Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Mobile Computing - OSs & Manufacturers UNMODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lahcim Leinad who wrote (854)	1/22/2011 9:02:43 PM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 3170

New Batch Of FUD Around Oracle, Java And Google Submitted by Neil Richards on Sat, 2011-01-22 18:30 muktware.com Oracle, Google court battle over Java stirred the web today when Florian Mueller posted a blog accusing Google of 'copying' some code from Oracle's Java. I don't know the credentials of Mr Mueller, but the name of the blog FOSS Patents is ironical as Free Software Foundation has been fighting against 'software patents in general. Zdnet's Ed Burnette blew Mueller's accusations by examining the code himself. He wrote: "It all started with an article written by Florian Mueller, who by the way is neither a lawyer nor a developer although he plays one on TV. I downloaded and examined all the files he wrote about, and my analysis as an expert developer comes to a completely different conclusion than Mr. Mueller." The files Mueller picked are not even used in Android. They were left there by 'mistake' and were used only as test files. But who put most of the files there? Google? NO. ArsTechnica's Ryan Paul has given clearer and technically appropriate picture. He pointed that these do not no raise concern of simple copy paste. "The infringing files are found in a compressed archive in a third-party component supplied by SONiVOX, a member of Google's Open Handset Alliance (OHA)." These files are in the unit 'test' area of the source code tree. Unit test files are meant only for internal testing and should not be shipped with the product, they are supposed to be removed. In simple terms, assume you are writing a book and taking references from other books, a common practice. When you shipped your book, your assistant mistakenly put the reference book in the package as well. Now, this reference book is 'not' part of the book that I you shipped, thus not a case of copy paste. No doubt it shows that cleaning was not done properly. It's just the matter of unity folder that's all. Another important point that Paul mentioned was that these files were “adopted from the Sun code which is either way publicly available and can be downloaded at no cost from the Sun Developer Network website". However it uses a license which doesn't allow redistribution. Which means these could not be redistributed. As repeated over and over again, these were not active files and were only in the test tree. None of these files are being used by Android so technically these should not be considered redistributed. Paul also concluded "It's a tacky mistake, but it's hardly serious or damaging. At worst, it warrants a takedown notice. It's certainly not a smoking gun as one might assume when viewing the code out of context." It appears Mueller's findings are nowhere close to 'help' Oracle extort money from Google over Java. As the database company, which has been sued by the government for overcharging them, Oracle has taken a U-turn from their stand on Java, which resulted in Apache resigning from Java Committee. Free Software Foundation also criticized Oracle' Java accusations and came out with support for Google. Popular blogsite Engadget posted a blog rebuffing such claims. Nilay Patel wrote nothing new but repeated what Mueller wrote in his blog. The worst part of Patel's blog was 'unrelated' mention to Prystar vs Apple case. Prystar was selling hardware with MacOS installed on it. If this is the best example Patel came come out with, I can do nothing but sigh. Apple's iOS has been sued by more than a dozen of mega companies, should we 'conclude' that Apple is dead-set on losing these cases and thus it will be forced to stop selling the iOS? I would recommend keeping an eye on Groklaw where PJ is covering the case and which exposes loopholes in Oracle's accusations, and which also shows Oracle is far from 'winning' the case, yet! In today's coverage, especially by the pro-Apple blogs, I see it as nothing more than creating FUD to scare developers and users, especially when the battle is far from over.