Oracle's patent infringement lawsuit versus Google is all about ego, money and power, so says the creator of the key technology in question. Rather than being about developer freedom or Java fragmentation, this suit is more about what drives the software industry and most every other.
Oracle's
patent infringement lawsuit versus Google is all about ego, money and power, so
says the creator of the key technology in question.
In
an Aug. 15 blog post,
James Gosling,
known as the father of Java, said:
"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."
That
has been a common sentiment among both observers and participants in the
software industry since
Oracle
announced its lawsuit on Aug. 12. Mostly, folks seem to view Oracle's move
as a money grab, not a stake in the ground nor a true move to protect the
sanctity of Java. Whatever it is, Oracle has made its move, and Google has
responded saying it
will
defend its actions with Android.
However,
what's perhaps more interesting about Gosling's post is that he gives props to
Microsoft. Gosling said:
"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."
Gosling's
not
the first to make comparisons or reference to Microsoft 1.0, which has a
proven history of being amongst, if not THE, granddaddy of all the hardballers,
egotists, power mongers and money grabbers in the industry-what with all the e-mails
and evidence that arose about Microsoft cutting off Netscape's air supply,
polluting Java and strong-arming OEMs with restrictive licenses, among other
things.
But
in the new world, Microsoft is not the Borg it used to be. And Gosling paints
images of Apple, Google and Oracle as all sort of vying for a place in
Borg-land. Or at least they are all looking for a bigger slice of the ego,
money and power pie.
Gosling
acknowledges that fragmentation was a concern for Sun Microsystems-then Java's
master-when Google initially approached the company about Android.
However,
money also was an issue, he says. Said Gosling:
"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."
And
to boot, Sun's fragmentation concerns were warranted, Gosling said. "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," he said.
The
folks at Sun were kind of a bunch of self-described laid-back hippies focused
on innovation and did not view patents and patent lawsuits as important. Then IBM
sued them for violating the RISC patent, and they got smart real quick, Gosling
said.
The
crux of the matter lies in this struggle that Gosling identifies in two
sentences: "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."
How
do you make it so that both sides get what they want? Does he who owns the
board and the pieces set all the rules?
Money,
ego and power. It kind of sounds like what drives every industry. Sports,
entertainment, politics, the media and particularly hip hop are all very much
about ego, money and power. Gosling's post brings to mind the hip hop song, "Money,
Power & Respect," by The LOX featuring Lil Kim. As simplified as it
is, the Lil Kim intro just about says it all:
"See I believe in money, power and respect
First you get the money
Then you get the (expletive) power
And after you get the (expletive) power
You get the (expletives) to respect you"
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