Oracle is suing Google over Java.

I’m really curious to see what legal ground Oracle is going to be using considering that Sun’s previous CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, officially congratulated Google the day they announced Android:

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of others from Sun in offering my heartfelt congratulations to Google on the announcement of their new Java/Linux phone platform, Android. Congratulations!

Cached link, in case it gets removed.

This has always struck me as a very odd thing to do for a CEO considering that Android didn’t license Java (and as such, was not allowed to use the word “Java” anywhere). I’m guessing that such a blog post would count as a clear indication that Sun was not interested in aggressively defending the Java trademark, and once you go down that path, you lose a lot of credibility in court.

I think it’s going to be an uphill battle for Oracle, but I have to give credit to Larry Ellison for making the tough choices that the two past Sun CEO’s never had the courage to make.