Might just be two euro-cents, but, spot on. I believe the Apache Harmony TCK thing is in regards to the technical side of it: Apache Harmony does pass the actual TCK, at least it is rumoured to do so, as in all the test cases pass. It is not, however, officially a recipient of the official TCK seal of approval and it has gained no legal rights or responsibilities for passing it.
The (ridiculous) broadness of these patents, along with the complete silence in regards to Oracle's intentions here, means it IS an attack on open source, and on developers around the world in general (because it opens the door to just about any language being sued by oracle). I understand that this feels rather broad, and that silence is the prudent legal course, but none of that changes the fact that the FOSS community, and really developers in general, cannot take this as anything but a direct attack on their future. To do otherwise is to presume Oracle is merely using this as a convenient stick to beat google with, and would never use them anywhere else. Why would anyone make that assumption? Oracle should have thought the backlash through a lot more than they have. It is also entirely unclear what oracle's agenda is here; if it is merely a bunch of licensing dosh, they would have filed in East Texas. They haven't. Lack of information is understandably making everyone rather upset and on edge. Oracle can't very well claim they didn't see that coming. Or, well, they can, but if so, their PR / legal team should get a stern talking to for dropping the ball like this. How could they not have seen this fallout coming? On Sep 6, 7:19 pm, BoD <[email protected]> wrote: > Excellent episode as always :) > > 1/ At some point Joe and also Dick if I'm not mistaken say that Google > shouldn't say that the law suit is against Open Source and that saying > so is purely a PR move. > But since Android is based on the Apache Harmony Project, don't you > think it *is* fair to say that therefore, attacking Android is also > attacking Apache Harmony? (And thus, "the Open Source community"?) > IANAL but it seems that at least some of the patents they claim > concern the 'Harmony' part of Android - and so, if they win the law > suit, what does it mean for Harmony? > > 2/ At some point it was said that the Apache Harmony Project passed > the SE TCK (that it is certified Java SE), but not the ME TCK because > of the Field of Use restriction. > But if I understand correctly (feel free to correct me) Harmony didn't > pass the Java SE 5 TCK (cf:http://www.apache.org/jcp/sunopenletterfaq.html) > > 3/ At some point it was said that what Google did was no different > from what Microsoft did (re. the 1997 Sun vs Microsoft case). > But this *was* different, the 1997 lawsuit was about "trademark > infringement, false advertising, breach of contract, unfair > competition, interference with prospective economic advantage, and > inducing breach of contract". > Basically Microsoft called their version of Java "Java" and they > didn't have the right to do so (by contract). > But - and I think Dick knows this all too well ;) - Google made sure > to be very careful to not call their version "Java". And so all they > could find was silly (imho) patents claims (actually this case is also > a Copyright one but it seems we don't know much details about this > part...) > > Just my two euro-cents ;) > > BoD -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
