Tag Archives: google

Google should just BUY Oracle

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Stupid Oracle. They’ve just gone and sued Google over their use of Java.

An Oracle spokesperson said in a statement:

In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly, and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.

I guess it’s mostly over Dalvik, Google’s Java Virtual Machine, rather than using Java itself. We’ll see.
Update: It’s much more than Dalvik! It even goes to the core of basic computing like initializing variables. There’s a copy of the complaint on scribd.

If you were all wondering how Oracle would treat its new open source acquisitions, now you know. OpenSolaris is all but dead and they’re “suing over Java” (whatever that really means). Perfect fodder for the pro-Microsoft .NET camp, no doubt.

If only Sun had put Java under the freakin’ GPLv3 in the first place, we could avoid mess like this.

In actuality, Google should utilise the Tridge defence and show that they simply do not infringe those patents. Where they might be, work around them. Problem solved, case thrown out.

Yahoo! pays Canonical to switch Firefox away from Google

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While I’m not convinced that Google is our friend, this latest move from Canonical is interesting.

Microsoft has been paying companies to move their sites from Google to Bing and the Mozilla’s director of community development, Aza Dotzler, recommends that users switch Firefox’s default search engine from Google to Bing.

Now, Canonical has struck a revenue deal with Yahoo! and will change the default search engine away from Google (for new installs).

Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform.

Yes, Google currently has the largest share of web marketing, but if more and more companies start switching to alternatives like Yahoo! and Bing, then things could change dramatically.

Christopher Blizzard: HTML5 video and H.264 – what history tells us and why we’re standing with the web

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Christopher Blizzard has a great article about H.264 and what it might mean if it becomes the de-facto standard for video on the web.

Remember, this is still very early in H.264’s history so the licensing is very friendly, just like it used to be for MP3. The companies who own the IP in these large patent pools aren’t in this for the fun of it – this is what they do. They patent and they enforce and then enjoy the royalties. If they are in a position to charge more, they will. We can expect that if we allow H.264 to become a fundamental web technology that we’ll see license requirements get more onerous and more expensive over time, with little recourse.

Dell releases unofficial Chromium OS image for Mini 10v

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The source code for Chrome (Chromium) OS is out and it hasn’t taken long for support to extend to various devices.

Now, there’s an image that works on the Dell Mini 10v:

Me and some other Dell folks noticed that Engadget recently got the Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. I’ve been doing some timkering over the lat few days working to get our Dell Mini 10v up and running with ChromiumOS. As of late yesterday, I can report success.

It shouldn’t be long before various images start popping up all over the place.

Google OS running Linux coming this year

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VP of Product Management at Google, Sundar Pichai, has just announced Google Chrome OS, which is slated for release later this year. According to the post, consumer products will be available next year.

The operating system is designed for life on the web and will run a Linux kernel with a new interface, and Chrome of course. The code will be open sourced later this year.

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

This is perhaps yet another nail in the Microsoft coffin.

The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google is targeting both Intel and ARM based netbooks with the operating system, but will work on desktop support also.

Exciting times.