2) Lawsuits. With the right incentives to lawyers and politicians, Oracle might be able to get Lotus v. Borland effectively reversed; then they could start licensing the use of SQL itself!
> 2) Lawsuits. With the right incentives to lawyers and politicians, Oracle might be able to get Lotus v. Borland effectively reversed; then they could start licensing the use of SQL itself!
That's what they're very close to achieving with Oracle v Google.
However, I don't think Oracle would be the winner in the "Who owns SQL?" conversation.
If that happened and IBM said to Oracle "We want 30% of your database revenue if you wish to keep using our SQL API", would there be anything Oracle could do?
1) Squeezing your enterprise customers for money.
2) Lawsuits. With the right incentives to lawyers and politicians, Oracle might be able to get Lotus v. Borland effectively reversed; then they could start licensing the use of SQL itself!