오라클에서 구글 특허 침해 소송

오라클에 자바 특허를 가지고 안드로이드 관련해서 구글에 고소를 했다.
http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/08/oracle_sues_google

항목은 다음과 같다.

6,125,447, "Protection domains to provide security in a computer system"

5,966,702, "Controlling access to a resource"

5,966,702, "Method and apparatus for pre-processing and packaging class files"

7,426,720, "System and method for dynamic preloading of classes through memory space cloning of a master runtime system process"

RE38,104, "Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code"

6,910,205, "Interpreting functions utilizing a hybrid of virtual and native machine instructions"

6,061,520, "Method and system for performing static initialization"

자바의 아버지 제임스 고슬링은 어떤 생각을 하고 있을까? fact와 opinion을 섞어봤다.
http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/ 에 보면..  잘 나와 있다. 

Sun이 Oracle에 넘어갈 때, Oracle의 변호사가 반짝거리는 눈을 깜박거리는 것을 볼 수 있었다.
특허 침해 소송은 썬의 유전자 소송이 아니다. 소송 내용중 고슬링이 특허를 낸 RE38,104 "Method and apparatus for resolving data references in generated code"내용이 포함되어 있다.

Sun이 IBM의 RISC patent 소송에 져서, 많은 돈을 Sun이 내는 것을 보면서 고슬링은 방어를 위해서 특허가 필요하다고 생각했던 것 같다..
자유로움이란 무엇인가? 오픈소스?? 아니 개발자가 무엇인가를 선택할 수 있는 자유를 원했다. 단순히 특정 환경에서만 돌아가는 것이 아니라, 어디서든 자유롭게 동작시킬 수 있는 것들을 원했지 않았을까?

돈이 가장 이슈꺼리다. 구글은 Sun에 자바에 대한 로얄티를 주지 않으려고 햇었다. 결국 sun을 흡수한 oracle은 소송을 걸어버렸다. 사실 구글은 광고로 모바일 플랫폼에서의 광고를 장악하려고 했던 것은 아니었을까?

누구도 죄없는 회사라고 말할 수 없다. 다만.. MS가 이번 기회에 큰 이익을 얻었으리라 생각된다...

 

 

 

------------------------------------- 8월 12일

The shit finally hits the fan....

Thursday August 12, 2010

Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun's genetic code. Alas....

I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over.

 

 

 

 

---------------------- 8월 15일

 

Quite the firestorm

Sunday August 15, 2010

The last couple of days have been quite an entertaining firestorm of press and blog-o-sphere commentary. Lots of questions were brought up that give me a bottomless supply of blog topics. I hope I have the common sense to not write on most of them :-)

But there are some topics I feel I should briefly say something about:

• In Sun's early history, we didn't think much of patents. While there's a kernel of good sense in the reasoning for patents, the system itself has gotten goofy. Sun didn't file many patents initially. But then we got sued by IBM for violating the "RISC patent" - a patent that essentially said "if you make something simpler, it'll go faster". Seemed like a blindingly obvious notion that shouldn't have been patentable, but we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge. Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure. There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. My entry wasn't nearly the goofiest.
• Sun got a lot of heat for not going full open source early on (and there's a lot of disagreement over what "full open source" would mean... GPL? Apache?). But freedom is a funny concept. It's often a function of point of view: freedom for one could restrict the freedom of another. The freedom we were most concerned about was the freedom of software developers to run their applications on whatever OS or hardware they wanted. In opposition to that, the platform providers wanted the freedom to make their platforms as sticky as possible. Microsoft was the poster child for stickiness: they signed a contract saying that they'd support interoperability. Shortly thereafter they broke that promise by making it the case that if Java programs were developed on Windows, they wouldn't run anywhere else, so we took them to court and won. We were pretty careful about enforcing interoperability on desktops and servers. As an interesting aside, that commitment to interoperability is why Apple dislikes Java. Having OS X apps run on Linux or Windows doesn't make them happy. Apple wants to add your technological distinctiveness to their own.

  When it came to cellphones and JavaME, we weren't as able and successful at achieving interoperability. There were a lot of factors, but it all added up to pain for developers and a chilling of the software market. When Google came to us with their thoughts on cellphones, one of their core principles was making the platform free to handset providers. They had very weak notions of interoperability, which, given our history, we strongly objected to. Android has pretty much played out the way that we feared: there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers.

• Money was, of course, also an issue between Sun and Google. We wanted some compensation for the large amount we would be spending on engineering. Google did have a financial model that benefited themselves (that they weren't about to share). They were partly planning on revenue from advertising, but mostly they wanted to disrupt Apple's trajectory, and Apple's expected entry into advertising. If mobile devices take over as the computing platform for consumers, then Google's advertising channel, and the heart of its revenue, gets gutted. It doesn't take much of a crystal ball to see where Apple is going, and it's not a pretty picture for Google or anyone else.
• Don't interpret any of my comments as support for Oracle's suit. There are no guiltless parties with white hats in this little drama. This skirmish isn't much about patents or principles or programming languages. The suit is far more about ego, money and power.
• It's a sad comment on the morality of large modern software companies that Microsoft, while I don't think they've gotten any better since Sun sued them, probably has the high ground.

It's tough living in a world of Borg-wanna-be's