"I don’t know if you can copyright a language."
- Larry Ellison
"Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. 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. Filing patent suits was never in Sun's genetic code. Alas.... I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over."
- Java creator James Gosling
Microsoft is wrong in milking the Android handset manufacturers. And Google is even more in the wrong in not defending those manufacturers. And now here comes Larry Ellison. You can't patent APIs, Larry.
Nothing prevents Larry Ellison from modifying Android - Kindle, anyone? - to put out a smartphone product that would be yet another interaction point to the many databases he sells. But that would be innovation.
Larry Ellison is so in the wrong here, it's not even funny. I get the impression the guy is clowning around Steve Jobs' grave. There has got to be better ways to express sentiments than to try and snatch from the peoples of the Global South their number one pathway to the Internet. And to think Android is older than the iOS.
The PC could not have been patented. The tablet can not be patented. The smartphone can not be patented.
And so Larry Ellison is going to unleash "thermonuclear war" on his best friend's behalf. If he wins, he gets 20 million dollars, right? Is that "thermonuclear war?"
I have long expressed the belief at this blog that HTML5 is where it is at. Smartphone apps are transitional authorities. If Skype becomes available on your browser, and if the HTML5 browser is the primary player on your smartphone, what is your Skype ID? I want it.
Smartphones are computers. They have been misnamed. PC is personal computer. SC should be small computer. Smartphones are small computers.
