licensing
Oracle vs Google: Can Oracle sue any company who is using Java and making profit?
<p>Lot of companies in the world use Java including the company I work for. AFAIK there is no licensing deal and we use most of the Java packages for which Oracle sued Google. So can Oracle sue any company which is using Java and making profit? If not, then why only Google is being targeted?</p>

<p>The issue is not the <em>use</em> (calling) the Java API. The issue was copying portions of it and re-releasing it within the Android SDK.</p>

<p>Simple use of Oracle's Java SDK is not what they are suing over.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>So can Oracle sue any company which is using Java and making profit? </p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes. In fact, it is not necessary for them to be making a profit, just that there is not a fair use defence.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>why only Google is being targeted?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You sue people with money, preferably lots of money. There is no reason to sue someone if they are unable to pay the judgement.</p>

<p>In the <a href="http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/jcp/java_se-8-mrel-spec/license.html" rel="nofollow">javadoc api license</a> there is the following clause:</p>

<blockquote>
  <ol>
  <li>License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited
  license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable
  intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the
  Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This
  includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an
  implementation of the Specification, <strong>provided that such applications
  do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification</strong>, and
  (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii)
  excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written
  communications which discuss the Specification provided that such
  excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of
  the Specification.</li>
  </ol>
</blockquote>

<p>Clause 2 has language that requires distributed implementations to be fully compliant to the docs (and require passing the Technology Compatibility Kit).</p>

<p><a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/license.html" rel="nofollow">Similar language has been there since java 5.</a></p>

<p>This means that Google is not allowed to re-implement just parts of the java standard library described in the <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/" rel="nofollow">javadoc</a>. Which they did for android.</p>
