> I'm not sure what makes you say that, they protected their software patents, > trademarks and intellectual property aggressively like most companies do > (did we already forget the Microsoft lawsuit?).
The Microsoft suit was over the Java trademark, and for all that we know, the $1.6bn money injection from that case postponed the collapse by a good number of years. Surely we can all agree that it was not for lack of litigation over IP, that cost Sun their existence. If you've followed James Gosling's recent outpourings, you'd know that IP wasn't high on the agenda, at least not in the early years. So as much as one can fault Sun for stupid decisions and lack of focus, they were first and foremost engineers with a technical agenda. Oracle/ Larry no doubt looks at this setup as naive and non-prosperous, and given recent events, it seems pretty obvious that factoring in opinions from the community does not count for very much. This accumulated goodwill is, according to Gosling, the single greatest factor behind Sun's decision not to go after Google. > They just couldn't afford to litigate in their last years. Ah, but surely Google would've seen this coming. Or are you suggesting that Google counted on a weak and incapacitated Sun? -- 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.
