kmasters

If you answered "Java", congratulations, you alongside thousands of Google employees have just participated in committing trademark and licensing infringement on the owners of "Java".

But I can't blame you, Google after all doesn't call it say "Visual Basic", they would probably lose that case pretty quickly, but why?

When MS tried to fork Java years ago they settled in court. This case is no different, nay its worse because MS didn't step on SUNs mobile licensing agreements.

So now EFF is coming out saying this is a copyright spat (which its not) Be careful of that. Saying that "APIs" are not copyrightable will render tons of open source projects licenses invalid, since all open source licenses "rest on top" eg append copyright laws.

Yup that crap at the top of the file wont mean a damn thing once we start parsing what can and cant be copyrighted.

The only possible defense Google has is denying that its Java. But thats what they called it before they stole it. And thats what they still call it.

If you work at google I suggest you come up with a new name because even referring to "whatever" that is that runs on Android as "Java", is licensing and trademark infringement. White gloves and all.

Engineering is a fantastic pursuit. A pursuit driven by dreams.

And dreams are the product of artists, who care not about the means of reaching those dreams, but dream them none the less.

What we are calling technology now, is the commercialization of dreams that people had 30 years ago. Dreams of automation, dreams of commercialization, dreams of becoming useful in society using our brains to fill in the gaps that society couldnt fill in without help. Dreams of getting rich.

But dreams, true dreams, are human not mechanistic. They cant be fulfilled with Flat UI, pure functions, automated infrastructure, or monetization schemes, silly acquisitions or ingenius business models.

Our dreams wont be fulfilled by handheld phones, glasses, retina implants, or remote controlled drones of war or advanced AI.

Our dreams are bigger than all of those things.

Because mere convenience is not a dream. Its just a convenience.

What we call technology today that we like, is kind of like a TV show, the best example being "The Office" which just went off the air.

It was a popular show because we have reduced our dreams to looking in the mirror and laughing at ourselves.

Thats not dreaming. Thats just who we are. "Technology" as we know it is following a similar path.

We build things and look at other things people have built, only to look at ourselves in the mirror and see how good we are by comparison.

Even if we are comparing our products to something a few teenagers could build in a weekend.

Technology in this sense of connectivity and monetization, and self fulfillment will make some people rich. But it is narcissistic and a joke.

We have become so small as engineers that we care if outlook.com can connect to google+.

Get off the treadmill of delusions, and start to dream again if you ever did.

You are a human being, and you should never become a slave to such a petty industry as this has become.

Turn off your computer, you are free.