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Oracle's Android Lawsuit: A Pandora's Box of Serious Evils
Everyone knows that Oracle is suing Google over claims that Google used Sun's Java technology without appropriate licenses in the Android mobile OS. Now that Oracle owns Sun's technology, it wants to be paid for those licenses.
Google claims Android does not use actual Java intellectual property and that the claims are baseless. That's all fine, the stuff of usual Silicon Valley licensing battles. But what's not fine is what's in the small print of Oracle's actual lawsuit. What Oracle is saying and doing should scare everyone.
For example, one of Oracle's attorneys is David Boies. We know that name from the recent action that overturned the gay marriage ban in California and from the old DOJ antitrust actions against Microsoft. He also advised the Recording Industry Association of America in its file-sharing case against Napster and represented former vice president Al Gore in the disputed 2004 U.S. election results. Nobody hires David Boies to litigate unless they are serious.
From InfoWorld
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