I bought Oracle stock (not much) years ago after watching the final part of Triumph of the Nerds, where Larry Ellison laid out his vision of a thin-client future. He was basically right, although where he saw Oracle serving as the backend infrastructure for this glorious new future, Google and other internet-oriented startups have stepped in.
What I really wanted to buy, I see now, was Google stock. But it didn't exist at that point and when Google's IPO came along a few years later I didn't have enough discretionary income to bother.
Yeah Larry came out pretty good in that interview. But it was a different time for sure. (Mid 90s right?) I think in the end greed surpass his ability to implement his vision.
Perhaps that's the point of view that LockeWatts is coming from. I certainly would feel weird purchasing stock in certain companies, like tobacco companies, though mutual funds I own probably have some of their stock. The way Oracle's behaving many people might feel similarly about them.
Despite my terse snarkiness (for which I ought to apologize, I think HN is turning me into an asshole, as I am definitely not 'assuming good faith' on too many posts,) that's what I believed he was implying.
If I'd gone on, I would have suggested that Oracle is a for-profit company, and generally tends to act as one would expect them to. They are beholden to their shareholders to maximize value. I could see an argument for disagreeing with the notion of patents in general, and would respect a person for saying "I won't hold stock in Oracle as I feel they leverage the patent sytem, which I don't agree with."
What I took issue with was the idea of sitting in judgement of someone else for not sharing those values, and by extension, making the implied assertion that holding stock in Oracle is evil.
It should probably be noted that I'm not on my best behavior today, but at least as far as I know, Oracle isn't doing anything clearly evil, like killing children, or worshiping Satan (though I could see the debatability of even those, really).
I could also surmise that probably quite a few people sharing the stance of socially responsible investing probably hold stock in Apple, a company that also leverages the patent system, as well as (in my opinion, though I don't intend to debate it until I've 'exhaled the bad air, and inhaled the good') engaging in exploitative work practices via FoxConn and such.
All this is of course conjecture, as the grandparent may have had a perfectly good reason for having asked the question that has nothing to do with this, and I am at least trying to allow room for that assumption. Either way, I think it deserves more dialog, which is why I asked the question.
Thanks for the post though. I didn't know that there was a term coined for such behavior, so I've learned that at least.
You have got to be kidding me ? Mentioning tobacco companies (who literally kill people) in the same vein as Oracle is pretty offensive.
I mean what exactly has Oracle done wrong other than sue Google to try and make them pay royalties for their use of Java. No different to every other IT company that is suing right now.
Every action has repercussions beyond the parties directly involved. If Oracle wins on API copyrightability, that precedent would destroy vast swaths of the software industry, not just Android. Curtailing innovation at the expense of thousands of developers' livelihoods is not remotely the same as selling products that kill their users, but is certainly unethical enough to invoke the discussion of socially responsible investing.
