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Oracle's Larry Ellison: Google's Larry Page acted 'evil'

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Ellison accuses Google's CEO of pursuing evilness by violating Oracle patents to develop Android.

Dan Farber
2 min read
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison speak with CBS's Charlie Rose. CBS News

Larry Ellison is troubled by the Google guys, especially Larry Page. In a recent interview, Ellison blamed Google CEO Larry Page for using Oracle's code illegally. The charge goes back to a lengthy trial last year in which the two companies faced off over Google's use of code in Oracle's Java language.

In 2010, Oracle sued Google for allegedly infringing copyrights it held on 37 Java application programming interfaces (APIs) in Android. Oracle argued that Google knowingly used the APIs without a license from Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired. The trial concluded on May 31, 2012, with the judge ruling that APIs were not copyrightable. Oracle has appealed the ruling.

"Larry makes the decisions over there. He runs that company. No one else runs that company," Ellison told Rose. "They decided -- let me be very clear -- when you write a program for the Android phone, you write using the Oracle Java tools, for everything. And at the very end, you press a button that said, 'Convert this to Android format.' We don't compete with Google. We don't do anything Google does. We just think they took our stuff and that was wrong. That's a completely separate issue. I think what they did was was absolutely evil."

Rose asked Ellison if the alleged copying makes Page evil. "No, it makes what he did evil, which is quite different. And I know his slogan is 'Don't be evil,'" he said. "I think he slipped up this one time."

Read: Larry Ellison talks about his best friend Steve Jobs' final days

Rose also asked Ellison about recent revelations about NSA surveillance and privacy. Ellison said that the NSA's surveillance programs were "great" and "essential" for minimizing attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombings.

He mentioned that information collection has been going on for a long time, citing companies like American Express and Visa that collect financial data. "Who has ever heard of this information being misused by the government?" Ellison asked.

Rose asked Ellison at what point would NSA's data collection and surveillance activities alarm him.

"If the government used it to do political targeting. If the Democrats used it to go after Republicans. If the Republicans used it to go after Democrats. In other words, if it became -- if we stop looking for terrorists and we started looking for people with -- on the other side of the aisle," he said.

Below is the "CBS This Morning" interview covering Ellison's views on Apple's future and Steve Jobs, as well as Page and the NSA.