CybserSecurity News

Tag: oracle

  • US Supreme Court will take over Android copyright dispute case between Google and Oracle

    The US Supreme Court recently said it would consider taking over the copyright dispute between Oracle and Google on the Android operating system. As long as the US Supreme Court took over the case, it shows that this epic copyright dispute for nearly 10 years is coming to an end, and its judgment may affect the future of software development.

    Oracle Critical Patch Update July

    “Oracle World San Francisco 2006”by stevegarfield is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    In 2010, software company Oracle took Google to court and demanded nearly $9 billion in compensation because Google used 37 Java API packages in the development of the Android operating system, but did not pay royalties to Oracle. Although Google and other companies believe that the API should not be protected by copyright, the US Court of Appeal ruled in 2014 that copyright law applies to the Java API. In 2016, Google successfully convinced the jury of the federal court that its use of the API was considered “fair use.” However, the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling two years later.

    Those who support Google say that the 2014 ruling will have a chilling effect on developers, and they hope that Google’s “fair use” argument can mitigate this effect. Google lawyer summed up the case in 2016, and he believes that these APIs exist purely for functional purposes. Building an OS with the API is a real revolution. Google engineers “build Android from scratch, use Google’s new technology, and adopt open source technology. Android is an amazing platform for innovation.”

    Via: CNBC

  • US antitrust investigation agency invites Oracle to help investigate violations in Google’s advertising business

    The US Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice have already started anti-monopoly investigations against large technology giants such as Google. Such antitrust investigations usually last for years or even longer, during which the antitrust investigation agency invites the industry and other participants to assist in the investigation. This time, the US anti-monopoly investigation agency actually invited Oracle to participate in the investigation, after Oracle’s authorization for Android and Google litigation continued for a long time.

    Google previously used Oracle’s proprietary Java API technology in Android, and Oracle believes Google’s commercial practices have violated copyright agreements. However, Google does not believe that it has infringement and therefore refuses to pay royalties to Oracle. For this reason, Oracle sued Google. At the beginning of the year, many local courts in the United States ruled that Google did not have infringements and did not need to pay.

    Google Play sharing

    It must be said that the US anti-monopoly investigation agency is also full of enthusiasm for Google because Oracle knows more about the advertising business of Google and its affiliates. Why does Oracle know about Google’s advertising business? Because in the Android infringement lawsuit that lasted for many years, Google requested the court to disclose advertising business to Oracle. For example, Google’s profit by bundling Google search and series software on Android is $22 billion. These were originally confidential data that would not be made public. At the time, after Oracle announced the above revenue data, Google also protested to the court. Google believes that the data Oracle can see but should not directly disclose the data. It is also the case that the US antitrust investigation agency invited Oracle to assist in the investigation and wanted to find out about Google’s advertising business.

    Oracle officially confirmed that it had received a request for assistance from the US antitrust investigation agency. Oracle has already had initial communication with the US Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, but Oracle has not disclosed more specific information.

    Source: Reuters

  • Negotiation failed: Oracle kills Java EE

    Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, published in his blog the results of the Java trademark negotiations between Oracle and the Eclipse Foundation – the negotiations between the two parties ended in failure and Oracle refused to sell the Java trademark.

    Mike also mentioned in the blog the latest developments in the Jakarta EE, the Java trademark, and the use of the javax namespace between the Eclipse Foundation and Oracle.

    In 2017, Oracle announced the open source Java EE and handed over the project to the Eclipse Foundation, which took over the management and development of Java EE. Oracle re-authorizes its leading Java EE technology and related GlassFish technologies to the Eclipse Foundation, including reference implementations, Technology Compatibility Toolkits (TCKs), and related project documentation, and hopes to be open source projects through the Eclipse Foundation. Extensive experience in governance, Java EE, and related technologies brings Java EE to a better future.

    Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, was also optimistic about the move, saying that this is what Java EE needs and what the community has always wanted to see.

    When it was just announced that Java EE was handed over to the Eclipse Foundation, Oracle asked for a new brand name for the platform. After all, Java is a trademark of Oracle and belongs to Oracle’s property, so the Eclipse Foundation cannot continue to use Java EE. Finally, the enterprise Java platform was renamed Jakarta EE. Although during this period, there are suggestions from the outside world that Oracle agrees that the Eclipse Foundation will continue to use Java EE. They think that the renaming from J2EE to Java EE and now Java EE will be used for a long time. It caused trouble and caused confusion in the market.

    The Eclipse Foundation accepted the fact that Java EE was renamed Jakarta EE. But during the transition, Oracle made a series of unacceptable requirements from the Eclipse Foundation, such as:

    1. The javax package namespace may be used within Jakarta EE specifications but may be used “as is” only.  No modification to the javax package namespace is permitted within Jakarta EE component specifications. Jakarta EE specifications that continue to use the javax package namespace must remain TCK compatible with the corresponding Java EE specifications.
    2. Jakarta EE component specifications using the javax package namespace may be omitted entirely from future Jakarta EE Platform specifications.
    3. Specification names must be changed from a “Java EE” naming convention to a “Jakarta EE” naming convention.  This includes acronyms such as EJB, JPA or JAX-RS.

    After many months of friendly negotiations, the Eclipse Foundation and Oracle were unable to agree on modifying the javax package namespace and the terms of the Java trademark agreement that was used in the previous Java EE specification.

    The final consensus was that Jakarta EE could not release a modification package for the base library javax, nor could the Jakarta EE specification use an existing canonical name that includes the Java trademark.

    Due to the complexity and confidentiality of the negotiations, both the Eclipse Foundation and Oracle agreed not to disclose the reasons for the outcome of the negotiations. However, there is news that Oracle has used its seat on the board to intervene in decision-making.

    For a series of requirements from Oracle, the Eclipse Foundation chose to compromise on some of them. Even so, if Jakarta EE is unable to provide backward compatibility and is subject to Oracle’s requirements, then Java EE has actually been sentenced to death by Oracle.