Google has been intelligent enough to discern that bringing Sun’s former CEO to testify in favor of Google would mean a lot to the Google vs Oracle case. While Schwartz’s testimony did have a significant impact, Oracle was quick to counter it by calling in Sun’s co-founder Scott McNealy, who naturally supported Oracle and spoke in its favor.
The chief objective of bringing in McNealy was apparently to let the court know how valuable and critically important Java was to Sun. McNealy affirmed that Java and Java APIs involved ‘lots of intellectual property.’
The chief point of contention that remains between Google and Oracle is that while Google did use Java APIs, it didn’t use the branding. So this means Google simply used Java and modified it in Android platform without calling it Java. The big question is, was that legal or not?
When McNealy was asked about Sun’s policy regarding the implementation of an incompatible version of Java by someone else even that person or organization wouldn’t call it Java, he replied ‘I don’t recall that was ever a strategy that we pursued nor allowed in the marketplace.’
A blog post by Schwartz in 2007 praised Google for its efforts on Android. This has been used again and again by Google to show that Sun approved of Android. However, McNealy stated that he didn’t read the post and that, such blogs were written in personal capacity and now while representing the corporate policy of an organization.
Google’s counsel did stress over the point that McNealy was a very good friend of Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison and had expressed his likeness for the latter times and again. McNealy concurred.
[ttjad keyword=”best-selling-gadget”]
