Can Oracle lawsuit against google have implications to Haiku project?
Basically, Oracle says that Google infringe patents about API Java!
In this context, Haiku would also be infringe any patent about API(Be company)?
Hi PulkoMandy,
You understood my question! Thank you! Now, this also implies that Haiku cannot grow and thus draw the attention?
Oracle could not. You can’t attack people because they violate someone else’s copyright. So, only the current owner of copyright on the Be API could attack us. This is, as far as I know, the company “Access Co, Ltd” (http://gl.access-company.com/)
In the past they have been quite friendly, for example relicensing the Be Book under CC-By-Nd so we can distribute copies of it. I doubt they would waste resources on attacking Haiku.
So, we are in as much trouble as everyone else. Linux and BSD are implementing the UNIX APIs, ReactOS is implementing the Windows ones, AROS and MorphOS are implementing the Amiga ones, etc.
I think Oracle could go after Haiku, but most likely won’t. Ellison is more interested in the Google’s of the industry. He wouldn’t get anything much from Haiku, save for bad publicity. We’re very small potatoes and I’ve never seen Oracle really defend the IPs against small players. They go after the gig pockets.
Plus, we haven’t heard about Oracle in a while. This could be a PR exercise for Oracle.
Or - Haiku could simply move its headquarters to a country where they have sane IP laws.
Heck - most Haiku devs are not US located anyway.
Hi pulkomandy,
A correction! I did not mean that Oracle go or can open lawsuit against Haiku! I mentioned the Oracle lawsuit against Google because this lawsuit can have implications for all projects Free Software/Open Source that rewrite API whatever (In this case, Be API)!
As I mentionned, only the owner of the copyright can attack someone for copyright infringement. So, Oracle has no way to attackus because of the BeAPI. Only Access Corporation could, and I don’t think they want to waste resources doing it. So things are reasonably safe for us, or if they aren’t, it means we’ll see the same issues in many other projects first, including Linux/BSD which are implementing the UNIX APIs, for example.