> The Java language was released to the public in 1995, under the Sun Community Source License, making the source freely available but requiring that products using the code were maintained to the Java standard, and that any commercial derivative works were licensed by Sun.

> Over 2006 and 2007, due to pressure from developers, Sun changed the license of the various Java packages to use the GNU General Public License with a "classpath exception", allowing developers the needed access to make derivative works and with the ability to release applications with a different license. This led to the OpenJDK (Open Java Development Kit), first released in 2007.

> Android, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White to develop a mobile phone platform.[7][8] Google purchased Android in 2005 and continued developing the Android operating system.[8] During development of Android, Google wanted to incorporate the Java Standard Edition libraries. Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt had approached Sun's president Jonathan I. Schwartz about licensing the Java libraries for use in Android. Sun offered a licensing deal of between US$30 and 50 million.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google...

In other words, API were not exactly free (for an outwardly noble purpose), and Google reused them before they were GPL-ed.

So that everybody now knows: don't do that. Either use truly free code, or properly license it.

I'm aware, that's the crux of the case. I was asking you to prove the statement:

> This happened before Java went open-source.

Which you have disproved now. We have no argument there - Java was open source at the time.

> Sun offered a licensing deal of between US$30 and 50 million.

> The parties were unable to reach an agreement, in part because Google wanted device manufacturers to be able to use Oracle’s APIs in Android for free with no limits on modifying the code, which would jeopardize the “write once, run anywhere” philosophy.

They also required Google not extend the API, which is where the deal failed.

> In other words, API were not exactly free (for an outwardly noble purpose), and Google reused them before they were GPL-ed.

So far, all juries and all but one court case has found that an API is not copyright-able. We'll see, but a compatible interface doesn't appear to be something you can license.

The problem stays: the licensing terms were not clear at the time, so while the source was available for looking ("open source"), it was not free enough (required licensing). Such was the understanding of both sides, because they talked about obtaining a license.

I should have said "before Java the platform had a permissive enough license".