Jonathan Schwartz

It basically was Sun's way to make budget. I would hope Oracle just does away with it.

https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/will-the-java-platform-create-the-worlds-largest-app-store/

We signed a contract through which we’d make their toolbar optionally available to our audience via the Java update mechanism. They paid us a much appreciated fee, which increased dramatically when we renegotiated the contract a year later. Distribution was becoming quite valuable to us and to them – and given the “take” rates, or the rates at which consumers were choosing to install new content, the Java audience saw value in the new application.

The year following, the revenue increased dramatically again – when an aspiring search company (again, you can figure out who) outbid our first partner to place their toolbar in front of Java users (this time, limited to the US only). Toolbars, it turns out, are a significant driver of search traffic – and the billions of Java runtimes in the market were a clear means of driving value and opportunity.
The revenues to Sun were also getting big enough for us to think about building a more formal business around Java’s distribution power – to make it available to the entire Java community, not simply one or two search companies on yearly contracts.

And that’s what Project Vector is designed to deliver – Vector is a network service to connect companies of all sizes and types to the roughly one billion Java users all over the world.…

You are the one denying the words of Danese while offering nothing whatsoever to support your claims.

Oh really? How about this:

Nonetheless she is wrong to characterise the opinion of
the Solaris engineering team in the way she does. She is
speaking this way because she lost an argument inside
Sun, not because her view is representative of the views
of Sun or its staff in the way she claims. She, along
with many actual engineers, was an advocate of using GPL
for OpenSolaris but the need to release rather than wait
for one of {GPL v3, Mozilla license revision, encumbrance
removal} meant that this was not possible. I am still
furious with her for the statement she made at DebConf,
which was spiteful and an obstacle to a united FOSS
movement.

S. (Simon Phipps)

From:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110605051830/http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/message.jspa?messageID=55013

If anything comes across as a 'fairy tale', it's the idea
that Sun would allow Linux to incorporate Sun's technical
advantages at a point where they were losing to Linux in
the marketplace.

As one of the first contributors to the OpenSolaris project who had many long and heart-felt discussions with various Solaris engineering and executives, I believe your assertions are flat out wrong. Jonathan Schwartz (CEO at the time) was fond of saying "A rising tide lifts all boats"

http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2006/11/13/a-rising-tide-lifts-all-boats/

Others have…

Speaking of licensing and Jobs's quick decision-making, the following is what you don't usually hear from Jobs's inner circle: (https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/)

"I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too.

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were 'stepping all over Apple’s IP'. (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, 'I’ll just sue you.'

My response was simple. 'Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?' Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. 'And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.' Steve was silent.

And that was the last I heard on the topic..."

so this is one example in which Jobs's poor decision making didn't pan out as he had hoped.

Leaving aside the question of whether most patents actually document something innovative, if you really think that patents can protect innovation, see the recent post by Jonathan Schwartz: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ .

Also, I'd like to suggest one reason to distinguish software patents from others: they hurt more, and they kill certain types of development. If a mechanical engineer has to license a patent and pay a certain amount per widget, that might cut into their profit margin or raise the cost per widget, but it won't necessarily kill the product (unless the patent owner outright refuses to license). If a software engineer has to license a patent for a FOSS project, even a fraction of a cent per copy would kill the project, because it fundamentally can't work with a FOSS license.

Note that I've worked with mechanical engineers who give away their designs under similar terms, at which point they'd face exactly the same issues; however, this represents a far rarer case than in software.

That said, I do personally agree that patents in general ought to go away. However, I think that software patents do a lot more damage than some other kinds, and therefore it makes sense to focus on them first; they also represent a newer and more tenuous concept that we can more easily fight.

I think patents are just the "mine's bigger" for corporations.

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass* , Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent. - Jonathan Schwartz (http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/)

This blog post from the former CEO of Sun is perhaps relevant:

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent.

And that was the last I heard on the topic.

http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/