> > But it does make it very difficult for FLOSS because > every times you > develop something, it is most likely someone else has > already filed the > patents, and you are at risks from being sued. > > -Ghee
Google is trying to hide under the FOSS umbrella. This is very deceiving. Sun is offering Java as a free and open software under the GPL v2 license. As I mentioned in a previous post, Google could have played a good open source citizen and licensed Android under the same GPL licensing scheme. This would have freed Google and all other Android users and developers from any patent and copyright claims from Sun and its successor Oracle. However, for reasons I mentioned here several years ago, hardware makers never like (or even tolerate) GPL. Thus, Google decided to license the Android OS under a different scheme called Apache. Apache is very similar to CDDL, both allow proprietary additions and thus are acceptable to hardware makers. Now, this is where Oracle's law suit is mainly about: Apache is incompatible with GPL. By avoiding the GPL license, Google has forfeited any patent and copyright protection granted by Sun/Oracle. Granted, both Apache and GPL are open source licenses, but that's where the relationship ends and there are no cross-protections between them. Of course, Google could also have sought a non-GPL'd license from Sun (I am paying about $100 a month for my Verizon Droid phone, and I don't think Verizon would notice paying a few bucks a year to Sun for a Java license). But Google decided to have everything going its own way at the expense of Sun (and more importantly at the expense of Sun's many former employees). I think I am unnecessarily confusing the issue. But my message is that, the FOSS community should actually applaud (and support) Oracle's action because Oracle is in a way employing, not just the best but also the most persuasive, lawyer in America to defend GPL, the holy grail of the free software movement. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
