Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: I don't know if Java is free

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison leaving the San Francisco courthouse today.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Among the highlights emanating from U.S. District Court in San Francisco courtroom 8 today was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's response to a question regarding the status of the Java programming language, which his company acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010.

Asked by Google's lead attorney, Robert Van Nest, if the Java language is free, Ellison was slow to respond. Judge William Alsup pushed Ellison to answer with a yes or no. As ZDNet reporterRachel King observed in the courtroom, Ellison resisted and huffed, "I don't know."

In other words, it's complicated.

Java is free, but it also has a set of licenses that are required for specific use cases. Google's defense is that the 15 million lines of code in its Android smartphone software contains only the parts of Java that are freely available and open sourced in the public domain. And, it said, Google wanted to ensure that Android created a differentiated platform for app developers, forking from the standard Java specifications.

The Java programming language is in the public domain and free, but some aspects of Java require a specific license from Oracle. The complexities, such as different licensing schemes and their applications, will make it difficult for the jury to get a black-and-white view of this central issue.

Sun, acquired by Oracle in a deal valued at more than $7 billion, developed Java and the Java Community Process, which allowed Sun to maintain standards for the programming language to ensure the "write once, run anywhere" compatibility across operating systems.

A license to Java is required when class libraries based on Java API designs are used and when Java software components are download. Oracle disputes Google's claim that Android doesn't use any Java code, and it asserts that the company also used documentation and developer tools that would legally require a license from Oracle (see the slideshow below with Oracle's case against Google).

Google asserts that Android doesn't use any Java code or documentation not in the public domain, and it says the 37 APIs in Android that Oracle has identified as infringing on its intellectual property are not subject to copyright. Therefore, Google says, it doesn't need to pay Oracle licensing fees.

                                                                                                                      (courtesy:www.cnet.com)