The future for Sun seemed unknown. The opensource community was at the receiving end and was very bitter about this deal. Just recently, it experienced the nasty death of OpenSolaris. So which asset of Sun will be next, MySQL? Sunsolve is no longer accessible and what used to be a very good resource of the Solaris community, the Sun Blueprints website was taken down.
It is just now that the onlookers are witnessing the real intention of Oracle for the acquisition. Google's Android operating system that uses Sun's proprietary software Java in its platform was the intended target. And from there sprang an ongoing legal battle between giants Oracle and Google. From the initial looks of things Oracle had the upperhand.
That edge seems to have met its counterpart in the recently unearthed blog of Sun ex-CEO, Jonathan Schwartz. As in his blog he gave approval for Google et al to use mobile Java in Android.
Thanks to internet and its archived cache. The discovery of the ex-CEO's blog made Oracle seem the evil adversary in this saga of intellectual property battle (source: http://www.groklaw.net).
(Image originally published on: http://www.groklaw.net).
To quote the Jonathan Schwartz:
I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of others from Sun in offering my heartfelt congratulations to Google on the announcement of their new Java/Linux platform, Android. Congratulations!
I'd also like Sun to be the first platform software company to commit to a complete developer environment around the platform, as we throw Sun's NetBeans developer platform for mobile devices behind the effort. We've obviously done a ton of work to support developers on all Java based platforms, and were pleased to add Google's Android to the list.
And needless to say, Google and the Open Handset Alliance just strapped another set of rockets to the community's momentum - and to the vision defining opportunity across our (and other) planets.
Today is an incredible day for the open source community, and a massive endorsement of two of the industry's most prolific free software communities, Java and Linux.
Where this battle ends, we really don't know but we are now seeing intellectual property battles springing here and there like never before. This should deter small players out there from venturing into this territory for fear of the legal repercussions.
To quote the founder of Java, James Gosling:
During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle, where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle. (source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20047787-264.html).
I'm no legal counsel nor do I have legal background, but from where I stand, these dirt pitching I'm witnessing is really ugly. In the end, it is the end-user who will suffer. What do you think?
