Good Article on Oracle vs. Google

[MoonRise]

http://osswatch.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2...triple-damage/

[Zhao]

Re: Good Article on Oracle vs. Google

It's a nice read, thanks for sharing Oracle is not the first nor the last corporation to buy another company just for it's patents. As long as the patent system exists, so will patent trolls. In this case, however, I don't think Oracle will have any luck. We never know though :P

[GreyGeek]

Re: Good Article on Oracle vs. Google

Very informative read! Thanks for the link.

Regardless of the outcome, unless Oracle gets an injunction to force Google (and whom ever) to cease using DVK (or what ever) until the court case is decided, it will probably be at least 5 to 8 years before this is decided. That's at least TWO computer generations.

My own feeling is that during that time it would be wise for ALL FOSS projects and distros to switch away from Java and use Qt or Python as their "cross platform" glue. With Oracle holding all the cards in the Java game I see that outcome being the most likely one to occur. Oracle (Ellison) thinks they have a winner in the "cloud" based application arena with APEX (now at V4). I've used APEX. It is a piece of dung. It turns code development on its head and anyone or organization which adopts it is taking a long path down the road to Oracle LOCK-IN (translation: $$$$$$$$$). They might as well make Oracle their major corporate partner, or become a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle.

I've expressed my opinion about APEX in other posts so I won't go on here, but this lawsuit is a good wake up call for ALL of FOSS. The good thing is that despite Google's massive use of Java and its clean room re-engineering of it, most of the rest of the world has been moving away from Java. They are now calling it the "new COBOL".
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=42242
http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer...-new-cobol-204
http://berlinbrowndev.blogspot.com/2...s-that_14.html


While a lot of that "Java is COBOL" hype was pushed by Microsoft for the sake of its .NET technology, the massive failure of .NET in large and highly stressed environments has dampened the programming community's ardor for it. (It cost the London Stock Exchange over $1 Billion dollars and that was just the costs of the crash, not the development. It embarrassed China at the Olympics when SilverLight blew a BSOD in the Bird Pavilion for the WORLD to see... to name a couple...). A lot of people see Java as too wordy and cumbersome, just like COBOL.

Another problem with Java is that it doesn't scale well on multiple cores. Neither does C and C++ because none of them have parallelism built into their compilers. Neither does Qt (obviously) or Python, but they are both beautiful tools and until such time as Erlang or Scala can develop a user base they will, in my judgment, replace Java very quickly so that FOSS developers, who spent so much time and energy avoiding Microsoft, will be equally quick in their avoidance of Oracle, a Microsoft clone when it comes to ruthlessness, ethics and morality. The only problem with Scala that I see is that it has been woven into Java's JVM too much. If it becomes dependent on the JVM that that would be a deal breaker.

Here is one developer's opinion as to why Erlang is better than Scala:
http://yarivsblog.com/articles/2008/...lang-vs-scala/