On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Johnny Hughes <johnny@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
>> Just because Sun didn't have patent suits in our genetic code doesn't
>> mean we didn't feel wronged. While I have differences with Oracle, in
>> this case they are in the right. Google totally slimed Sun. We were
>> all really disturbed, even [then-CEO] Jonathan [Schwartz]: he just
>> decided to put on a happy face and tried to turn lemons into lemonade,
>> which annoyed a lot of folks at Sun.
>>
>
> Then he also does not understand the GPL.
>
> From the GPL Version 2 preamble:
>
> "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents.
> We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will
> individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program
> proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must
> be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."
>
> They made Java GPL, not me.
You are oversimplifying things here. The phone version of java was
never GPL'd. and that is the part that google reverse-engineered . On
the other hand, API's can't really be protected because they are two
sides of the same thing. If a user is allowed to use one side, someone
else has to be allowed to duplicate the other side. Without that
concept, linux and the *bsds would never be allowed to duplicate the
unix APIs.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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