This case is one that Groklaw used to cover, and... I have no idea what's going on there anymore, and don't know where else to look for anything of similar depth and trustworthiness.
Groklaw was a news site which covered tech company litigation, which shut down in 2013 because the primary author, Pamela Jones, felt threatened by bulk email collection. (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175) Finding out that the old cases it covered are still going through appeals and maneuverings, its absence is deeply felt.
I knew Growklaw shutdown some time ago, but never had the chance to read this entry.
Wow. It's very dark.
It really made me think.
However... aside from that, and trying to shake down a bit of that darkness, I read the update with Sheier's advice, and this stood out:
"Prefer symmetric cryptography over public-key cryptography. "
Why would that be? I've never actually read anything that would touch on the subject. Does anyone have any references to why are these comments so? is it that symmetric crypto can use larger keys? or is it because using an OTP makes it unbreakabale?
Last 12M ending 9/30/2015 (last available financial data): Google did $71.7Bn in revenue and $14.7Bn in net income. I assume the lawyer meant that Android had generated $31Bn since inception, but that can't mean gross revenue since they only take a 15% cut on the Play store (so wouldn't be able to show $22Bn of profit (71% margin). So $31Bn in net revenue implies $207Bn in gross revenues. The Apple App Store did $20Bn in 2015 and generated 75% more revenue than Google (http://blog.appannie.com/app-annie-2015-retrospective/), implying $11Bn in gross revenue for Google Play, or $1.7Bn in net revenue in 2015.
You're not counting the license fees for the Android OS. Only Android AOSP is free, and nobody outside of China ships that. Android including the Play Store and all the Google apps costs real money, I've heard estimates of about $10 per phone. Android ships about 1 billion phones a year, so $31B lifetime revenue sounds about right.
I think Google thought they had their bases pretty well covered. They had implicit, if not explicit, agreement from Sun that Sun wouldn't take action on Java. Then on top of that, the code they were using was clean room engineered based on decades old precedents in court that held that clean-room engineering an API was legally allowed. Then they probably felt that in the worst case scenario a switch to OpenJDK would get them out of trouble (and for the future it probably will). With 3 separate levels of protection I think they just felt the odds of them losing all of them were small.
I don't think it was nearly as clear back then that this is how things would play out. Sun still controlled its own destiny when Android was nascent and it's my understanding that while Sun wasn't exactly thrilled about them building on Apache Harmony / Dalvik, etc., they weren't going to sue them over it either. Motorola on the other hand was literally telling Google and Wall Street that they were ready to go nuclear on other Android ODMs if someone didn't make them an offer (because their actual operating business wasn't cutting it anymore)
I think Google thought that the software patent issue was going to go the other way, where some sort of unwritten agreement of "Let's not screw this up for everyone" would be reached. So the idea of paying $4B just for patents wasn't something that would have been done. AFAICT Google had a slim patent portfolio because Google didn't think software patents were the right thing to do, either ethically or from a business perspective. Nokia [1] pressed the button on the mutually assured destruction after the sale of Sun to Oracle.
I think it's the wrong language to say that Android generates revenue, as really it's ads and app store that do. Android just enables those activities. It's like saying that iOS generates revenue. It doesn't. It would if it was commercially licensed software, but Android OS isn't as far as I know. Maybe I'm just being persnickety.
So Facebook generates no revenue as well since it's just their ads that do? In both cases the platform (Android/Facebook) is the vehicle, whose sole purpose is to generate revenue, so I think it is safe to say that that vehicle is directly responsible for the revenue.
Android is commercially licensed software. Android AOSP is free, but Android bundled together with the Play store and all the Google apps is very definitely not free.
Maybe I just don't understand the nature of financial data, but what makes this so sensitive? What could someone do knowing this number that could have such a dramatic effect on Google's business?
You have to pay Oracle to develop Java apps? That is news to me. I thought the idea was to offer the JDK for free to spur adoption. Is that only the JRE? Does the same "no-commerce without paying Oracle" apply to JavaScript or Node.js?
The case is more complex. Oracle is claiming that Google violated their copyright by cloning Java API's for the Android development kit. They didn't use the code from the Oracle API's, but rather provided the same interfaces only.
Oracle won and now they're going to try to bleed Google dry on the Android front.
When using Java, use is subject to Oracle Binary Code License Agreement (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/...). In this license use and distribution of the JRE & JDK are granted except for a few particular situations, outlined in various sections of the license.
Although a Java programmer is free to write new code from scratch without relying on prewritten methods, the Java Standard Library provides convenient building blocks for writing computer programs.
Although respondent [Oracle] does not claim a copyright interest in the Java language itself, respondent owns a copyright in the Java Standard Library. Pet App. 7. Respondent makes the Java Standard Library available to computer programmers under any of three copyright licenses, including a conditional royalty-free license. See id. at 7-8.
On page 7: Petitioner [Google] assets that it copied the declaring code so that programmers familiar with the Java platform would be able to switch over to the Android platform without having to learn entirely new commands for invoking commonly used methods.
In total, petitioner copied approximately 7000 lines of declaring code.
Herein lies the core issue -- Google did not have a prearranged license agreement to copy the declaring code of Java's standard library, and in doing so infringed on the copyright by using it in their own platform.
Section F of the Oracle Binary Code License reads JAVA TECHNOLOGY RESTRICTIONS. You may not create, modify, or change the behavior of, or authorize your licensees to create, modify, or change the behavior of, classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are in any way identified as "java", "javax", "sun", “oracle” or similar convention as specified by Oracle in any naming convention designation.
tldr; Consider a painting created by an artist. A photographer comes along and thinks, "great painting!" and snaps a photo. If the photographer goes on to distribute and replicate the photograph of this painting (without an agreement with the artist) and earns a profit, the photographer has infringed on the artist's copyright.
I don't have any special insight or knowledge, but there's absolutely no way Oracle's numbers are right. It is in their interest to exaggerate and take the most ridiculously optimistic estimate. In actual fact, I bet Google (again just my rank speculation) probably sees Android as a loss leader. Doesn't Microsoft make more per device on Android than Google through IP licensing shakedown settlements? I know Android enables a lot of things, but does Google really earn much (or any) revenue from it directly?
I think the lawsuit is ridiculous but from reading that article it feels like Oracle has a decent case if all that matters is convincing a judge.
The space race argument and the revenue figures sound like a good enough simplistic argument to score a decent settlement (imo). I hope Google hardballs this but I have a feeling they won't.
This is amazingly low considering that they have 80% of global market share of an incredibly large and fast growing product that almost everyone in the world will own.
Samsung (and Google, to a much lesser degree) are the only companies that make any profit on Android. Everyone else loses money on it, even if they have billions in revenue. "Lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume" isn't a viable business strategy, but that's where a lot of companies are at right now.
Only a little bit less than coca cola at $46b, they have very high global market share of a product bought by billions, that almost everyone over 10 have purchased dozens of times.
Yes, but in retrospect Google would have gotten into the game one way or another. If not Android it would have either been their own in-house solution or even WebOS.
You have broken the HN guidelines at least a dozen times in this thread. That's egregious and bannable, but since your comment history is mostly pretty good, we'll chalk it up to going on tilt, a sudden internet malady that afflicts everyone at some point.
Please review and follow the guidelines when commenting here in the future. That means posting civilly and substantively or not at all, and dropping tedious flamewars rather than pursuing them. Comments like "you are either stupid or drunk" are right out.
I'm presuming that you're making the assumption that ads delivered to less affluent people are less valuable (otherwise I have no clue what your post is supposed to mean in context).
That's a fallacy. You can sell one widget for $1M or one million widgets for $1. Very often conversion rates are higher in the latter case.
So even if we take your word that Android users are - worldwide - poorer than iphone users, it doesn't mean anything in the the context of this thread. And as was said, that's why you've been downvoted. Doubling down by calling HN readers stupid (on average) is unlikely to help your cause here.
While this is technically true it's not exactly the case.
iOS users tend to be of higher income than Android users within a specific country especially in the west.
When it comes to differences between countries its more about social perspective and Apple's operation within each country.
Apple has a huge share of the mobile market in China because having an Apple device is pretty much mandatory as a status symbol there, in South Korea on the other hand Android dominates at over 85% of the market share because of Samsung and LG.
In many European countries Android has the majority of the market share even in very wealthy ones like Germany and the nordic states because of various political and social views and that Apple hasn't been kind to many of the smaller European countries as far as support goes.
Overall in Europe Android's market share is well above 75% and you can't really call them a poor country, the UK probably has the biggest iOS market share in Europe and that's because Apple has a big operation in the UK and the Brits really want to feel American.
Sure if you bring in countries which are extreme cases like Nigeria you'll get a completely skewed picture but mobile phone manufacturers have special devices for emerging markets which are considerably cheaper in many cases running a very limited version of Android (and no Google Play) or some homebrew OS, there aren't that many iPhones in Nigeria but there aren't that many "Samsung Galaxy Edge S plus 6 Curve's" either...
Then explain Android popularity in Europe ;) . 'on average', we are richer then the US ( Belgium and the Netherlands), I also believe your 'facts' are just assumptions based on nothing ( didn't downvote you though :) )
You're being downvoted, not because we don't like facts, nor because your facts are wrong, nor even because we're stupid. You're being downvoted because what you are saying is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Larry Ellison is a joke. Oracle is slowly fading into mediocrity. He thought ERP was just a bunch of tables and UI that corporate america would be suckered into paying millions of dollars for.
[+] [-] jimrandomh|10 years ago|reply
Groklaw was a news site which covered tech company litigation, which shut down in 2013 because the primary author, Pamela Jones, felt threatened by bulk email collection. (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175) Finding out that the old cases it covered are still going through appeals and maneuverings, its absence is deeply felt.
[+] [-] saganus|10 years ago|reply
Wow. It's very dark.
It really made me think.
However... aside from that, and trying to shake down a bit of that darkness, I read the update with Sheier's advice, and this stood out:
"Prefer symmetric cryptography over public-key cryptography. "
Why would that be? I've never actually read anything that would touch on the subject. Does anyone have any references to why are these comments so? is it that symmetric crypto can use larger keys? or is it because using an OTP makes it unbreakabale?
[+] [-] shrewduser|10 years ago|reply
plz come back.
[+] [-] repnation|10 years ago|reply
tl;dr: Oracle lawyers are full of shit
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melted|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbwt|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wh-uws|10 years ago|reply
I honestly still dont understand why they didn't.
I ask this question with zero snark intended. Can someone please give me a good answer why Google didnt buy Sun?
[+] [-] zmmmmm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spinchange|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tadfisher|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lewisham|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars
Disclaimer: My opinions, not necessarily my employers. I wasn't with the company at the time.
[+] [-] jaytaylor|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] colinbartlett|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daveguy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enjo|10 years ago|reply
Oracle won and now they're going to try to bleed Google dry on the Android front.
[+] [-] iyn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronkrolik|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x4a6f6579|10 years ago|reply
Simply the act of "develop[ing] Java apps" falls entirely within a fair interpretation of the license. The difference is best understood in the Solicitor General's Brief (pg. 5 http://www.scribd.com/doc/266703948/Goog-v-Oracle-Solicitor-...):
Although a Java programmer is free to write new code from scratch without relying on prewritten methods, the Java Standard Library provides convenient building blocks for writing computer programs.
Although respondent [Oracle] does not claim a copyright interest in the Java language itself, respondent owns a copyright in the Java Standard Library. Pet App. 7. Respondent makes the Java Standard Library available to computer programmers under any of three copyright licenses, including a conditional royalty-free license. See id. at 7-8.
On page 7: Petitioner [Google] assets that it copied the declaring code so that programmers familiar with the Java platform would be able to switch over to the Android platform without having to learn entirely new commands for invoking commonly used methods.
In total, petitioner copied approximately 7000 lines of declaring code.
Herein lies the core issue -- Google did not have a prearranged license agreement to copy the declaring code of Java's standard library, and in doing so infringed on the copyright by using it in their own platform.
Section F of the Oracle Binary Code License reads JAVA TECHNOLOGY RESTRICTIONS. You may not create, modify, or change the behavior of, or authorize your licensees to create, modify, or change the behavior of, classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are in any way identified as "java", "javax", "sun", “oracle” or similar convention as specified by Oracle in any naming convention designation.
tldr; Consider a painting created by an artist. A photographer comes along and thinks, "great painting!" and snaps a photo. If the photographer goes on to distribute and replicate the photograph of this painting (without an agreement with the artist) and earns a profit, the photographer has infringed on the artist's copyright.
[+] [-] RickHull|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spinchange|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datashovel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kriro|10 years ago|reply
The space race argument and the revenue figures sound like a good enough simplistic argument to score a decent settlement (imo). I hope Google hardballs this but I have a feeling they won't.
[+] [-] IBM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwfunk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiaoma|10 years ago|reply
http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/gallery/15636-12047-Screen...
[+] [-] meric|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bitmapbrother|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
Please review and follow the guidelines when commenting here in the future. That means posting civilly and substantively or not at all, and dropping tedious flamewars rather than pursuing them. Comments like "you are either stupid or drunk" are right out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949460 and marked it off-topic.
[+] [-] nkozyra|10 years ago|reply
That's a fallacy. You can sell one widget for $1M or one million widgets for $1. Very often conversion rates are higher in the latter case.
So even if we take your word that Android users are - worldwide - poorer than iphone users, it doesn't mean anything in the the context of this thread. And as was said, that's why you've been downvoted. Doubling down by calling HN readers stupid (on average) is unlikely to help your cause here.
[+] [-] dogma1138|10 years ago|reply
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-is-for-poor-people-ma...
When it comes to differences between countries its more about social perspective and Apple's operation within each country.
Apple has a huge share of the mobile market in China because having an Apple device is pretty much mandatory as a status symbol there, in South Korea on the other hand Android dominates at over 85% of the market share because of Samsung and LG.
In many European countries Android has the majority of the market share even in very wealthy ones like Germany and the nordic states because of various political and social views and that Apple hasn't been kind to many of the smaller European countries as far as support goes.
Overall in Europe Android's market share is well above 75% and you can't really call them a poor country, the UK probably has the biggest iOS market share in Europe and that's because Apple has a big operation in the UK and the Brits really want to feel American.
Sure if you bring in countries which are extreme cases like Nigeria you'll get a completely skewed picture but mobile phone manufacturers have special devices for emerging markets which are considerably cheaper in many cases running a very limited version of Android (and no Google Play) or some homebrew OS, there aren't that many iPhones in Nigeria but there aren't that many "Samsung Galaxy Edge S plus 6 Curve's" either...
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|10 years ago|reply
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