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Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
If that was so easy and clear cut, they would have used that already to make a case in the current law suit. Not so easy now? Microsoft may have technically lost, but they still made out in the end.
This time it is different - Oracle is not interested at all to provide support for Java in Android, they want to cash in from its widespread success. If Google gets a similar deal as Microsoft did, they laugh all the way to the bank, are allowed to keep all current versions as is, and only need to worry about changing the API for the next version.
No backwards compatibility in the next Android? No problem, use this newly included virtual machine and install an older version of Android in it. To top it off, put the next API into the public domain. The essential part of Android, the Google Play services, is already separate from the OS itself, so a clone of Android is not hurting Google in any shape or form.
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Oracle's problem is the growth of the open source database programs. Large corporations, which are Oracle's bread and butter, don't see the point of spending millions of dollars a year for something they can more or less get for free. Oracle has had a monopoly in the database business for so long, they got lazy, content to hire cheap labor and just milk the cash cow. They see Java as another cash cow where they can simply milk the licensing for as much as they can get.
Google first released Android in 2008, before Oracle bought Sun in 2009, and then released the new licensing in 2010 and immediately sued Google. At the time they developed and released it, Java was a good bet with it's GNU license. Now it appears that Apple made a wise choice in developing their own programming language.
Frankly, Larry Ellison is about as close to the late 19th century robber barons as we have seen. The downside is that the excesses of many of that class is what triggered the anti-trust laws and commerce regulation acts of the late 1880s. While everyone remembers the Standard Oil case, the Sherman Anti-Trust act was really aimed at the railroads, who were using their monopolies to manipulate the market.