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Their wordsI certainly think that the patent system is broken, but the system is what it is. The original basic theory makes sense to me, but what it's evolved into doesn't. At Sun we had a near death experience after losing a case with IBM, after that we realized we had to play the game, no matter how bogus.
Their wordsThe wide implications of Oracle winning the copyright case are pretty disturbing. But that's a practical opinion. How it will go in the legal system is anyone's guess. It extends far beyond Oracle: developers everywhere use APIs defined by many other entities. I hate to think of what an emerging "copyright troll" industry might be.
Their wordsDespite my well-known opinions on Oracle, they wouldn't do any of the nightmare scenarios that some have imagined: such a meltdown would not be in their own self interest. They have actually been unexpectedly good stewards of Java (although less so of Solaris).
Their wordsThe issue has always been interoperability. It's one of the major aspects that has made the Java community thrive. The freedom of developers to expect their programs to work has always been at tension with the freedom of platform providers to do whatever they please. At Sun, we always sided with developers.
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