Not really. They were free to fork Java for desktops, but not for embedded devices. Jave ME was a major revenue stream for Sun and when that dried up Oracle decided to shake down Google.
So, what do you think the SSO of 37 Java API's are worth?
That's just not true. Java is 100% open-source with 0 additional restrictions (extra restrictions are strictly prohibited by the GPL). All restrictions on mobile use apply when you choose to not use the open-source license.
>The Google lawsuit has brought the contradictions out in the open. Java is controlled by a single corporate entity, in much the same way that .NET is. Yes, you can make a GPL clone of JDK 6 that runs on desktops and servers. That's nice. But if you want to run Java on tablets, smartphones, or embedded devices, you'll pay. If you want to use a version of Java that is not “substantially derived from OpenJDK Code”, you'll have to negotiate a TCK license, which Oracle may or may not grant. https://weblogs.java.net/blog/cayhorstmann/archive/2010/09/0...
Also, since all Oracle has left is the SSO claim of 37 Java API's, what do you think that's worth? And do you really support the copyright of API SSO?
> But if you want to run Java on tablets, smartphones, or embedded devices, you'll pay.
WRONG! OpenJDK is 100% open source with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever[1]. Restrictions apply to other Java licensing methods, some of them may also be free as in beer but not as in speech.
> And do you really support the copyright of API SSO?
I think there are valid arguments either way (e.g., a book's TOC is copyrighted), but the use of an API for implementing a compatible version should be allowed regardless of the copyrightability issue.
But whatever your opinion is, blaming Oracle for this is hypocritical. Their goal wasn't to copyright their APIs. Their goal was to get Google to pay for Android, and they used whatever tool they could think of in their legal arsenal. Any other company would have done the same. And keep in mind -- they didn't do it on principle. Google directly attacked one of their major revenue streams -- licensing (under a non-GPL license) of Java for mobile devices. What Google did was highly unusual. I'm unaware of any such event in the past two decades or maybe even ever. It was Google who provoked Sun to sue them, and now they're trying to gain sympathy by crying over the weapon that happened to hit. But they knew Sun (or Oracle) would come after them, they started this, and now they want people to blame Oracle for any collateral damage.
The collateral damage, BTW, is quite small (although Google is also trying to inflate that to gain sympathy). The copyrightability ruling applies only to "classical" software APIs; not protocols; not REST APIs etc.. There is no way, no how, to interpret the ruling to apply to anything other than this kind of API (copyright cannot apply to anything that isn't fixed). Implementation of an API by software that does not comply with the API's license is rare. In addition, implementation of an API for the purpose of providing a compatible, competing product may still be fair use. But that, too, is not what Google did. Android does not comply with not a single one of Java's editions, so it was certainly not Google's intention to create a competing implementation that would allow Java programs to run unchanged.
So, what do you think the SSO of 37 Java API's are worth?