Converting Java .class files to Dalvik executables is not prohibited by the Sun (Oracle) license.
You can code Java without paying a license fee to Oracle. You can compile Java without paying a license fee to Oracle. Converting to Dalvik executable is none of Oracle's business. The question is Dalvik and since you seem to have the answers all nailed down give Larry a call.
Sun's victory against J++ would suggest that is wrong.
Part of the problem is Appleinsider isn't clarifying a few things (no offense). For instance, it doesn't say who uploaded the files. We are making assumptions. However, if you are going by the Appleinsider story, the Code was potentially used by Google for a variety of different reasons including internal testing. If so, I was speculating that was what Google used the Code for. It easier to design a complicated product if you can borrow other people's parts. That is how other companies do things. Car companies have the benefit of being able to use their own parts though.
Keep in mind, the original source of the story makes the claim the Code is found in actual shipping product and small meaningless changes have been made to the Code as an attempt to make it look uncopied. Some other websites are responding that is not true. I personally have no way of knowing who is correct.
Back to your question. Let us say what you understand to be the case is actually what happened. Namely, a third party hosted infringing material to Google's repository that Google mistakenly hosted, and other third parties could download (that generally is how repositories work). Google would still potentially be liable for contributory copyright infringement. That is because Google facilitated the copying of copyrighted material that was distributed to others. What makes it worst is the copying was commercial in nature (the whole purpose of the repository is to advance Android). Google doesn't have to know it copied to be found liable. It is like Trespassing, you don't have to know you are on somebody else land to be found liable. The mere act of being on somebody else's land makes you liable. Another example would be statutory rape. An underaged girl could show you a fake id and you could totally think she was of age. If you slept with her, you'd be guilty regardless of your intent. Copyright works the same way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by veblen
Those are all good points. You explained yourself very well. I think where we disagree here is in the commercial benefit of the code in question. If I'm understanding correctly these were simply test files uploaded by a third party (not google) which were not central to the product and which could simply be deleted from their repository because they were included by mistake. Simple mistakes like this happen. I haven't read that these files were used to expedite the development and show a concept without having to have the whole product finished. I guess we'll see.
... Mueller, by the way, is " A STRONG OPEN SOURCE ADVOCATE, Besides Being INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWYER ", says that he has found "six more files" in Android that show the same pattern of direct copying as Oracle is complaining about from Sun's original Java code. The files form part of the Android 2.2 and 2.3 (Froyo and Gingerbread) code.
And what may prove extremely difficult for Google:
"In addition, I have identified 37 files marked as "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" by Sun and a copyright notice file that says: "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" Those files appear to relate to the Mobile Media API of the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Unless Google obtained a license to that code (which is unlikely given the content and tone of those warnings), this constitutes another breach."
Mueller suggests - following up on some comments on Reddit and elsewhere - that some of the early Android developers might have used a decompiler on the Sun Java code in order to generate their own source code.
So the detective work began:
"I downloaded a Java decompiler named JAD. And when I decompiled PolicyNodeImpl.class from J2SE 5.0, the result was pretty much the same source code as Android's PolicyNodeImpl.java code (which Oracle presented in its Exhibit J). My "PolicyNodeImpl synopsis" document shows the similarities."... My synopsis PDF files document the same problem: Android contains, under the Apache license, code that is essentially just decompiled code of Oracle/Sun software that was never licensed to Apache.... A copyright infringement is a copyright infringement, and if Google publishes code under a license for which it was never made available by its rightful owner, that's a serious legal problem.
It's probably not worth posting to the thread at all since it seems chock-a-block full of the Android faithful wagging their jaws in disbelief, but this comment above is definitive IMO.
Google may get out of it without paying, or it may take Oracle so long to take them to court that Java itself fails in the interim, but it seems pretty much a slam dunk that Google is actually guilty of this thing. Maybe it's a technicality, maybe they didn't mean it, maybe the developers were just stupid, maybe it's just the fact that people don't seem to give a crap about the law in general nowadays, but they are still guilty at the end of the day.
Google has a history of infringing on IP. Didn't they and they alone try to distribute all books for free without any consideration for the publishers and authors?
Yes, and as noted in the article, this should give anyone believing WebM is not patent encumbered because Google says it isn't pause to think. Google has time and time again engaged in wholesale violations of intellectual property rights, and there is absolutely no reason to believe them when they say WebM doesn't infringe on numerous patents, and who knows what other intellectual property.
I think this is also a good time to consider another question: How much of Google's software, the code that runs things like Search, Mail, AdSense/Analytics, and other Google products, products that they provide to customers over the Web, is using GPL or other open source software in it? It's impossible to believe, given the ethos at the company that all of this stuff is completely developed from scratch in-house, or that they are (as has been suggested) doing an end-run around the GPL by doing everything in Python. Almost certainly, much of their core technology is built on open source code under the GPL. If so, when they deliver that product to customers over the Web, those customers are entitled to the source code for that product. Yet, Google hasn't made the source code for any of it's core technologies available to any of its customers and may actually be violating open source licenses on an even greater scale than anyone imagined.
At the very least, there needs to be an audit of Google's source code, to determine if and, if they are, to what extent they are in violation of various open source licenses. If they have nothing to hide, they should be in favor of opening their source to auditors; after all, they are all about being open. If they aren't willing to prove they aren't in violation of open source and possibly other licenses, I think we can pretty safely assume, based on their history of a cavalier attitude toward other people's intellectual property, that they have a lot to answer for.
A note to AI. On breaking articles like these that are obviously going to cause a flame war to break out - how about tagging updates to the end of the article?
Regardless of which side of the argument you are on it would be nice to see updates as new information comes out.
Does anyone else agree?
NO. I don't like your posts so I will not be helping you, its that simple.
Brutal.
In the spirit of constructive criticism was there anything in particular you didn't like? Did I post a little too much from the fence? A little too short? Spelling? Grammar maybe?
In all fairness that one was posted from my iPad which explains the brevity. Maybe I should have tagged "Posted from my iPad" for a little more leniency!
Oracle appears intent to charge Google a licensing fee for distributing Android if it prevails in the case.
Even if it does Google can easily pay it without charging for Android. So it will still be free in in development as they try to eliminate infringing code. If it was never used in production i would expect a lump sum, not a licensing fee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
That report concluded, "the single most relevant legal question is whether or not copying and distributing these files was authorized by Oracle, and the answer clearly appears to be 'nope'
So is it clearly nope, or just appears to be nope? You gotta chose one or the other.
In the spirit of constructive criticism was there anything in particular you didn't like? Did I post a little too much from the fence? A little too short? Spelling? Grammar maybe?
In all fairness that one was posted from my iPad which explains the brevity. Maybe I should have tagged "Posted from my iPad" for a little more leniency!
You FanDroids, Blind Worshipper, Are TOO NAIVE AND IGNORANT OR RETARDED！！！！！！！！！！！
As TBell Wisely Cited,
"You don't need to show damages for copyright infringement. When the RIAA sues people downloading songs, it obtains huge judgements without showing damages. In those cases, it is impossible to show damages.
Google is likely in trouble because not only did it distribute the Code, but it used the code internally to help build the OS. "
Mueller, by the way, is a strong open source advocate, besides being an intellectual property lawyer, He says that he has found "six more files" in Android that show the same pattern of direct copying as Oracle is complaining about from Sun's original Java code. The files form part of the Android 2.2 and 2.3 (Froyo and Gingerbread) code.
And what may prove extremely difficult for Google:
"In addition, I have identified 37 files marked as "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" by Sun and a copyright notice file that says: "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" Those files appear to relate to the Mobile Media API of the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Unless Google obtained a license to that code (which is unlikely given the content and tone of those warnings), this constitutes another breach."
Mueller suggests - following up on some comments on Reddit and elsewhere - that some of the early Android developers might have used a decompiler on the Sun Java code in order to generate their own source code.
So the detective work began:
"I downloaded a Java decompiler named JAD. And when I decompiled PolicyNodeImpl.class from J2SE 5.0, the result was pretty much the same source code as Android's PolicyNodeImpl.java code (which Oracle presented in its Exhibit J). My "PolicyNodeImpl synopsis" document shows the similarities."... My synopsis PDF files document the same problem: Android contains, under the Apache license, code that is essentially just decompiled code of Oracle/Sun software that was never licensed to Apache.... A copyright infringement is a copyright infringement, and if Google publishes code under a license for which it was never made available by its rightful owner, that's a serious legal problem.
I don't own an android phone. I've owned only iphones and I'm long on AAPL. The only thing I disagree with TBell on is how distributed this code was and how key it was to Android itself. TBell stated in his later post that damages in cases like this do depend on the commercial gain and loss.
TBell stated "Moreover, the issue likely will center around whether using the code benefitted Google in some commercial fashion. If Google used the code in some fashion that didn't benefit it commercially and that didn't hurt Oracle commercially, Google probably would be OK."
From what I've read this code wasn't central to android at all. The files were in a repository of code that google hosts for their project, but I'm not reading that google used the code or that the code was important enough to benefit them commercially. Simple things like this happen all the time in software development. It's really hard to keep a code repository free of extraneous garbage like this especially when you open your repository up to third parties. Now if they'd used Oracle's code throughout their main code base and if the code was central to android it'd be a different story, in my opinion.
It's probably not worth posting to the thread at all since it seems chock-a-block full of the Android faithful wagging their jaws in disbelief, but this comment above is definitive IMO.
Google may get out of it without paying, or it may take Oracle so long to take them to court that Java itself fails in the interim, but it seems pretty much a slam dunk that Google is actually guilty of this thing. Maybe it's a technicality, maybe they didn't mean it, maybe the developers were just stupid, maybe it's just the fact that people don't seem to give a crap about the law in general nowadays, but they are still guilty at the end of the day.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
I don't own an android phone. I've owned only iphones and I'm long on AAPL. The only thing I disagree with TBell on is how distributed this code was and how key it was to Android itself. TBell stated in his later post that damages in cases like this do depend on the commercial gain and loss.
TBell stated "Moreover, the issue likely will center around whether using the code benefitted Google in some commercial fashion. If Google used the code in some fashion that didn't benefit it commercially and that didn't hurt Oracle commercially, Google probably would be OK."
From what I've read this code wasn't central to android at all. The files were in a repository of code that google hosts for their project, but I'm not reading that google used the code or that the code was important enough to benefit them commercially. Simple things like this happen all the time in software development. It's really hard to keep a code repository free of extraneous garbage like this especially when you open your repository up to third parties. Now if they'd used Oracle's code throughout their main code base and if the code was central to android it'd be a different story, in my opinion.
Yes, I guess Sun/Oracle marked these files "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" & "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" because they were "extraneous ggarbage".
It's really very simple as a copyright issue: Did they distribute them? The answer is yes. Case closed.
Although, since these were marked "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" they could also be considered trade secrets, increasing Google's liability.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
This is news worthy. Let's say you are samsung and you are trying to decide weather to keep going with your own platform or just rely exclusively on Android. This tips the balance in favor of having a plan 2, in case android gets into serious legal trouble that can stop development or increase fees.
This also impacts decisions about using WebM, and could hurt google's efforts to push it as a web standard.
As long as Oracle wins, even if it is a small amount, it would cast a spotlight on Google and its free software offerings. The impact of that would be much bigger.
Part of the problem is Appleinsider isn't clarifying a few things (no offense). For instance, it doesn't say who uploaded the files. We are making assumptions. However, if you are going by the Appleinsider story, the Code was potentially used by Google for a variety of different reasons including internal testing. If so, I was speculating that was what Google used the Code for. It easier to design a complicated product if you can borrow other people's parts. That is how other companies do things. Car companies have the benefit of being able to use their own parts though.
Keep in mind, the original source of the story makes the claim the Code is found in actual shipping product and small meaningless changes have been made to the Code as an attempt to make it look uncopied. Some other websites are responding that is not true. I personally have no way of knowing who is correct.
Back to your question. Let us say what you understand to be the case is actually what happened. Namely, a third party hosted infringing material to Google's repository that Google mistakenly hosted, and other third parties could download (that generally is how repositories work). Google would still potentially be liable for contributory copyright infringement. That is because Google facilitated the copying of copyrighted material that was distributed to others. What makes it worst is the copying was commercial in nature (the whole purpose of the repository is to advance Android). Google doesn't have to know it copied to be found liable. It is like Trespassing, you don't have to know you are on somebody else land to be found liable. The mere act of being on somebody else's land makes you liable. Another example would be statutory rape. An underaged girl could show you a fake id and you could totally think she was of age. If you slept with her, you'd be guilty regardless of your intent. Copyright works the same way.
I agree with everything you have written here. We'll see how important the code is and what commercial damage and gain it caused. The more I'm reading suggests it was unimportant. Pleasure discussing this with you.
This is news worthy. Let's say you are samsung and you are trying to decide weather to keep going with your own platform or just rely exclusively on Android. This tips the balance in favor of having a plan 2, in case android gets into serious legal trouble that can stop development or increase fees.
This also impacts decisions about using WebM, and could hurt google's efforts to push it as a web standard.
As long as Oracle wins, even if it is a small amount, it would cast a spotlight on Google and its free software offerings. The impact of that would be much bigger.
I disagree. I think Samsung has the knowledge to look at the unimportance of the code in question and see how little damage or gain it caused. I think the way this story was framed makes it seem far more important than it actually is.
Could someone please take DED's keyboard away before he embarrasses himself any further?
"After acquiring Android, Google decided to design Androids's virtual machine to run apps written in the Java language using the Java SE class library (take from Apache Harmony) using a modification of Sun's Java VM that the company believed would free it from having to pay Sun for a Java license in order to distribute it legally."
WRONG. The Android platform uses the Dalvik VM, which is not a Java Virtual Machine. It's not a modification of the JVM. The Dalvik VM has a different instruction set than the JVM. Dalvik is register-based; the JVM is stack-based.
Can't DED get the basic facts right? He should at least read the bloody Wikipedia page before banging out his fanboy screeds.
Perhaps you should put your own keyboard a little further from your hands so you can read articles properly before shooting your mouth off. You have misread your own quote.
"Google decided to design Androids's virtual machine to run apps written in the Java language"
Just had to comment on the end of the article regarding the iPhone clone garbage. Take a good look at the Google phones and you'll see they don't *look* anything like the iPhone. The iPhone is just a application launcher on its primary screens; boring and bland. Google Android makes the iPhone look like the iPhone is to the Palm Treo; yesterday's technology. There's no comparison!
And to the article itself, a developer that already pulled all this apart finds virtually none of the accused code is actually found in the end shipping product. Sorry for the waste of bytes on this article...
Yes, I guess Sun/Oracle marked these files "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" & "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" because they were "extraneous ggarbage".
It's really very simple as a copyright issue: Did they distribute them? The answer is yes. Case closed.
Although, since these were marked "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" they could also be considered trade secrets, increasing Google's liability.
I agree. Google is completely liable for it's mistake here. But I think some perspective is needed on the scale of the infringement and the corresponding penalty. I'm reading that Google removed the offending code from their repository when they were notified and didn't use it for anything of consequence while it was there. If this is in fact the case what kind of damages would Oracle be able to get for the infringement? I'm not thinking a whole lot. I'm not a copyright lawyer, I'm a system admin, but this seems ticky tack to me.
Regardless of the ins and ours of this, it is clear that once again Google has failed to pay due care to the projects it oversees. Any company would rightly be angry to see code it has invested in used without permission to further the goals of an entirely unrelated project without paying any fees for its use or even asking permission.
I am sure the lawyers with wrangle over whether this is worth suing over but it is without any doubt at the very least unprofessional.
Google has to realise that just waiving a fee for Android does not give it the right to simply ignore patents held by other companies. Android may be free software, but it's distributed to make Google money through advertising; they're not giving it away to be some nice utopian benefactor of the naïve open source movement. Patents are there so that companies can recoup costs of investment. That's a cornerstone of the software industry that Google is unfortunately such a bear in.
I agree. Google is completely liable for it's mistake here. But I think some perspective is needed on the scale of the infringement and the corresponding penalty. I'm reading that Google removed the offending code from their repository when they were notified and didn't use it for anything of consequence while it was there. If this is in fact the case what kind of damages would Oracle be able to get for the infringement? I'm not thinking a whole lot. I'm not a patent lawyer, I'm a system admin, but this seems ticky tack to me.
It's not a patent issue, it's a copyright issue, and perhaps a trade secret issue. And it speaks directly to Google's credibility regarding their respect for intellectual property. Also, in this case, the issue isn't what they used it for, it's that they distributed copies of it. They really have no defense, and the damages will go well beyond what Oracle extracts from them financially. It completely destroys Google's credibility as an honest player.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
There's no way to know what the damages are until it goes to court, but the important thing to remember is that whether the infringement is big or small or intentional or unintentional, legally it's the same thing. The judge would be within her rights to impose the harshest sentence if she thought it appropriate and there isn't necessarily any connection between the scale of the crime and the scale of the punishment. It's more of a black/white situation.
A lot of the discussion here kind of reminds me of the way a lot of younger people approach the law nowadays, which is that to them it's situational and variable. If you catch someone smoking in a non-smoking zone for instance and say something to them about it, they will often argue that "no one was around" or "I'm not bothering you why are you bothering me?" The idea being that if no one was actually being harmed, "what's the big deal?" While this might be a great personal philosophy, it has no application to the law. The law doesn't work that way and never has.
It seems pretty clear that Google broke the law here whether through sloppiness, inaction, poor oversight, or even perhaps intentionally. But the law is the law, and whether it was a tiny piece of code no one was going to use (legally) doesn't matter at all.
People are also forgetting:
This was an independent guy looking for violations above and beyond those Oracle is already taking Google to court for. i.e. - there are more violations than just this and this is essentially the second set.
Intent plays a large part in cases like this, and it's also pretty clear that the Davlik VM is a pretty much a wholesale copy of a Java VM. Google's entire intent here was to copy the Java VM but to do it in a clean room which would make it technically legal. The "clean room" obviously wasn't so clean but aside from the technical violations there is the whole project of copying the Java VM to consider.
Google simply cannot claim any altruistic intent as they can for most of their projects. They deliberately set out to copy but (seemingly) failed to keep control of the process enough to make the attempt legal.
Comments
If this were the case Android would have already been impounded and Oracle would have moved on to the Android handset manufacturers and the carriers.
A) it is the case
Converting Java .class files to Dalvik executables is not prohibited by the Sun (Oracle) license.
You can code Java without paying a license fee to Oracle. You can compile Java without paying a license fee to Oracle. Converting to Dalvik executable is none of Oracle's business. The question is Dalvik and since you seem to have the answers all nailed down give Larry a call.
Sun's victory against J++ would suggest that is wrong.
Keep in mind, the original source of the story makes the claim the Code is found in actual shipping product and small meaningless changes have been made to the Code as an attempt to make it look uncopied. Some other websites are responding that is not true. I personally have no way of knowing who is correct.
Back to your question. Let us say what you understand to be the case is actually what happened. Namely, a third party hosted infringing material to Google's repository that Google mistakenly hosted, and other third parties could download (that generally is how repositories work). Google would still potentially be liable for contributory copyright infringement. That is because Google facilitated the copying of copyrighted material that was distributed to others. What makes it worst is the copying was commercial in nature (the whole purpose of the repository is to advance Android). Google doesn't have to know it copied to be found liable. It is like Trespassing, you don't have to know you are on somebody else land to be found liable. The mere act of being on somebody else's land makes you liable. Another example would be statutory rape. An underaged girl could show you a fake id and you could totally think she was of age. If you slept with her, you'd be guilty regardless of your intent. Copyright works the same way.
Those are all good points. You explained yourself very well. I think where we disagree here is in the commercial benefit of the code in question. If I'm understanding correctly these were simply test files uploaded by a third party (not google) which were not central to the product and which could simply be deleted from their repository because they were included by mistake. Simple mistakes like this happen. I haven't read that these files were used to expedite the development and show a concept without having to have the whole product finished. I guess we'll see.
... Mueller, by the way, is " A STRONG OPEN SOURCE ADVOCATE, Besides Being INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWYER ", says that he has found "six more files" in Android that show the same pattern of direct copying as Oracle is complaining about from Sun's original Java code. The files form part of the Android 2.2 and 2.3 (Froyo and Gingerbread) code.
And what may prove extremely difficult for Google:
"In addition, I have identified 37 files marked as "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" by Sun and a copyright notice file that says: "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" Those files appear to relate to the Mobile Media API of the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Unless Google obtained a license to that code (which is unlikely given the content and tone of those warnings), this constitutes another breach."
Mueller suggests - following up on some comments on Reddit and elsewhere - that some of the early Android developers might have used a decompiler on the Sun Java code in order to generate their own source code.
So the detective work began:
"I downloaded a Java decompiler named JAD. And when I decompiled PolicyNodeImpl.class from J2SE 5.0, the result was pretty much the same source code as Android's PolicyNodeImpl.java code (which Oracle presented in its Exhibit J). My "PolicyNodeImpl synopsis" document shows the similarities."... My synopsis PDF files document the same problem: Android contains, under the Apache license, code that is essentially just decompiled code of Oracle/Sun software that was never licensed to Apache.... A copyright infringement is a copyright infringement, and if Google publishes code under a license for which it was never made available by its rightful owner, that's a serious legal problem.
It's probably not worth posting to the thread at all since it seems chock-a-block full of the Android faithful wagging their jaws in disbelief, but this comment above is definitive IMO.
Google may get out of it without paying, or it may take Oracle so long to take them to court that Java itself fails in the interim, but it seems pretty much a slam dunk that Google is actually guilty of this thing. Maybe it's a technicality, maybe they didn't mean it, maybe the developers were just stupid, maybe it's just the fact that people don't seem to give a crap about the law in general nowadays, but they are still guilty at the end of the day.
Google has a history of infringing on IP. Didn't they and they alone try to distribute all books for free without any consideration for the publishers and authors?
Yes, and as noted in the article, this should give anyone believing WebM is not patent encumbered because Google says it isn't pause to think. Google has time and time again engaged in wholesale violations of intellectual property rights, and there is absolutely no reason to believe them when they say WebM doesn't infringe on numerous patents, and who knows what other intellectual property.
I think this is also a good time to consider another question: How much of Google's software, the code that runs things like Search, Mail, AdSense/Analytics, and other Google products, products that they provide to customers over the Web, is using GPL or other open source software in it? It's impossible to believe, given the ethos at the company that all of this stuff is completely developed from scratch in-house, or that they are (as has been suggested) doing an end-run around the GPL by doing everything in Python. Almost certainly, much of their core technology is built on open source code under the GPL. If so, when they deliver that product to customers over the Web, those customers are entitled to the source code for that product. Yet, Google hasn't made the source code for any of it's core technologies available to any of its customers and may actually be violating open source licenses on an even greater scale than anyone imagined.
At the very least, there needs to be an audit of Google's source code, to determine if and, if they are, to what extent they are in violation of various open source licenses. If they have nothing to hide, they should be in favor of opening their source to auditors; after all, they are all about being open. If they aren't willing to prove they aren't in violation of open source and possibly other licenses, I think we can pretty safely assume, based on their history of a cavalier attitude toward other people's intellectual property, that they have a lot to answer for.
A note to AI. On breaking articles like these that are obviously going to cause a flame war to break out - how about tagging updates to the end of the article?
Regardless of which side of the argument you are on it would be nice to see updates as new information comes out.
Does anyone else agree?
NO. I don't like your posts so I will not be helping you, its that simple.
Brutal.
In the spirit of constructive criticism was there anything in particular you didn't like? Did I post a little too much from the fence? A little too short? Spelling? Grammar maybe?
In all fairness that one was posted from my iPad which explains the brevity. Maybe I should have tagged "Posted from my iPad" for a little more leniency!
Oracle appears intent to charge Google a licensing fee for distributing Android if it prevails in the case.
Even if it does Google can easily pay it without charging for Android. So it will still be free in in development as they try to eliminate infringing code. If it was never used in production i would expect a lump sum, not a licensing fee.
That report concluded, "the single most relevant legal question is whether or not copying and distributing these files was authorized by Oracle, and the answer clearly appears to be 'nope'
So is it clearly nope, or just appears to be nope? You gotta chose one or the other.
Brutal.
In the spirit of constructive criticism was there anything in particular you didn't like? Did I post a little too much from the fence? A little too short? Spelling? Grammar maybe?
In all fairness that one was posted from my iPad which explains the brevity. Maybe I should have tagged "Posted from my iPad" for a little more leniency!
did you say iPad? now you have my support...
You FanDroids, Blind Worshipper, Are TOO NAIVE AND IGNORANT OR RETARDED！！！！！！！！！！！
As TBell Wisely Cited,
"You don't need to show damages for copyright infringement. When the RIAA sues people downloading songs, it obtains huge judgements without showing damages. In those cases, it is impossible to show damages.
Google is likely in trouble because not only did it distribute the Code, but it used the code internally to help build the OS. "
Mueller, by the way, is a strong open source advocate, besides being an intellectual property lawyer, He says that he has found "six more files" in Android that show the same pattern of direct copying as Oracle is complaining about from Sun's original Java code. The files form part of the Android 2.2 and 2.3 (Froyo and Gingerbread) code.
And what may prove extremely difficult for Google:
"In addition, I have identified 37 files marked as "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" by Sun and a copyright notice file that says: "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" Those files appear to relate to the Mobile Media API of the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Unless Google obtained a license to that code (which is unlikely given the content and tone of those warnings), this constitutes another breach."
Mueller suggests - following up on some comments on Reddit and elsewhere - that some of the early Android developers might have used a decompiler on the Sun Java code in order to generate their own source code.
So the detective work began:
"I downloaded a Java decompiler named JAD. And when I decompiled PolicyNodeImpl.class from J2SE 5.0, the result was pretty much the same source code as Android's PolicyNodeImpl.java code (which Oracle presented in its Exhibit J). My "PolicyNodeImpl synopsis" document shows the similarities."... My synopsis PDF files document the same problem: Android contains, under the Apache license, code that is essentially just decompiled code of Oracle/Sun software that was never licensed to Apache.... A copyright infringement is a copyright infringement, and if Google publishes code under a license for which it was never made available by its rightful owner, that's a serious legal problem.
I don't own an android phone. I've owned only iphones and I'm long on AAPL. The only thing I disagree with TBell on is how distributed this code was and how key it was to Android itself. TBell stated in his later post that damages in cases like this do depend on the commercial gain and loss.
TBell stated "Moreover, the issue likely will center around whether using the code benefitted Google in some commercial fashion. If Google used the code in some fashion that didn't benefit it commercially and that didn't hurt Oracle commercially, Google probably would be OK."
From what I've read this code wasn't central to android at all. The files were in a repository of code that google hosts for their project, but I'm not reading that google used the code or that the code was important enough to benefit them commercially. Simple things like this happen all the time in software development. It's really hard to keep a code repository free of extraneous garbage like this especially when you open your repository up to third parties. Now if they'd used Oracle's code throughout their main code base and if the code was central to android it'd be a different story, in my opinion.
It's probably not worth posting to the thread at all since it seems chock-a-block full of the Android faithful wagging their jaws in disbelief, but this comment above is definitive IMO.
Google may get out of it without paying, or it may take Oracle so long to take them to court that Java itself fails in the interim, but it seems pretty much a slam dunk that Google is actually guilty of this thing. Maybe it's a technicality, maybe they didn't mean it, maybe the developers were just stupid, maybe it's just the fact that people don't seem to give a crap about the law in general nowadays, but they are still guilty at the end of the day.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
I don't own an android phone. I've owned only iphones and I'm long on AAPL. The only thing I disagree with TBell on is how distributed this code was and how key it was to Android itself. TBell stated in his later post that damages in cases like this do depend on the commercial gain and loss.
TBell stated "Moreover, the issue likely will center around whether using the code benefitted Google in some commercial fashion. If Google used the code in some fashion that didn't benefit it commercially and that didn't hurt Oracle commercially, Google probably would be OK."
From what I've read this code wasn't central to android at all. The files were in a repository of code that google hosts for their project, but I'm not reading that google used the code or that the code was important enough to benefit them commercially. Simple things like this happen all the time in software development. It's really hard to keep a code repository free of extraneous garbage like this especially when you open your repository up to third parties. Now if they'd used Oracle's code throughout their main code base and if the code was central to android it'd be a different story, in my opinion.
Yes, I guess Sun/Oracle marked these files "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" & "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" because they were "extraneous ggarbage".
It's really very simple as a copyright issue: Did they distribute them? The answer is yes. Case closed.
Although, since these were marked "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" they could also be considered trade secrets, increasing Google's liability.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
This is news worthy. Let's say you are samsung and you are trying to decide weather to keep going with your own platform or just rely exclusively on Android. This tips the balance in favor of having a plan 2, in case android gets into serious legal trouble that can stop development or increase fees.
This also impacts decisions about using WebM, and could hurt google's efforts to push it as a web standard.
As long as Oracle wins, even if it is a small amount, it would cast a spotlight on Google and its free software offerings. The impact of that would be much bigger.
Part of the problem is Appleinsider isn't clarifying a few things (no offense). For instance, it doesn't say who uploaded the files. We are making assumptions. However, if you are going by the Appleinsider story, the Code was potentially used by Google for a variety of different reasons including internal testing. If so, I was speculating that was what Google used the Code for. It easier to design a complicated product if you can borrow other people's parts. That is how other companies do things. Car companies have the benefit of being able to use their own parts though.
Keep in mind, the original source of the story makes the claim the Code is found in actual shipping product and small meaningless changes have been made to the Code as an attempt to make it look uncopied. Some other websites are responding that is not true. I personally have no way of knowing who is correct.
Back to your question. Let us say what you understand to be the case is actually what happened. Namely, a third party hosted infringing material to Google's repository that Google mistakenly hosted, and other third parties could download (that generally is how repositories work). Google would still potentially be liable for contributory copyright infringement. That is because Google facilitated the copying of copyrighted material that was distributed to others. What makes it worst is the copying was commercial in nature (the whole purpose of the repository is to advance Android). Google doesn't have to know it copied to be found liable. It is like Trespassing, you don't have to know you are on somebody else land to be found liable. The mere act of being on somebody else's land makes you liable. Another example would be statutory rape. An underaged girl could show you a fake id and you could totally think she was of age. If you slept with her, you'd be guilty regardless of your intent. Copyright works the same way.
I agree with everything you have written here. We'll see how important the code is and what commercial damage and gain it caused. The more I'm reading suggests it was unimportant. Pleasure discussing this with you.
This is news worthy. Let's say you are samsung and you are trying to decide weather to keep going with your own platform or just rely exclusively on Android. This tips the balance in favor of having a plan 2, in case android gets into serious legal trouble that can stop development or increase fees.
This also impacts decisions about using WebM, and could hurt google's efforts to push it as a web standard.
As long as Oracle wins, even if it is a small amount, it would cast a spotlight on Google and its free software offerings. The impact of that would be much bigger.
I disagree. I think Samsung has the knowledge to look at the unimportance of the code in question and see how little damage or gain it caused. I think the way this story was framed makes it seem far more important than it actually is.
Could someone please take DED's keyboard away before he embarrasses himself any further?
"After acquiring Android, Google decided to design Androids's virtual machine to run apps written in the Java language using the Java SE class library (take from Apache Harmony) using a modification of Sun's Java VM that the company believed would free it from having to pay Sun for a Java license in order to distribute it legally."
WRONG. The Android platform uses the Dalvik VM, which is not a Java Virtual Machine. It's not a modification of the JVM. The Dalvik VM has a different instruction set than the JVM. Dalvik is register-based; the JVM is stack-based.
Can't DED get the basic facts right? He should at least read the bloody Wikipedia page before banging out his fanboy screeds.
Perhaps you should put your own keyboard a little further from your hands so you can read articles properly before shooting your mouth off. You have misread your own quote.
"Google decided to design Androids's virtual machine to run apps written in the Java language"
And to the article itself, a developer that already pulled all this apart finds virtually none of the accused code is actually found in the end shipping product. Sorry for the waste of bytes on this article...
Yes, I guess Sun/Oracle marked these files "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" & "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!" because they were "extraneous ggarbage".
It's really very simple as a copyright issue: Did they distribute them? The answer is yes. Case closed.
Although, since these were marked "PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL" they could also be considered trade secrets, increasing Google's liability.
I agree. Google is completely liable for it's mistake here. But I think some perspective is needed on the scale of the infringement and the corresponding penalty. I'm reading that Google removed the offending code from their repository when they were notified and didn't use it for anything of consequence while it was there. If this is in fact the case what kind of damages would Oracle be able to get for the infringement? I'm not thinking a whole lot. I'm not a copyright lawyer, I'm a system admin, but this seems ticky tack to me.
I am sure the lawyers with wrangle over whether this is worth suing over but it is without any doubt at the very least unprofessional.
Google has to realise that just waiving a fee for Android does not give it the right to simply ignore patents held by other companies. Android may be free software, but it's distributed to make Google money through advertising; they're not giving it away to be some nice utopian benefactor of the naïve open source movement. Patents are there so that companies can recoup costs of investment. That's a cornerstone of the software industry that Google is unfortunately such a bear in.
I agree. Google is completely liable for it's mistake here. But I think some perspective is needed on the scale of the infringement and the corresponding penalty. I'm reading that Google removed the offending code from their repository when they were notified and didn't use it for anything of consequence while it was there. If this is in fact the case what kind of damages would Oracle be able to get for the infringement? I'm not thinking a whole lot. I'm not a patent lawyer, I'm a system admin, but this seems ticky tack to me.
It's not a patent issue, it's a copyright issue, and perhaps a trade secret issue. And it speaks directly to Google's credibility regarding their respect for intellectual property. Also, in this case, the issue isn't what they used it for, it's that they distributed copies of it. They really have no defense, and the damages will go well beyond what Oracle extracts from them financially. It completely destroys Google's credibility as an honest player.
If this was a simple mistake and the code wasn't used just simply existed off to the side in some minor branch of their repository what would the damages be? If there was minimal commercial gain by Google and minimal commercial loss from Oracle would the amount of damages be newsworthy? The more I read about this the less important this code seems.
There's no way to know what the damages are until it goes to court, but the important thing to remember is that whether the infringement is big or small or intentional or unintentional, legally it's the same thing. The judge would be within her rights to impose the harshest sentence if she thought it appropriate and there isn't necessarily any connection between the scale of the crime and the scale of the punishment. It's more of a black/white situation.
A lot of the discussion here kind of reminds me of the way a lot of younger people approach the law nowadays, which is that to them it's situational and variable. If you catch someone smoking in a non-smoking zone for instance and say something to them about it, they will often argue that "no one was around" or "I'm not bothering you why are you bothering me?" The idea being that if no one was actually being harmed, "what's the big deal?" While this might be a great personal philosophy, it has no application to the law. The law doesn't work that way and never has.
It seems pretty clear that Google broke the law here whether through sloppiness, inaction, poor oversight, or even perhaps intentionally. But the law is the law, and whether it was a tiny piece of code no one was going to use (legally) doesn't matter at all.
People are also forgetting:
This was an independent guy looking for violations above and beyond those Oracle is already taking Google to court for. i.e. - there are more violations than just this and this is essentially the second set.
Intent plays a large part in cases like this, and it's also pretty clear that the Davlik VM is a pretty much a wholesale copy of a Java VM. Google's entire intent here was to copy the Java VM but to do it in a clean room which would make it technically legal. The "clean room" obviously wasn't so clean but aside from the technical violations there is the whole project of copying the Java VM to consider.
Google simply cannot claim any altruistic intent as they can for most of their projects. They deliberately set out to copy but (seemingly) failed to keep control of the process enough to make the attempt legal.