In a move that comes as no surprise to anybody in the Java world, Google is pulling out of the upcoming JavaOne conference.
In
a move that comes as no surprise to anybody in the Java world, Google has
announced that it is pulling out of the upcoming JavaOne conference, citing
Oracle's lawsuit against it as the reason.
Oracle
sued Google for patent and copyright infringement on Aug. 12, stating that
Google's Android technology infringes on seven Oracle patents. Google responded
saying the company intended to defend its position with Android.
Then,
in
an
Aug. 27 blog post, Joshua Bloch, Google's chief Java architect and part of
the Google Open Source Programs Office, said:
"Like
many of you, every year we look forward to the workshops, conferences and
events related to open source software. In our view, these are among the best
ways we can engage the community, by sharing our experiences and learning from
yours. So we're sad to announce that we won't be able to present at JavaOne
this year. We wish that we could, but Oracle's recent lawsuit against Google
and open source has made it impossible for us to freely share our thoughts
about the future of Java and open source generally. This is a painful
realization for us, as we've participated in every JavaOne since 2004, and I
personally have spoken at all but the first in 1996.
"We
understand that this may disappoint and inconvenience many of you, but we look
forward to presenting at other venues soon. We're proud to participate in the
open source Java community, and look forward to finding additional ways to
engage and contribute."
Bloch
is a former distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, which developed Java
and is now part of Oracle and is known as Oracle America
in the lawsuit. And although Bloch was not specifically named in
the
Oracle lawsuit, a claim in the suit appears to refer to him or others like
him. The claim reads: "On information and belief, Google has been aware of
Sun's patent portfolio, including the patents at issue, since the middle of
this decade, when Google hired certain former Sun Java engineers."
Google
hired Bloch away from Sun in 2004, not long after his promotion to
distinguished engineer. Bloch has been involved with various Java Specification
Requests (JSRs), including being the spec lead for JSR-175, which added annotations
to Java.
In
any event, Bloch's and Google's absence from JavaOne-which opens Sept. 20-will
make for some interesting discussion at the event, if nothing else.
"This
likely represents a deepening riff between Google and Oracle and pretty much says
that no progress has been made so far between the two," said Al Hilwa,
program director for applications development software at industry analyst firm
IDC. "It is a marker that we might be
about to get into a long-term process where Java starts to fragment. I would
expect the word 'Java' to be used less and less by Google, and they might even
have to come up with a different brand to name their fork of the language over
time."
Moreover,
Google has been intent on positioning Oracle's lawsuit as a suit not only against
Oracle, but against open-source software in general. Bloch reiterates it in his
post, noting that the suit is "against Google and open source." Some
observers have said they see that as disingenuous on Google's part-not that
either party in a lawsuit is right or wrong. But there is no entity known as "open
source" that Oracle has named in its lawsuit.
"I
think positioning it as a battle with open source is spurious," Hilwa said
of Google's position. "Why is it more legitimate to make money from
software through advertising, services, devices or anything else than making
money from a license to use software? I don't understand that distinction. I
can understand if a company is a not-for-profit, but that is not what we have
here. We have two mega-companies that are mega-profitable from their
intellectual property investment. Are Google's secret search algorithms in
open source for everyone to profit from?"
Even
as Google has pulled out, JavaOne 2010 stands to be a very different kind of
JavaOne anyway. It will be the first JavaOne under Oracle. And most, if not all,
of it will not take place in the location it has been in since its inception, San
Francisco's Moscone
Center. Instead, Oracle OpenWorld 2010
will be at Moscone, and JavaOne and Oracle Develop 2010 will take place at the
Hilton San Francisco-and other nearby hotels will host sessions and events.
This will also be the first JavaOne without Java creator James Gosling as a
leading speaker.
Gosling
resigned from Oracle in April. He has characterized the Oracle lawsuit
against Google as all about
"ego,
money and power," and said the suit came as no surprise.
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