely they'd receive per handset damages like some have suggested. Even if they were found guilty and charged the maximum of $150,000 per infringement, 37 * 150,000 is about 5.5 million. As I've had time to think about this story, I also wonder why if these files have existed since Oracle began it's lawsuit why Oracle didn't include them. Was it because this Mueller individual was more thorough or was it because Oracle didn't think them worth mentioning? My opinions don't have anything to do with anything more than the files mentioned in the Apple Insider article and shouldn't be assumed to apply to all of the code involved in the Oracle vs Google suit.
It should be a frightening thought for Google if Oracle knew about the above files and just did not believe they were central to case. It will be interesting to see if they add this issue or are confident that there case does not need this additional embellishment.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
I thought it was obvious, but, just to make it clear, I was showing how ridiculous your line of reasoning was by showing how it would apply as a general principle of law. In other words, just because a crime is hard to discover, doesn't make it less of a crime. Note, this criticism dismisses at least 99% of the pro-Google arguments made in this thread, since that's really the only defense there is, that Google's violation of copyright law wasn't easily discovered. Doesn't make it any less of a violation, just like burying the body doesn't absolve one of murder.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
There are two issues here. The copyright issue - where publishing the source code in any tree is a violation, and 2) the patent issue which is similar to the case against MS for using J++.
Now if Google can prove the first, it probably proves the latter.
I am not sure how the GPL comes into this, Google's defence is that Oracle are entrapping people by putting the GPL at the top of the files and then adding other licensing caveats. That might work as a defence, I dont know.
Copyright is definitely violated here, as the original licence was changed ( idiotically, if they werent using it). Thus this violates the GPL. You cant move from GPL to Apache, you can only get more restrictive. What I dont know, however, is whether invalidating the GPS licence therefore resets the previous licence - that is the patents, and the Oracle copyright prior to the GPL is then invoked.
Judges are going to have to be very technical aware.
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Apple pulled AirPrint functionality from printers attached due to licensing issues right? They had the offending files in their development versions of OS X which were distributed to developers. You can even download the files which were included at http://netputing.com/2010/11/11/airprint-hacktivator/. Apple realized these files had licensing issues and didn't ship them to non development versions. To me it would be preposterous for anyone to think that just because Apple included these files in the development versions of their code and distributed it in this limited basis that there is any danger to OS X as a platform or that Apple would end up being liable for a per installation judgement. This case would be a more egregious violation of a copyright than the Google example because the files were actually used in the main development code base of OS X. In this example I wouldn't consider that Apple had no respect for intellectual property. They realized the code was a license violation and removed it before shipping it to their non-development install base. This kind of stuff happens all the time and doesn't endanger the viability of the platforms themselves.
Apple pulled AirPrint functionality from printers attached due to licensing issues right? They had the offending files in their development versions of OS X which were distributed to developers. You can even download the files which were included at http://netputing.com/2010/11/11/airprint-hacktivator/. Apple realized these files had licensing issues and didn't ship them to non development versions. To me it would be preposterous for anyone to think that just because Apple included these files in the development versions of their code and distributed it in this limited basis that there is any danger to OS X as a platform or that Apple would end up being liable for a per installation judgement. This is case would be a more egregious violation of a copyright than the Google example here because the files were actually used in the main development code base of OS X. In this I wouldn't consider that Apple had no respect for intellectual property. They realized the code was a license violation and removed it before shipping it to their non-development install base. This kind of stuff happens all the time and doesn't endanger the viability of the platforms themselves.
No amount of explaining that copyright has nothing to do with the compiled executables will apparently work in this thread. Those files are binaries ( there is a hint in where they get installed), not source. Apple is implementing their own version of the idea and the patent is about the workings of the software, not the copying of the source files line by line. in that case pulling from a release is good enough. They are not publishing any source.
I thought it was obvious, but, just to make it clear, I was showing how ridiculous your line of reasoning was by showing how it would apply as a general principle of law. In other words, just because a crime is hard to discover, doesn't make it less of a crime. Note, this criticism dismisses at least 99% of the pro-Google arguments made in this thread, since that's really the only defense there is, that Google's violation of copyright law wasn't easily discovered. Doesn't make it any less of a violation, just like burying the body doesn't absolve one of murder.
That was not obvious to me because the files being hard to find hasn't been my argument. My argument is that the files in the zip file were not used for development of anything significant on Android. Their distribution in whatever limited fashion to the development community was likely a violation of the copyright. However, since a significant portion of copyright violation damages have to do with the damage done and gain from the violation, we have to look at the importance of the files themselves and how they were used to estimate what we think the damages might be and how significant the effect of these damages would be to Google.
That was not obvious to me because that the files were hard to find hasn't been my argument. My argument is that the files in the zip file were not used for development of anything significant on Android. There distribution in whatever limited fashion to the development community was likely a violation of the copyright. However, since a significant portion of copyright violation damages have to do with the damage done and gain from the violation, we have to look at the importance of the files themselves and how they were used to estimate what we think the damages might be and how significant the effect of these damages would be to Google.
The main case against Google is the patent violation. This copyright violation ( and these are probably not the only examples) will make it hard for Google to claim that they "clean roomed" their own JVM.
Their counter argument is that Oracles licences are invalidated by the GPL.
No amount of explaining that copyright has nothing to do with the compiled executables will apparently work in this thread. Those files are binaries ( there is a hint in where they get installed), not source. Apple is implementing their own version of the idea and the patent is about the workings of the software, not the copying of the source files line by line. in that case pulling from a release is good enough. They are not publishing any source.
Binaries can violate a patent or license. You don't need to publish the source code to violate a patent or license.
The main case against Google is the patent violation. This copyright violation ( and these are probably not the only examples) will make it hard for Google to claim that they "clean roomed" their own JVM.
Their counter argument is that Oracles licences are invalidated by the GPL.
So If I'm understanding you correctly you are saying these files are important because they show that Google used Oracle code as a starting point to reverse engineer the JavaVM to make the Davlik VM. Are you saying that this code in particular shows how the original Oracle JavaVM code worked thus allowing Google to reverse engineer the Java VM code in the Davlik JVM?
Comments
Patent infringement is like having stock options. It's all about watching your stock price grow, then cashing in at the right time. I mean, so how long has the "open source" Android OS been distributed and Oracle hasn't been bothered until recently to look through it? Taking any of this seriously is a mistake.
So how's Oracle's income stream from J2ME coming along?
Pre-Android compared to post-Android?
I'm just talking about the 37 files referenced in the Apple Insider article.
"My opinions don't have anything to do with anything more than the files mentioned in the Apple Insider article and shouldn't be assumed to apply to all of the code involved in the Oracle vs Google suit."
If these files weren't used significantly to create Android how would their existence significantly affect Oracle's income stream from J2ME pre and post android? I'm not seeing the correlation between these files in particular and decreased income stream from Oracle. Now I can see Google being found liable for their existence in their repository, but for these files in particular I don't see how the damages would be more than 7 digits at the very most. It's my opinion on the relative insignificance of these files which caused me to post in this string. I have not expressed any opinion on the broader Oracle vs Google suit.
So how's Oracle's income stream from J2ME coming along?
Pre-Android compared to post-Android?
Here is the detail on the files I am talking about.
"The second set of 37 files is actually zipped up into one file called MMAPI.zip and tucked away in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one particular type of chip set. Florian really had to go digging for this one. I double-checked the make files and it?s clear this file is not shipped with Android either. Somebody uploaded it by mistake and it should simply be deleted." - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/o...n-android/2162
It's all about Oracle's lawyers talking with Google Lawyers and seeing how much of the Android pie Google is willing to give to Oracle.
Patent infringement is like having stock options. It's all about watching your stock price grow, then cashing in at the right time. I mean, so how long has the "open source" Android OS been distributed and Oracle hasn't been bothered until recently to look through it? Taking any of this seriously is a mistake.
Of course it is serious. If Oracle get $10 a licence and retrospectively it means that Google's business model is shattered, or the manufacturers is.
Maybe it's just me but date would seem a natural built in criteria so should be at the easy section not advanced. Just tried Blekko with .. /date ... at end of search (e.g. global warming/date) ... it works well as intended. It is beta so I assume that is why so many results have weird text issues. Hopefully it will get better. Their financial model seems to be the sharing of search tags as far as I can tell. There is a good into video.
The problem with Google date preferences is it only uses the page modification date in the header data, not whether the content on the page has changed or not. This is easily spoofed by SEO.
I am personally dealing with a competitor who has a high page ranking (as do I) and we are constantly swapping the top spot however I am updating my page with new content where he only re-saves his page and uploads it again to make it newer than mine. His content is still from 1999. Unfortunately for him though his content actually mentions our company because without that he would have no relevance whatsoever.
Here is the detail on the files I am talking about.
"The second set of 37 files is actually zipped up into one file called MMAPI.zip and tucked away in a directory used for native code audio drivers for one particular type of chip set. Florian really had to go digging for this one. I double-checked the make files and it?s clear this file is not shipped with Android either. Somebody uploaded it by mistake and it should simply be deleted." - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/o...n-android/2162
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Frivolous lawsuits are usually dismissed early in the proceedings.
Your solution would certainly add additional discouragement to frivolous suits. However, it would also discourage novel suits by all but the wealthy. This is America, and we like justice better than that.
New and novel causes of action are good for all of us. For example, many product liability lawsuits used to get thrown out as frivolous, but the law has since expanded to give us additional protections against defective and dangerous products.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, try to get the existing protections enforced more often, like sanctions which can be imposed on those who bring forth frivolous cases.
I understand that this affects not only frivolous lawsuits but the US is in serious need of tort reform and "loser pays" has several benefits.
I know this is an old article but I think it is a good read which points outs some of the advantages of the "loser pays":
http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/civil-suits
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Yeah sort of like those home wifi hacks that accidentally happened while doing routine street view photos.
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
I think Google is 100% liable for having these particular files within their repository. I just don't think that these particular files were used by Google in a way which significantly damaged Oracle based on the information we have about them. These do not appear to be central to Google's development process at all, they simply existed out in a branch of their repository. From my understanding the commercial gain or loss of the infringement is central to damages. I don't think these files in particular would cost Google a significant amount in damages should Oracle include them in their lawsuit. Since the code in these files wasn't used significantly during the development process and thus wasn't included in the code that shipped I don't think it's likely they'd receive per handset damages like some have suggested. Even if they were found guilty and charged the maximum of $150,000 per infringement, 37 * 150,000 is about 5.5 million. As I've had time to think about this story, I also wonder why if these files have existed since Oracle began it's lawsuit why Oracle didn't include them. Was it because this Mueller individual was more thorough or was it because Oracle didn't think them worth mentioning? My opinions don't have anything to do with anything more than the files mentioned in the Apple Insider article and shouldn't be assumed to apply to all of the code involved in the Oracle vs Google suit.
It should be a frightening thought for Google if Oracle knew about the above files and just did not believe they were central to case. It will be interesting to see if they add this issue or are confident that there case does not need this additional embellishment.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
I thought it was obvious, but, just to make it clear, I was showing how ridiculous your line of reasoning was by showing how it would apply as a general principle of law. In other words, just because a crime is hard to discover, doesn't make it less of a crime. Note, this criticism dismisses at least 99% of the pro-Google arguments made in this thread, since that's really the only defense there is, that Google's violation of copyright law wasn't easily discovered. Doesn't make it any less of a violation, just like burying the body doesn't absolve one of murder.
Comparing a zip file of code for testing audio drivers for one chipset with murder... seriously? I've read this forum for years, I read your posts and usually agree with you. That's not a statement that's commensurate with these files. These files didn't aid in the development of Android. I agree they are liable for having them there but the damage is minimal if any. If anything it's more like a paper cut, not murder.
There are two issues here. The copyright issue - where publishing the source code in any tree is a violation, and 2) the patent issue which is similar to the case against MS for using J++.
Now if Google can prove the first, it probably proves the latter.
I am not sure how the GPL comes into this, Google's defence is that Oracle are entrapping people by putting the GPL at the top of the files and then adding other licensing caveats. That might work as a defence, I dont know.
Copyright is definitely violated here, as the original licence was changed ( idiotically, if they werent using it). Thus this violates the GPL. You cant move from GPL to Apache, you can only get more restrictive. What I dont know, however, is whether invalidating the GPS licence therefore resets the previous licence - that is the patents, and the Oracle copyright prior to the GPL is then invoked.
Judges are going to have to be very technical aware.
Just because the body is hard to find, doesn't mean that murder wasn't committed.
Apple pulled AirPrint functionality from printers attached due to licensing issues right? They had the offending files in their development versions of OS X which were distributed to developers. You can even download the files which were included at http://netputing.com/2010/11/11/airprint-hacktivator/. Apple realized these files had licensing issues and didn't ship them to non development versions. To me it would be preposterous for anyone to think that just because Apple included these files in the development versions of their code and distributed it in this limited basis that there is any danger to OS X as a platform or that Apple would end up being liable for a per installation judgement. This case would be a more egregious violation of a copyright than the Google example because the files were actually used in the main development code base of OS X. In this example I wouldn't consider that Apple had no respect for intellectual property. They realized the code was a license violation and removed it before shipping it to their non-development install base. This kind of stuff happens all the time and doesn't endanger the viability of the platforms themselves.
Apple pulled AirPrint functionality from printers attached due to licensing issues right? They had the offending files in their development versions of OS X which were distributed to developers. You can even download the files which were included at http://netputing.com/2010/11/11/airprint-hacktivator/. Apple realized these files had licensing issues and didn't ship them to non development versions. To me it would be preposterous for anyone to think that just because Apple included these files in the development versions of their code and distributed it in this limited basis that there is any danger to OS X as a platform or that Apple would end up being liable for a per installation judgement. This is case would be a more egregious violation of a copyright than the Google example here because the files were actually used in the main development code base of OS X. In this I wouldn't consider that Apple had no respect for intellectual property. They realized the code was a license violation and removed it before shipping it to their non-development install base. This kind of stuff happens all the time and doesn't endanger the viability of the platforms themselves.
No amount of explaining that copyright has nothing to do with the compiled executables will apparently work in this thread. Those files are binaries ( there is a hint in where they get installed), not source. Apple is implementing their own version of the idea and the patent is about the workings of the software, not the copying of the source files line by line. in that case pulling from a release is good enough. They are not publishing any source.
I thought it was obvious, but, just to make it clear, I was showing how ridiculous your line of reasoning was by showing how it would apply as a general principle of law. In other words, just because a crime is hard to discover, doesn't make it less of a crime. Note, this criticism dismisses at least 99% of the pro-Google arguments made in this thread, since that's really the only defense there is, that Google's violation of copyright law wasn't easily discovered. Doesn't make it any less of a violation, just like burying the body doesn't absolve one of murder.
That was not obvious to me because the files being hard to find hasn't been my argument. My argument is that the files in the zip file were not used for development of anything significant on Android. Their distribution in whatever limited fashion to the development community was likely a violation of the copyright. However, since a significant portion of copyright violation damages have to do with the damage done and gain from the violation, we have to look at the importance of the files themselves and how they were used to estimate what we think the damages might be and how significant the effect of these damages would be to Google.
That was not obvious to me because that the files were hard to find hasn't been my argument. My argument is that the files in the zip file were not used for development of anything significant on Android. There distribution in whatever limited fashion to the development community was likely a violation of the copyright. However, since a significant portion of copyright violation damages have to do with the damage done and gain from the violation, we have to look at the importance of the files themselves and how they were used to estimate what we think the damages might be and how significant the effect of these damages would be to Google.
The main case against Google is the patent violation. This copyright violation ( and these are probably not the only examples) will make it hard for Google to claim that they "clean roomed" their own JVM.
Their counter argument is that Oracles licences are invalidated by the GPL.
No amount of explaining that copyright has nothing to do with the compiled executables will apparently work in this thread. Those files are binaries ( there is a hint in where they get installed), not source. Apple is implementing their own version of the idea and the patent is about the workings of the software, not the copying of the source files line by line. in that case pulling from a release is good enough. They are not publishing any source.
Binaries can violate a patent or license. You don't need to publish the source code to violate a patent or license.
The main case against Google is the patent violation. This copyright violation ( and these are probably not the only examples) will make it hard for Google to claim that they "clean roomed" their own JVM.
Their counter argument is that Oracles licences are invalidated by the GPL.
So If I'm understanding you correctly you are saying these files are important because they show that Google used Oracle code as a starting point to reverse engineer the JavaVM to make the Davlik VM. Are you saying that this code in particular shows how the original Oracle JavaVM code worked thus allowing Google to reverse engineer the Java VM code in the Davlik JVM?
This was a good (but lengthy) read on the recent revelations over this (alleged) infringement. This thread has been fascinating too.