Mono, gcj, java, c++, what?

[blu-Z8efaSeK1ezqlBn2x/YWAg at public.gmane.org (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> From: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org [mailto:discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org] On
> Behalf Of Richard Pieri
> 
> With the suit against Google, Oracle is demonstrating that profit is
> more important to the company than community relations and good will.

When sun released java as "openjdk" under GPL, they took formerly
proprietary software, and granted the world permission to use it and develop
it for free, under the conditions of GPL.

If google wanted to, they could developed with openjdk, and continued
development under GPL.  But they didn't.  They decided they didn't want to
work under the conditions of GPL, and they would reinvent from scratch.

Well, oracle has patents to protect against that.  "We gave it to you, under
commonly accepted open source public conditions for free, and you chose not
to agree with that, and use it under different conditions anyway."

Google is using Sun's/Oracle's technology for free, making a profit from it,
and there was a realistic possibility for them to do it legally, but they
intentionally chose not to.  They were *invited* to use the open source free
product, and develop legally.  But google chose not to.  Sun and Google had
negotiations with each other, concerning just this very issue.  And google
could not agree to any conditions to settle out of court.  Google *wants* to
fight over it.  They're going to say that since sun released proprietary
software under GPL, it invalidates their patents.  Oracle inherited all this
from sun, and oracle is going to say, that they have patented technology
that they chose to allow for free public use, under certain conditions, and
google chose to use it anyway under different conditions.

If google wins, it will strongly discourage other proprietary softwares from
being released under GPL, or any open source license.

If oracle wins, it means companies can release free versions of their
software under open source licenses, while continuing to profit on the
proprietary versions.

I think oracle is in the right to sue google for this.  And I think google
is in the wrong, on this issue.


> I would
> be wary about contributing to Oracle's remaining open projects like
> Open JDK 7 and ZFS.  

If you say so.  But can you describe any real-world concern?  Otherwise,
it's just FUD.