Techdirt. Stories about "sun"

Confused Jury Says Google Infringed On Oracle's Copyright, Sorta, But Maybe Not

Mike Masnick — Mon, 7 May 2012 11:48:15 PDT

There was some indication last week that the jury in the Oracle/Google lawsuit was having trouble coming to agreement, and it appears that despite some effort to try to fix that, in the end the jury remained deadlocked on a bunch of issues. However, it did decide that Google infringed on Oracle's copyright in the Java APIs it used -- but what the jury punted on was whether or not those uses were allowed via fair use. This seems a bit odd, since fair use, despite supposedly being a defense, still means that there was no infringement. So, basically the jury said that Google may have infringed... which is pretty useless for a jury. Separately, the jury rejected the idea that Google infringed on the documentation of the APIs. It also found that Google did not infringe on the comments for some of the code, but did infringe on using rangeCheck in two files. That said, the jury again punted on whether or not the use was de minimis (which, again, would mean non-infringement).

According to The Verge (who is in the court room), the jury also wasn't buying the claim that Google relied on Sun's statements saying that Google's use was okay. The jury's main problem with Google's claim here wasn't that Sun hadn't made clear that the use was acceptable. It was that there wasn't much evidence that Google actually relied on such claims from Sun. I can understand why the jury might claim this, but I wonder why it would matter. Given that Sun made clear that Google's use was acceptable, in what world could you later turn around and claim that its use was unacceptable?

Either way, the fact that the jury couldn't come to an answer on the fair use/de minimis questions effectively sinks the entire process. Google immediately asked the judge to declare a mistrial, and the judge has supposedly asked both companies to prepare arguments over whether or not a mistrial should be declared, so this is far from over.

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Fight Is On Between Oracle And Google Over Java API Copyrights

Mike Masnick — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:01:00 PDT

Last summer, we noted that there was an interesting "sideshow" in the patent dispute between Oracle and Google -- a question of whether or not Java's APIs are covered by copyright. That "sideshow" has become the main attraction now that the trial has started and many of the patent claims have been kicked out.

Oracle has been quite public with its argument (pdf), which is mostly based on taking snippets from Google emails that suggest a need to license Java. The favorite of the bunch is this one:

They also point to some snippets of code that do appeared to be copied:

If you just see that side of it, you might be convinced, but the details suggest a much less convincing story. First off, there are serious concerns about whether or not an API even can be covered by copyright. In fact, before Sun was acquired by Oracle, Sun's own CTO had said that "internet specifications are not protectable under copyright," which (you might think) gives Google an implied go ahead to make use of the API. Furthermore, many of the email snippets that Oracle presents are taken out of context -- they show little snippets of big emails and pull from very very different time periods -- ranging from 2005 to 2010, when different factors applied. Oracle also scrubbed a blog from former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz in which he warmly welcomed Google to the Java family when the company launched Android.

Perhaps more damning: Larry Ellison himself in 2009 at the JavaOne event spoke about Google's Android development and how they were contributing code back to Java. Ellison himself was put on the stand and appeared to contradict his own depositions when it came time to discuss the specifics of the copyright. That can't go over well. Not only that, but he stumbled, and claimed he was "not sure" when asked specific questions:

On cross-examination, Google came out firing and the room got tense quickly. “Do you understand that no one owns the Java programming language?” lead counsel Robert Van Nest asked.

Ellison began a longer answer, but Judge William Alsup interrupted him and said it was a “yes or no” question. Finally Ellison said, “I’m not sure.”

“And anyone can use it without royalty?” Van Nest followed up.

“I’m not sure,” Ellison said again.

Then Van Nest showed a video of Ellison receiving the same question on a deposition video and answering “That’s correct” to both.

Oracle's response, of course, will be that it just meant for developing apps, not for using the API -- but its other statements are a lot less clear on that. Either way, it seems pretty clear that Sun gave an implied open license to these things, so to come back now and insist otherwise is pretty questionable. Furthermore, there still are questions as to whether or not an API can actually be covered by copyright at all.

Separately, Oracle keeps talking about just how much work it is to create APIs, and even points to some Google statements about the difficulty of doing so. That's smoke and mirrors. Difficulty has no bearing on copyright law. It's kind of surprising that Oracle's lawyers would even bring it up, as "sweat of the brow" arguments won't get very far. Hell, even if it biases a jury, it would get rejected on appeal. It seems like Oracle's strategy here is just to confuse the jury and go for guilty by association because they're going to have trouble showing actual guilt.

As for the specific code snippets shown above, those a few lines out of 50,000 or so files. Under copyright there's a defense known as de minimis copying, if you're just found to have copied a very tiny portion of something. It seems like that might apply here as well.

Also, you may have heard stories about the results of this trial potentially being worth billions of dollars or something, but that was before most of the patents got thrown out. The patents left over aren't worth very much at all, and the end result means that if Oracle wins, it'll likely get less than $100 million. That's still a significant sum, but it's a lot less than what Oracle had hoped to get in this lawsuit.

In the end, as it seemed from the beginning, Oracle's case looks pretty weak (and getting weaker).

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Side Show In Oracle, Google Patent Fight: Are API's Covered By Copyright?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:16:01 PDT

While the main event in the Oracle lawsuit against Google is around patents, there is an interesting copyright sideshow as well, focused on the question of whether or not Oracle can copyright an API. A couple weeks ago, Google filed for summary judgment on this, noting (among other things) that Sun's own CTO had flat out declared that "internet specifications are not protectable under copyright," prior to Oracle buying out Sun. The other key claim is that even if Google copied the API, the accusation has them copying 12 files out of over 50,000, which would qualify for de minimis copying, which is a common defense against minimal copyright infringement.

Oracle has now responded and is arguing that copyright for APIs is perfectly reasonable, claiming that the APIs "contain many original and creative elements." Just as Google quotes a former Sun CTO, Oracle (somewhat snarkily) quotes a current Google employee (and former Sun employee) in noting, "API design is an art, not a science."

As Groklaw notes in the above link, Google probably won't win on the motion for summary judgment on this issue, even if it has a better chance at trial:

Although we don't buy all of Oracle's arguments (most importantly, we don't believe much of what they assert is copyright protected subject matter is, in fact, protected by copyright, such as API's), Oracle has probably done enough in its response to put the issue of copyright infringement before a jury. Of course, the court still needs to rule on Google's summary judgment motion.

Indeed. I have trouble seeing how APIs can be covered by copyright. Oracle's key argument beyond that misleading quote is that creating a good API is "difficult." Difficulty alone does not determine if something is copyrightable, of course. Either way, allowing for copyright claims on APIs seems like a good way to create a lot more problems for important (legal!) things like reverse engineering. Once again, it seems like stupid intellectual property laws may get in the way of important methods for innovation.

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Oracle Deletes Jonathan Schwartz's Old Blog; Which Excitedly Celebrated Google's Use Of Java In Android

Mike Masnick — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:06:00 PDT

There was a bit of an embarrassment in the ongoing patent dispute between Oracle and Google. Oracle, of course, is claiming that Google's Android violates some of the patents it acquired from Sun concerning Java. Google pointed out that if its use was so problematic, why did Sun celebrate Google's Java usage in Android? They pointed to a blog post from then-Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (who was the first Fortune 500 CEO to blog -- and who, unlike many corporate bloggers, actually spoke his mind on the blog), which happily celebrated Google basing Android on Java/Linux: Of course, that looks bad for Oracle... so it's response was to delete Schwartz's entire blog. Poof. That moment of history gone. Except if you have access to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. No wonder the Internet Archive has been declared a rogue site dedicated to infringing activities.

I imagine that Oracle also wanted to erase other former Schwartz blog posts, like the one we spoke about years ago, in which he pointed out that suing over patents is a sign of desperation and that real companies innovate, rather than litigate.

Now, many of you who will be quick to point out that none of that matters. Oracle holds the patents now and so it gets to decide. And that's true -- though I do wonder if such promises not to litigate over patents and to celebrate such usages might be seen as a form of a license... But, the larger point I wanted to raise is that this shows the dangers even of defensive patents. Sun held a ton of patents, almost all of which were for defensive reasons (or to just show what a joke the patent system is). And yet... now that Oracle has them, it can and is using them to try to shake down other companies.

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Google Points Out That Oracle Asked Sun To Open Source The Java Tech It's Now Suing Google Over

Mike Masnick — Wed, 6 Oct 2010 00:25:07 PDT

NSILMike points out that Google has now responded to the lawsuit Oracle filed against it over Java-related patents that Oracle got when it took over Sun. The response covers all the usual stuff that you find in every response to a patent lawsuit (i.e., "we didn't infringe on any of these patents, and even if we did, the patents are invalid"). However, it also includes some background on Java, and the fact that Sun had promised to open source the whole thing, but kept some of it back (the part that's now in question). But what makes it a bit more complicated is that it has Oracle on record urging Sun to finish the job and more fully open source Java. While I don't think that actually matters from a legal perspective, you could see it potentially influencing the overall case.

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Why The Oracle Java Patents Were Literally A Joke Played By Sun Engineers

Mike Masnick — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:58:13 PDT

There's a famous story of how IBM sued Sun for patent infringement in the early days. The patent claims from IBM were ridiculous, and Sun's engineers pointed that out to IBM's lawyers. In response, the men in blue made the famous statement:

"OK, maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

I had been thinking of that story after seeing the news that Oracle was suing Google over patents it received in buying Sun, and it seems that the joke of an IBM lawsuit may be indirectly responsible for this equally laughable lawsuit. Slashdot points us to a blog post by early Sun engineer James Gosling, where he admits that the experience with the IBM lawsuit resulted in a game among Sun engineers to come up with the most ridiculous thing that could be patented:

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.

While that patent that Gosling names isn't included in this particular lawsuit, but others have noticed that one of the patents (RE38104) is a Gosling patent.

Of course, it's easy to point out that the folks named on the patents are claiming themselves that the patents were part of a joke to see how bad the patent office is. But, you can take it to another level altogether, and have folks who actually know quite a bit about the technology go through the patents one by one and explain why each of them is a total joke.

This is yet another in an exceptionally long line of examples of what a complete mess our patent system has become. I'm curious if the patent system supporters out there can come up with some sort of way to defend the patent system in this particular situation.

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Oracle's First Big Move With Sun? Use Sun's Patents To Sue Google

Mike Masnick — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:40:23 PDT

Over the past few years, Sun has been one of the more outspoken companies against abusing the patent system, with former CEO Jonathan Schwartz explaining that real companies innovate, not litigate. However, Sun and its patents are now owned by Oracle, and apparently Larry Ellison feels otherwise. Oracle is now suing Google for patent infringement, using a bunch of patents that Sun owns around Java, claiming that Google's Android implementation of Java is done without a license. This is a bit surprising, really, as big Silicon Valley tech companies don't often get into patent battles with each other -- and, historically, when they do launch such patent attacks, it's usually a sign of something bigger being wrong with the company. Anyway, if you're interested, the patents in question are 6,125,447, 6,192,476, 5,966,702, 7,426,720, RE38,104, 6,910,205 and 6,061,520. And here's the filing: Interesting to see super lawyer David Boies on this one. His career really has gone downhill, hasn't it? From once leading the government's antitrust case against Microsoft to representing SCO's ridiculous lawsuits and now being involved in yet another silly patent fight?

Either way it will be interesting to see Google's response. Unlike many big tech companies, Google hasn't warehoused patents at quite the same rate. The company certainly does regularly apply for and get patents, but if you watch the numbers, they're much lower than other tech companies, and I can't recall Google ever making a patent claim against another company. So it'll be interesting if Google responds with the standard response to a patent lawsuit between two big tech companies: which is to countersue over other patents, effectively launching the nuclear counterstrike. My guess is that the more likely response is that Google will eventually just pay off Oracle to make this lawsuit go away.

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Former Sun CEO: Tech Companies Suing Over Patents Is An Act Of Desperation

Mike Masnick — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:54:00 PST

Three years ago, after one of Microsoft's regular bursts of FUD claiming that Linux violated all sorts of Microsoft patents, then CEO of Sun, Jonathan Schwartz, wrote up a brilliant post knocking Microsoft down a peg by repeating a line we've said many times here ourselves: real innovative companies innovate, not litigate. Now, following Apple's patent offensive against HTC, and unencumbered of corporate responsibilities, Schwartz is sharing a bit more detail on his views over patents (found via Mathew Ingram).

Schwartz tells the story of Steve Jobs calling him and threatening Sun with a patent infringement lawsuit, to which Schwartz quickly warned Jobs that going down that path would lead to a patent nuclear war, as he pointed out how recent Apple products likely infringed on Sun patents. He then tells another story about a visit from Bill Gates, with a similar threat over patents -- and a similar response, pointing out that Microsoft clearly copied certain Sun technology. In both cases, the counterweight made the threats go away. This is the whole "nuclear stockpiling" scenario -- and, as such, it creates a ton of waste. You have to keep building up those stockpiles just to make sure the other side is too scared to sue you.

But the key point is made after this, where Schwartz again makes a statement quite similar to ones we've made when a big tech company suddenly goes on the patent offensive. It's a canary-in-the-coalmine sign that something is wrong:

For a technology company, going on offense with software patents seems like an act of desperation, relying on the courts instead of the marketplace.

He also highlights how these lawsuits can backfire in a big, big way:

Having watched this movie play out many times, suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less. Developers I know aren't getting less interested in Google's Android platform, they're getting more interested -- Apple's actions are enhancing that interest.

Indeed. It's a point that still seems missed by so many when discussing these patent lawsuits.

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SPARC No Fun At All; Threatens SparkFun

Mike Masnick — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:33:00 PDT

John Fenderson was the first of a few of you to send in a link (via Slashdot) to the story of how SPARC, the computer architecture company owned by Sun, is threatening SparkFun over trademark infringement claims. SparkFun is an electronics shop, which sells components and kits and the like. The two are pretty different. This whole situation apparently was "sparked" (heh heh) when SparkFun applied for its own trademark, at which point SPARC sought to block the trademark application. From there, they went on to sending a cease & desist. The folks at SparkFun do a nice job breaking down why the two marks are entirely different, and why even Sun employees seem to have no trouble understanding the difference between the two. This seems like yet another case of overly aggressive trademark enforcement, just because some lawyers feel the need to oppose anything that might conceivably be considered even close to similar.

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Eolas Is Baaaaaaaaack; And It's Suing Everyone Over Embeddable Web Widgets

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 Oct 2009 09:40:00 PDT

Well, here we go again. As you may recall, Eolas is a company that claimed to hold a patent (5,838,906) on browser plugins. The company sued Microsoft, and a long drawn-out battle ensued. Even though web inventor Tim Berners-Lee presented prior art and asked the USPTO to invalidate Eolas' ridiculously broad and obvious patent, the USPTO eventually upheld the patent (after initially rejecting claims). Even as Microsoft began presenting evidence that it actually had made use of the technology in question before Eolas applied for its patent, losses in the courts and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case eventually resulted in Microsoft agreeing to settle rather than continue to fight.

Since then (two years ago), plenty of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, concerning Eolas' plans to sue others. Now we know why it waited. It's now received a new patent -- a continuation patent, which is often used to abuse the patent system by putting forth a broad patent, then filing for continuations to make changes that let an earlier "invention" cover technologies that later become popular. In this case, the new patent (7,599,985), which basically just extends the earlier patent on browser plugins, and extends it to javascript widgets. Yes, those embeddable widgets used all over the web? It appears that Eolas thinks that those are infringing and everyone should pay up.

The new lawsuit has been filed against Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, Go Daddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Staples, Sun, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube. Apparently, starting small isn't part of the plan. Not surprisingly, Eolas filed in Eastern Texas using McKool Smith -- one of the most popular law firms representing patent holding firms in East Texas.

I am honestly curious how patent system defenders, who are also programmers, can defend this. I'm sure non-programmers will claim that the patent is valid, but I can't imagine how anyone who has any knowledge of basic programming principles can claim that such a patent is valid. In the meantime, tons of companies doing an incredibly basic thing on the web will now have to waste millions of dollars fighting a ridiculous patent lawsuit. How is this promoting innovation in any way shape or form?

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Insight Community Webinar On Enterprise Knowledge Management

Mike Masnick — Mon, 3 Aug 2009 18:05:00 PDT

A few weeks back, we had an Insight Community case, sponsored by Sun & Intel, soliciting proposals for a webinar on enterprise knowledge management, targeting mid-market companies. We're happy to announce that this Thursday, August 6th, at 9am PT, we'll be hosting that webinar, moderated by me, led by Joel Alleyne, a member of the Insight Community, and a widely recognized expert on knowledge management, along with some additional guests as well. If you're interested in enterprise knowledge management, especially in the mid-market, hopefully, you'll be able to attend. If you have any useful questions that you'd like addressed in the webinar, feel free to ask them here and we'll see what we can do!

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Be Part Of A Webinar Discussion On Enterprise Knowledge Management

Insight Community — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:48:41 PDT

Sun and Intel are interested in holding a webinar around the topic of Enterprise Knowledge Management for their site, MidMarket Innovators. They are looking for experts to be featured in this online webinar, so this case is a little different in that sense.

We are looking for you to submit proposals that would describe a webinar topic that you would be willing to discuss. If your topic is chosen, then you will then need to be available to participate in the 1-hour online webinar, hosted by Techdirt's Mike Masnick. You can see the previous webinars here to get a sense of what has been done before.

The potential topics that they are interested in are:

What does “enterprise knowledge management” mean to you?
How is this strategy/approach evolving? 10 years ago? 10 years from now?
- How have advances in technology over the last 3-5 years made it easier for organizations to implement Knowledge Management?
How does technology supplement the business strategy? How does IT support/contribute? What is the role of technology?
How are the solutions that Sun & Intel are bringing to market contribute to “enterprise knowledge management”?
- New Sun Servers based on Xeon 5500? Performance, Energy Efficiency & Virtualization Capabilities. These new servers allow IT to replace 9 old single core x86 servers with one new Sun/Xeon 5500 server. IT can see a payback in less than one year.
- Software – How does software & software usage models factor into these solutions? For Sun Software – Sun & Intel have been working together to optimize Java, MySQL & Solaris for Intel processors.
What are the metrics and business benefits that organizations should expect from Knowledge Management?

Your proposal does not have to deal with all of these topics, these are merely suggestions.

In your proposal, please include:

The headline of your proposed webinar.
A description for the webinar that you would run.

If there are any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

This is a case from the Insight Community, a powerful new marketplace that connects companies with intelligent communities like Techdirt. Click here to learn more.

Earn up to $500 for Insights on this case.
Insights Due: 2 Jul 2009, 11:59PMPT

View Case Details at InsightCommunity.com

Dear Australia: Software Knows No Borders

Mike Masnick — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:45:19 PST
Ross Lazarus points us to the rather surprising news that an increasing number of Sun MySQL employees have been barred from entering Australia on short-term business visas, due to the worry that they'll somehow "compete" with local businesses. There certainly may be more to this story, but on the face of it, it seems pretty ridiculous. Preventing employees of a certain company from entering your country may (barely) have made sense in the past and in some specific industries, but with software on today's internet, it's positively laughable. Somehow I doubt that the "local" Australian database developer community is resting easier thanks to their country's border patrol safely keeping MySQL employees abroad.

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You Don't Have To Sell Software

Mike Masnick — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:22:00 PST
Reader Philip writes in to ask about our thoughts on a commentary on News.com by Dave Rosenberg concerning Sun's open source strategy. Rosenberg seems very concerned that Sun has decided to forego trying to sell software directly:
Sun's approach--at least the way I'm reading it from Jonathan Schwartz's statements, is about making the software totally free and trying to sell support and hardware. This clearly diminishes the value of the products and doesn't offer a mechanism that encourages people to pay for software.
It's difficult to see what Rosenberg is worked up about here. Sun seems to be following pretty closely an economically sound approach to a market: using infinite goods (software) to make scarce goods (hardware and services) more valuable. That's a lot more reasonable than using infinite goods to try to get people to pay for more infinite goods. There's no reason why Sun needs to encourage people to pay for software, and there are many reasons why they should not try to make people pay for software.

Yet, for some reason, Rosenberg seems to think that this strategy is somehow damaging to the open source movement:
It also puts an unnecessary burden on the notion of open source--such that if Sun is wrong, everyone else will look wrong too.
Why? If, as Rosenberg notes elsewhere in the article, Sun's open source strategy is different than other companies', then such a failure should be seen as a failure of Sun's model, not a strategy of embracing open source. There are plenty of reasons why Sun may (or even is likely to) fail in this endeavor. The Sun brand name has been tarnished. People may not find the hardware or services Sun is selling as providing enough value compared to alternatives (even with the software included). On the whole, it's not clear what's compelling about Sun's offer compared to the alternatives, and that's its biggest challenge. But that hardly reflects poorly on open source software or on the idea of not selling software.

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What Sun Should Be Doing With MySQL

Mike Masnick — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:31:46 PDT
Earlier this year, Sun scooped up MySQL for a cool $1 billion. However, while Sun has been somewhat friendly towards open source software, there were plenty of concerns about what the company planned to do with MySQL. Some of those fears are now being realized. After first disappearing some of MySQL's public statements on the evilness of software patents, Sun caused quite a bit of controversy with a plan to close source certain new features in an attempt to push people to upgrade to a premium, paid version of the software. While that's certainly one strategy, it could be a dangerous one, ticking off many MySQL users who will go searching for alternatives.

So, what could Sun do with MySQL to help build a bigger and better business that doesn't involve locking up any software? The blog Milking The Gnu has a very interesting suggestion that makes a lot of sense (and certainly fits in directly with the economics we discuss around here). The idea is not to worry about locking up the software, but to turn MySQL into a cloud computing web-platform. The reasoning makes a tremendous amount of sense (much more than Sun's current strategy). Basically, on the low end, you have folks who will never pay for a premium version of MySQL anyway. At the high end, most of those companies (if pushed) will probably lean towards Oracle or IBM. But in the middle-tier there's a real opportunity -- not to be a database software company, but to build that all important web platform we've been discussing.

Already, Amazon and Google are trying to build that platform, with Amazon seeing a fair bit of success (and Google just starting). Sun has promoted the concept of cloud computing for years, so why not flip things around and make MySQL the database part of a cloud computing offering. With so many folks already comfortable with MySQL, it will be much easier for many of them to embrace this offering, rather than having to figure out the details of Amazon's SimpleDB or Google's AppEngine/BigTable setup. Then, the more people you get to adopt the free open source version of MySQL, the more likely they are to make use of Sun's cloud computing offering over the alternatives. And, then, Sun can charge for the use of cloud computing resources (scarce resources) while knowing that the infinite nature of MySQL promotes that scarce good. Given that Sun's been such a promoter of cloud computing for so long, you would think this was a no-brainer. But it's latest actions with MySQL suggest it may be going in a different direction, and that's unfortunate. Update: Marten Mickos of MySQL/Sun responds in the comments, and Glyn Moody points us to an interview he recently conducted with Mickos suggesting that Mickos is thinking along similar lines about cloud computing.

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Is Sun Backtracking On Software Patents?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 14:22:00 PDT
MySQL's execs have always been outspoken critics of software patents. Back in 2004, we wrote about the company CEO's well-reasoned article about how software patents had become the nuclear stockpiling of the modern era. Companies were forced to patent everything just to have enough ammo to make sure others didn't sue them for patent infringement, and the end result was huge legal bills and wasted money that wasn't going towards innovation at all. Since then, the company has remained vehemently against software patents. However, now that Sun has purchased MySQL, the company is apparently being pushed to cut back on its anti-software patent stance. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent in some blog posts highlighting how Sun has removed MySQL's anti-software patent page. To be fair, among larger companies, Sun has certainly shown a much better understanding of how patents can be anti-innovation as well as how the patent system is often abused. But, at the same time, it also has a bunch of patents and has demonstrated in quite explicit fashion just how those patent nuclear wars work. So, of companies out there, Sun seems less bad concerning software patents than other firms. But it's still rather disappointing to see it erase MySQL's excellent public stance against software patents from the web -- even if it did make a silly April Fool's joke about open source software this week.

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The Enterprise Landgrab Continues: Oracle Buys BEA For $8.5B, Sun Buys MySql for $1B

Dennis Yang — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:52:25 PST
Something must be in the air today, as two big acquisitions were announced this morning. First, Oracle announced that it will fork over $8.5 billion for middleware maker, BEA. BEA has been on the radar since last October, when BEA rejected Oracle's unsolicited $6.7 billion offer. Carl Icahn, BEA's largest shareholder, had initially agreed with BEA's counter offer of $21 per share, but then later started pushing publicly for the sale. Oracle held fast to its offer of $17 per share, so it's surprising to see that they were able to agree on $19.375 per share, especially when there were seemingly no other bidders. These acquisitions continue an overall trend of consolidation in the enterprise software market, kicked off by Oracle's 2004 acquisition of PeopleSoft. Since then, Oracle has spent about $110 billion in its acquisition of about 30 companies. Oracle is in a battle with German software giant, SAP, who is also knee deep in the land grab with its recently successful $6.7 billion acquisition for Business Objects. Meanwhile, Sun will spend $1 billion for open source database maker, MySql, making a strong play in the $15 billion enterprise database market. This deal makes sense for Sun, who has been building up its stable of open source products. That said, when will the speculation begin for an Oracle-Sun merger? Both hate Microsoft deeply, and both have been trying to expand beyond their core markets. And, MySql even rejected Oracle's acquisition offer back in 2006. At some point, someone's going to think it makes sense for the two to combine.

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Nissan Builds Internal MySpace While Sun Builds Internal Second Life

Mike Masnick — Thu, 1 Nov 2007 19:40:44 PDT
There's been a lot of talk over the last couple years about "enterprise 2.0" efforts to bring the types of applications in the "web 2.0" world into the enterprise. How successful those efforts have been is still an open question -- but companies keep on looking for such solutions to improve internal communications. Two stories today suggest exactly how that's happening. Business Week has a story about how Nissan is trying to build an internal "MySpace" to get employees more connected with each other and make the flow of information and the sharing of ideas more useful. Meanwhile, Sun, who has been trying to push more workers to telecommute for years, is now trying to build its own Second Life-type virtual world for employees from around the world to interact as if they were in an office together. While it's worth noting both of these experiments as clearly taking a consumer internet service and moving it into the enterprise, there's still a huge question of how useful either service will be. They both make nice stories for the press, but that doesn't mean either will get enough adoption to really be useful. Lots of companies have had internal intranet-type collaboration services in the past that don't get any use. Repainting the same thing with the broad 2.0 brush won't automatically make them useful.

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Sun Notes That Both It And NetApp Are In California... So Why Is The Patent Lawsuit In East Texas?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:01:00 PDT
The latest news in the patent dispute between Sun and Network Appliance is that Sun is trying to move the case to California. NetApp filed the lawsuit in east Texas, a favorite location for patent holders, since the judges there are known for fast trials that almost always end with the patent holder coming out on top. Even if companies have no real presence in east Texas, they figure out how to get something resembling a presence there in order to file the lawsuit there. Amusingly, patent reform in the early 80s was designed to stop this type of jurisdiction shopping at the appeals court level, but all it seems to have done was push it down to the district court level. In trying to move the case, Sun points out that both it and NetApp have headquarters approximately 10 miles away from each other in California -- and there seems to be no reason whatsoever to have the case filed in east Texas unless you were jurisdiction shopping. There's been some talk lately suggesting that the folks in east Texas are getting a little annoyed at their reputation for being so friendly for patent holders, so hopefully they'll agree that this case really belongs in California.

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Sun Shows NetApp How A Patent Nuclear War Works

Mike Masnick — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:27:52 PDT
While you can question the motives, Sun has actually been quite vocal recently over the question of software patents. Sun CEO Jonathon Schwartz has pointed out that successful companies innovate while unsuccessful ones litigate. And, indeed, Sun hasn't been going around filing patent lawsuits left and right, (or threatening to do so) like some other companies. However, it's quite clear that Sun understands the value of defensive patenting, since patents have become the nuclear stockpiling of the software world. Thus, it should come as no surprise that following Network Appliance's decision to sue Sun for patent infringement that Sun has struck back hard, accusing Network Appliances of violating 12 patents, and basically saying that many of NetApps' offerings are in violation and should be blocked. Schwartz makes it clear that he'd prefer to avoid this sort of nuclear response, but he's sending a message: if you're going to sue rather than innovate, you need to be prepared for the response to come back much more forcefully. There's no doubt that some of this is clearly posturing on Sun's part, to win more fans in the open source community -- but that's a perfectly good reason for doing what they're doing. The end result is expressing what many of us around here believe: competition drives innovation. Patents, on the other hand, remove competition -- and therefore tend to hinder that innovation. Having to use patents defensively is an unfortunate and expensive negative externality of the system, and it's nice to see Sun publicly supporting that position.

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Sun And Google Finally Get Around To StarOffice

Joseph Weisenthal — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:06:08 PDT
Back in 2005, there was a lot of hype about a joint partnership between Google and Sun that turned out to be a big load of nothing. While there had been expectations that the companies would partner up to push Sun's StarOffice (an office suite based on OpenOffice), the announcement turned out to be nothing of the sort. As for StarOffice, they did mention that they might do something with it down the road, but that there hadn't been much thought put into it. Well, two years later, we're getting our answer. StarOffice is now available for free as part of Google Pack. Still, it seems unlikely that the move will do much to boost StarOffice. In the two years since the initial announcement, there's been a surge of interest in web-based applications, which will remain Google's priority. If there was ever a time for another offline office suite to steal significant share away from Microsoft, it would seem that time has passed.

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