The thing is: This ISNT their normal modus operandi. They aren't legal averse like sun was, but their main interpretation of how one ought to drive business certainly _wasn't_: Just sue every competitor and cash cow you can find, don't care how, find some legal precedent, even if it looks dumb. Oracle operated on the "The enterprisier the better, so find me gigantic corporations and lets sell them a fat contract".
This new IP trolling style, if that is indeed where they are going (and the articles are a bit vague about it), is very bad for the community. The lawsuit against google *IS*, unabashedly, a purely ip troll move. I'm not trying to rile up another discussion here: I'm just looking at the facts of the case: The case, specifically, is 7 patents, all of which are either DUH obvious (think amazon one-click), or are stretched to the limits of generality in order to apply to what Google is doing. Also, very importantly, the way these 7 patents are leveraged is very dangerous: Taking them on face value (i.e: That google android is in breach of them), means (in my interpretation, I'm not a lawyer) that software like firefox's javascript engine is just as much in breach. So far the general tone that Oracle is IP trolling and attacking open source has been shushed a bit, but NOT based on the facts of the case: It is instead based on the purely fabricated, but not entirely unreasonable, idea that Oracle is simply looking at what Google Android does and thinks this "isn't fair", and is just looking for any random legal strategy that's handy to throw at google. A backing argument for this line of thinking is that they targeted google first (a patent troll goes after smaller fish first), and filed in california (A patent troll files in East Texas). However, one thing that oracle clearly bungled is the PR: We as programmers have no idea what's going on, and Oracle apparently didn't realize the tech world was going to flip out*. When Ellison says stuff like this, he's not helping: "However, Ellison suggested that an acquisition of a chips firm would be intended to build on Oracle’s existing intellectual-property portfolio." - quoted from the marketwatch.com article Robert Casto posted. He must understand that any news, no matter how vague, is all we have to go on here. This is not at all helping assuage my fears that any win by Oracle in this case is going to result in them suing lots of very important foss projects, like firefox. *) Yes, folks on this newsgroup and in other circles are flipping out about this court case, but its entirely reasonable to do so: The weapon Oracle is using is essentially capable of mass destruction and with nobody talking its a bit of a stretch to assume they'll play nice and use this just this one time to gain influence in Android. On Sep 24, 10:16 pm, Robert Casto <[email protected]> wrote: > I guess this just makes that conclusion more apparent. > > I don't see Oracle changing their ways though. Not when their present modus > operondi has gotten them this far. They have most of the top companies using > their wares and the lock in is pretty deep. > > Why play with everyone else where you have to be considerate of others. > Create your own playground, make all the rules, and invite everyone else to > come play. So far it would seem the Fortune 100 are happy to abide by > Oracle's playground rules. > > > > > > On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > > I thought that was already established, given the overly-broad attack > > on Android... and essentially everyone else producing VM's. It's a bit > > scary what it could amount to: > > >http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/what-oracle-has-not-learned-abo... > > > On Sep 24, 8:53 pm, Robert Casto <[email protected]> wrote: > > >http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oracle-shares-dip-after-ceos-remarks... > > > > I saw this and it sure sounded like it to me. I can understand wanting to > > > own more of the hardware capabilities to build better database hardware > > for > > > enterprises. But that is not what Ellison said. They want to own more of > > the > > > intellectual property which means what? > > > > -- > > > Robert Castowww.robertcasto.com > > > -- > > 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]<javaposse%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups > > .com> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- > Robert Castowww.robertcasto.com -- 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.
