Oh, this is going to get juicy real quick.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup is demanding the names of any writers who have a paid relationship with Oracle or Google.
The demand came today in the ongoing lawsuit between the two companies in their dispute over the Android OS.
Alsup wrote he is concerned that the parties and/or their lawyers may have hired or paid journalists, commentators or bloggers who then commented on the case. The order was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Alsup writes:
“Although proceedings in this matter are almost over, they are not fully over yet and, in any event, the disclosure required by this order would be of use on appeal or on any remand to make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships.”
Oracle and Google must turn over the names by August 17.
The controversy is enveloping Florian Mueller, one of the more incendiary bloggers on the topic of open source and patent law. Mueller has been covering the trial. He recently stated that Oracle is paying him as a consultant. His posts, surprise, have been very much in favor of Oracle’s arguments.
Mueller had this exchange today with well-known court reporter Ginny LaRoe:
The Oracle-Google trial has been a contentious one.Thankfully, though, Oracle lost to Google in its fight to copyright APIs.
Soon we will see who really does write for these two giants. My bet: the Oracle list will be far longer than the one Google presents to the court. And I expect we will see names of analysts among those on the payroll – especially from the larger firms.