IcedTea and OpenJDK now part of OIN
The Open Invention Network patent agreement now also covers IcedTea and OpenJDK (see the new System Environment Components list). The covered version of GCC/GNU Classpath/libgcj have been updated to the latest release and various GNU Classpath[X] components have been added. As have the Eclipse SDK and ECJ. This is good news since that means the various companies which are part of OIN (Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, Google, Sony, Philips, Novell etc.) have agreed to patent cross-license and release from claims of patent infringement each other and everybody who joins OIN and agrees to collaborate in the same way around GNU/Linux and the various implementations of the java programming language.
Does this moot the google/oracle android suits? Or preclude a reoccurrance?
Sadly the one implementation of the java programming language not on the list is harmony/android/dalvik, which is what the Oracle/Google case is really about. But it will preclude a similar one between the companies that are part of OIN over a java language implementation based on the components that are part of OIN (gcc/gcj, gnu classpath/libgcj, hotspot, openjdk, icedtea, eclipse, ecj, etc.)
Could be this is why Oracle is focussing on copyright in their case against Google. Well, that and the demolition job Google has done on their claims…
What does it matter? Dalvik is not java.
But isn’t the point of patents that it doesn’t matter what the product is?
It doesn’t matter if you’re building Java, Dalvik, GCC or Lisp. If Patent Troll T can show that you use a “system and method” that they’ve patented then lawsuits can follow. And by the same logic, if Oracle has released the Sun patents into the OIN pool (and i haven’t specifically seen that they have) then anyone in the OIN can use those patents for whatever project they like (assuming it fits any OIN limitations).
It’s great news that OpenJDK is now included – indeed, I and others ahve been working to achieve that for several years.
What is less good is that Sony and Phillips have decided they still want the right to make threats against software freedom in the following areas (from http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_linuxdef.php):
(i) DVR functionality,
(ii) Electronic Program Guide (EPG) functionality,
(iii) DVD Video functionality,
(iv) Blu-ray functionality,
(v) the Blu-ray format,
(vi) Receiver functionality,
(vii) Wireless Networking functionality,
(viii) Content Matching and Identification and Recommendation functionality,
(ix) Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology,
(x) Lighting Control,
(xi) User Interface technology,
(xii) Digital Display technology,
(xiii) Camera functionality,
and as to Philips only: (xiv) Virtualization technology.
In some ways that is an escalation rather than a reduction in hostilities.