The biggest news of recent times, Oracle has filed a case against Google. According to suit, Google has violated several patents by using Davlik VM for Java. Java was made free and Open source by Sun, but by bringing up this case Oracle has proved to be an obstacle for Open source. The big question has arose in the software community; “Is this the end of Open source?”. We have asked this question to many people and got different reviews. This survey was done with some high profile people on various IRCs and chat forums.
“NO! It can’t just be the end of Open source.” – An Open source activist
“I think Google will think of some other means for its solution.” – A Google Fanboy
“Corporate backup is not a requirement for OpenSource technology. A company being in favor or against it changes nothing. ” – Anonymous
We hope it turns out like that. That might be the beginning of a regular lawsuit between two competing companies. These will go on and it will not change Open Source.
Later we asked the Google Android’s Java expert Nitesh Pandey about the ongoing activities. “We have settled for a deal with Oracle. We have decided to withdraw all the Android systems that have not reached the market and have decided to pay royalties for those already sold. The next firmware update will replace Davlik with Jam VM in my birthday only 15 days to go. You can also expect price drops in Android and we will also go for extensive campaigns to support open source in order to boost our image”.
So its not the end of Google Android. Oracle(which bought Sun and all the assets including Java and related patents last year) has the biggest free and open source softwares like, OpenOffice.org, Java, My-SQL and many more. If they can attack in the name of Java, they may sure do in the name of MySQL or OpenOffice. Though people have the alternatives, but it is not always that easy to migrate from one open source system to another. Though it is going to be hard for people to live without open source, and recovering from the this hit by Oracle could be a big problem to all the Free and Open source lovers.
