Emergent: Oracle's behavior re Java

[Manish Sinha]

> To be honest, I don't think Ubuntu has to worry about this. Irrespective
> of whether Oracle's actions are justified or not, the underlying reason
> why they are going after Google is that the version of Java that runs on
> Android is very bastardised, is incompatible with any Java edition (JME,
> JSE or JEE) and as a result fragments the platform.
>    

Care to explain basterised? The language is the same and the runtime is 
different.
Heck! Google has never claimed that the instruction set is compatible. 
It is different and so you *can* say that it is not JRE and the 
instruction set Sun/Oracle JavaRE uses. So call DVM as a different 
runtime and Java code are compiled so that it is targetted for DVM.

> If Google had developed a JME implementation same as what Nokia,
> Motorola et al have done for years, Oracle would have said nothing. So I
> don't think any open source implementation of the JVM is at risk, as
> they all implement a JDK and JVM that are compatible with Sun's: you can
> run code built with GCJ or OpenJDK on the Sun JVM and vice versa. This
> is not true of Dalvik.
>    

I think you know the news that they failed to reach to an agreement to 
License the micro edition after which Google went ahead and implemented 
their own VM, whose instruction set is different from JVM.
Yeah. its true that patent grant is for GPL implementations for desktop 
based and not mobile based VM.

> At the end of the day, love them or hate them, Oracle are no fools: they
> will go after who they think is harming their business. Proprietary and
> open source implementations of the JVM that follow the specs and are
> compatible with the Sun JVM are good for Oracle because they help spread
> Java. Android's implementation is bad for Oracle because it fragments
> the Java mobile market.
>    

They are going after Google as they think they can make a huge amount of 
money since Google has deep pockets. If Google bends, then the patent 
deals would be a huge monetization for Oracle.

As I said, DVM is not JVM and has different instruction set. Oracle 
needs to prove that their patents are being infringed in DVM. I don't 
get about fragmentation. The dev end code is same, the VM is different. 
The dev cares more about the code *if* he knows that it's 
write-once-run-anywhere.

> In fact, I was surprised that Sun didn't start that action when Google
> originally came up with Dalvik, the same way they sued Microsoft all
> those years ago when they tried to "extend" Java 1.0. I suppose Sun
> realised at the time that they didn't have the financial strength for an
> expensive lawsuit against Google, while Oracle certainly do.
>    

As I heard somewhere that Sun was never in patent suits when compared to 
other companiess.


This is also my 2 cents.
--
Manish