back to article Microsoft, EMC, NetApp support Oracle against Google

Microsoft, EMC, and NetApp have joined Oracle in urging the US Federal Circuit Appeals Court to overturn an earlier decision in the landmark Oracle versus Google Java trial. The three companies filed an amici curiae brief on Tuesday – legal-speak for "friends of the court." Such briefs are a way for parties not directly …

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  1. ratfox
    Joke

    "they also use open source software from time to time."

    And some of their best friends are Jews, right?

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Devil

    Psst Stalin. Wanna attack Poland? Let's make a pact.

    As they say "Be careful what you wish for".

    This might result in an even bigger horror than the patent cancertrip, with lawsuits flying every day and tech development coming to a complete standstill, at least in the "western world" of IP retardation. China would give a fuck, and rightly so.

    Lawyers would be enriched tremendously of course, which is what this is all about.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Psst Stalin. Wanna attack Poland? Let's make a pact.

      I also find it disgusting that Eugene Spafford is on the same side as crud like the BSA and confused nerds like Scott "You have no privacy, get over it" McNealy. Fuck all those guys.

  3. Caltharian

    I find it most amusing that they happened to use the potter series of books as an example. As the series is heavily based on the works of 2 very well established authors whom happened to be well liked by the majority of the readers of The Register, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

    1. ratfox
      WTF?

      Huh??

      I love Terry Pratchett very much, but… Saying that the Harry Potter series is heavily based on his work is so much of a stretch that you must be very nimble to attempt it. In fact, apart from the fact that magic exists in both worlds, and some very common fantasy elements like "they both contain dragons and trolls at some point or other", I have trouble seeing any kind of resemblance between the two. Or are you talking about the Johnny Maxwell series? "A teenager has strange adventures with his friends" is the only common link I can see, and that's not much either…

      1. Caltharian

        Re: Huh??

        The look and basis of the character Harry Potter is based on the character of Ponder Stibbons and the actual story is based on a story by Neil Gaiman

        For some good illustrations of Ponder Stibbons to compare the point please check the hardback edition of "The Last Hero"

        after a quick seach on google i came up with this from the book http://www.xirax.fatal.ru/discworld/pictures/large/Ponder_tlg_resize.jpg

        1. dogged

          Re: Huh??

          The look and basis of the character Harry Potter is based on the character of Ponder Stibbons and the actual story is based on a story by Neil Gaiman

          Uh, no. I don't think anyone can claim derivative works based on the description "speccy nerd". If they could, about 80% of the Reg's readership would be in violation.

          I don't think Gaiman ever wrote a story about a school for wizards being exactly like Tom Brown's Schooldays+wands, either.

  4. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Why am I not the least bit surprised at who Oracle's 'friends' are?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Google made its bed.

    I still sit pondering why Google chose to use the JVM at all. If you were going to be running a battery powered device, would you choose Java as your primary developing language? They should of stuck with Linux, and used C.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They wanted more developers

      C is rapidly becoming a niche language for embedded systems.

      Of course, Apple just went on ahead and forced everybody to code in a language that few people knew, but I guess Google did not quite have the balls for that. Well, Apple did not intend to actually let other people develop native apps in the beginning, so that may explain it.

      1. h3

        Re: They wanted more developers

        It is not a niche language and mobile phones are embedded systems.

        I think the reason is because no matter how broken the app they can make sure admob etc works.

        C/C++ should be the first class citizens of any system. (I don't really use C++ because I am not that skilled at using the standard library and stl and not making it suck. I can write C that is valid C++ though). Think now the new revision has lambdas I need to re-evaluate things.

        Only way Java belongs on a phone is with it running on the silicon.

        (Tizen uses Enlightenment and its foundation libraries that are written in straight Ansi C are easy to code against for anyone with anything worth having.)

        They could have used Objective C that would have made things easier for iOS dev's which seems to be the flavour of the month.

        I think the ad's angle must be it. (I think the worst nightmare of Google is an ad crashing).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Linux

      Android Is Not Java ..

      "I still sit pondering why Google chose to use the JVM at all"

      "While it is true that the programming language for Android is the Java programming language, the Android platform itself uses the Dalvik virtual machine and processes Dalvik bytecode, not Java bytecode, so the Android platform is NOT based specifically on Java ME technology." link

    3. dajames
      FAIL

      Re: Google made its bed.

      I still sit pondering why Google chose to use the JVM at all.

      They don't. They use the Java language and the Dalvik VM.

      If you were going to be running a battery powered device, would you choose Java as your primary developing language?

      Probably not ... but I would choose a VM environment in which apps could be effectively and efficiently sandboxed.

      They should of stuck with Linux, and used C.

      They did "stick with Linux" ... but they built layer on top of it. You can program Android in C++ (which is almost a superset of C, so if you want to write in C you very nearly can).

      You seem to be wrong on all three counts ... Oh, and it's "should have".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Google made its bed.

        > They don't. They use the Java language and the Dalvik VM.

        Then he's probably pondering why they choose to use the Java language and the Dalvik VM at all. This point was a little pedantic.

        > Probably not ... but I would choose a VM environment in which apps could be

        > effectively and efficiently sandboxed.

        In Android the sandboxing is done mostly by the Kernel, through separate Linux UID's and PID's. You seem to be forgetting that the Dalvik VM is not the JVM. So why is it you would a VM?

        > They did "stick with Linux" ... but they built layer on top of it. You can program Android in

        > C++ (which is almost a superset of C, so if you want to write in C you very nearly can).

        I assume you're refering to the use of the Android NDK? I refer to the following quote from the Android NDK page: "In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++." ( retrieved from http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html ).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Google made its bed.

          AC: ""In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++.""

          Yes, but give it a few years. I think the wording will change to another language eventually. At some point, I think it will say "Java", but then the main API will probably be in Go. But if it is in Go, they could still use the above line because C++ would still be the alternative...arggh, who knows!

          However, that sentence still doesn't sit well with me. It implies that you *should* choose something you don't like, over something you do. They shouldn't be making choices so quickly for others, especially when the page is about offering more choices! Truthfully, it would probably be best if they just deleted that line.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: Google made its bed.

        "C is rapidly becoming a niche language for embedded systems."

        C isn't becoming a niche system language anywhere, not until someone can beat it. I'm not sure if Ritchie would of created it if he knew no one would seriously challenge it. It has been over 40 years, still no victor, but even worse, still no challenger!

        @dajames: I'm tired, so I'll put on my helmet and play...

        You have not tried to use the NDK and its toolkit. You could strictly use C++ if you wanted to write code that only runs in the terminal, but I've never tried it. Also, you need to clear up if C++ is "almost a superset of C", or if it isn't. Then, clear up what "very nearly can" means technically. Those 2 are important to a C coder that doesn't want to use C++. And at last, clear up where the 3rd count is in your count of 3.

        BTW, Linux is coded in C. So again, they should of stuck with Linux. Of course, that statement is in retrospective of the fact they chose Java. With all of that money, couldn't they of just had Go ready and used that instead?

      3. h3

        Re: Google made its bed.

        You can do sandboxing just fine using just the kernel (selinux / cgroups maybe with slight modifications)

        I would want to use C / C++ / a lisp dialect all compiled. (I would probably use lua though because it has enough of the scheme type ideas in it but not the braces.)

        Maybe ocaml I dunno (Citrix uses it for part of Xen but I dunno how accessible it is to people working outside. I found F# quite nice to use).

        Dunno why Google didn't use go (Actually I do what they want is loads of sh**ty apps that show their ad's).

        In many ways I think the barrier to entry for Symbian (To a lesser extent palm os) was good it meant that you didn't get so many absolute garbage apps. (The people at that level probably couldn't even get it remotely functional which was great as a user.)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Scott McNealy and the Microsoft Java standardisation process ..

    Dec 1999: "Sun pulled Java out of the ECMA standardisation process earlier this week .. Scott McNealy noted this week that standards bodies are highly political and are influenced by their need for money" link

    June 1998: "The Java threat on the other hand is real and will not go away. After examining this more carefully, it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace from palm pilots over game machines to low-end terminals, while infesting all other computing devices with it’s programming language". link

    Apr 1997 "How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun"? link

    Jan 1997: "I think the path we were going down of building on AWT was a sure disaster - It was creating a situation where pure 100% Java applications would look just as good as pure Windows applications which we have to avoid". link

  7. Edward Clarke
    Stop

    clarke@cilia.org

    You people keep dancing around with Oracle and Google and who's worse. The point of law here is whether or not a damned API can be copyrighted. If yes, you can kiss the WINE project goodbye. And who owns the copyright on the kernel API for unix/linux? And the copyright for the API to the C library?

    Please God, do not resurrect SCO. Please...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Correction to the article

    The article says:

    "urges the court to reconsider its earlier ruling, which found that Oracle's 37 Java packages were devoid of copyright protection"

    not true, the Java packages remain copyright-protected.

    It is that the structure, sequence, and organisation of their APIs were found to be devoid of copyright protection.

    My take on the original court decision is that it was just a re-affirmation of the general principle that APIs are not protectable - because they are an interface _specification_, any two header files that describe an interface of that kind are going to end up looking very much alike.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hate them all.....

    "The three companies filed an amici curiae brief on Tuesday – legal-speak for "friends of the court "

    "Microsoft, EMC, and NetApp have joined in with Oracle vs. Google"

    I hope this turns into a HUGE, absolutely HUGE, SLOW MOTION flaming train wreck for all of them.

    I hope the managers and the lawyers all start stabbing each other in the court room, with fist fights and chairs smashed on heads etc....

    The whole fucking thing......

    Satan, "I bring peace on earth."

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Larry Potter

    Larry Potter is going mad...

  11. MrRtd
    FAIL

    "friends of the court" - LOL. These companies are no friends to each other, your or me, or to any court in any country on this planet.

  12. vgrig_us

    Ok - don't care about others, but...

    Ok - don't care about others, but NetApp is dead to me - no more FAS boxes...

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