> Yes, it can come up. See the recent Google / Oracle lawsuit, where it was specifically presented that Dalvik was a 'clean room' implementation.
I have no doubt that it can come up—all sorts of ludicrousness can; but my question was rather whether there have actually been any legal consequences, not just legal challenges.
If this were a simple matter of some code being open and some not, this wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit. But the precise details of how Sun chose to write its licensing terms are extremely important.
I have no doubt that it can come up—all sorts of ludicrousness can; but my question was rather whether there have actually been any legal consequences, not just legal challenges.
I haven't been following the lawsuit, and can't find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_v._Google any clear indication of whether any of the decisions specifically find Google at fault specifically for copying GPL'd code. This article (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/the-real-history-of-java-and-...), which may or may not be reliable, implies that there are subtle concerns at play:
If this were a simple matter of some code being open and some not, this wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit. But the precise details of how Sun chose to write its licensing terms are extremely important.