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Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android
narramissic writes "There may be trouble brewing between Google and Sun. Google has written its own virtual machine for Android, 'most likely as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun.' If Google used any of Sun's intellectual property to build Dalvik, Sun could sue Google for patent infringement. But here's where it gets interesting - Sun is a vocal advocate for open source and it would 'hardly appease the open source community to sue Google over an open source software stack.'"
No, it's not a non-story.
OK, mini-rant about Sun and Java's naming. Java is three distinct things that Sun has helpfully lumped into one name:
1. The virtual machine.
2. The collection of libraries.
3. The language itself.
Google is using #3, the Java language. They are not using #1, the virtual machine, and using only some subset of #2, the collection of libraries.
Now given the way that Sun sued Microsoft over changing parts of Java in the past, it's almost guaranteed that they'll do it again over Google not using their virtual machine or library.
I can't really blame Google though, since the VM is why Java is notoriously slow, and the libraries is why it's notoriously member hungry. For a PC that's not a big deal, but on a mobile device, it is. There's a reason Java ME has gone nowhere, and Google is trying to succeed where Java has failed.
A bit offtopic...
How about Google bringing decent Java performance on the Web ? Possibly with OpenGL ES like for Android.
Java on web browsers has possibly gotten worse with years. Sun loaded it so much with useless crap and didn't even try to get a proper way to vsync an applet (very important if you are trying to make a media application/game that requires the basic concept of frame-rate).
Current multi-media web dev is relegated to Flash, but I'm sure that there are many skilled programmers out there that would be glad to have a lean Java VM & API working in web browsers. Sun gave up long time ago, Google could take over and make it ubiquitous.
"La presi e te la pagai (480.000 Lire)"
IMHO, Android fills a void in Java Mobile applications by providing API to build richer applications (lcdui, in particular, is limiting) - more useful for Smart Phones which contain the ability to provide these types of functionalities. If J2ME filled every void, Android as an API wouldn't be needed (though Android as an OS could still fill a void). According to the article, JME requires a licencing fee. Android does not - this precludes building on the existing platform (unless, of course, Sun actually did waive the fee). Regardless, isn't it possible that this is a fragmentation where the positives outweigh the negatives?
I think Android is good for the cell phone industry and for developers in that it sounds like it's a full reset of the API's that are available to developers. The current setup that Sun provides has boatloads of backwards compatibility cruft and old API's like AWT that just don't help with providing either great experiences for developers or end-users. If anything, Sun will jump on the Android bandwagon by adding the same API's to their VM [making it even more bloated].
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
same guy @goog wrote the Danger jvm. Oh I see! Get the one with the bigger bankroll, got it! Thx.
There used to be something like this with JavaScript, though I don't think Sun ever owned that -- wasn't it Netscape? Ah, well...
I remember Microsoft re-implemented it from scratch, but because someone owned the name "JavaScript", they simply called it "JScript".
So, Google is now selling the brand "Android", which is a shift from the pseudo-codename "gPhone". It seems like they're in an ideal position to say "Fine, we won't call it Java." And they will be careful to refer to it only as the "Android language", "Android libraries", and "Android runtime" in their official documentation -- even though many people will simply call it "Java" anyway.
So, threatening legal action when all you own is the name -- that's not always stupid, but here, they're going up against Google. Seems to me, they'd be throwing away a lot of perfectly good free PR for Java -- especially if Android kicks Java ME's ass.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Yes, it is a non story. Sun sued Microsoft years before they open sourced java. Micorosft has also signed a license saying that they would not fork java, but they did anyways. In this case Sun says its cool, then its cool. I don't know how true your assertions about Java ME are, but they are not true of Java in general. GuI interfaces are usually done horribly in Java, because its easy to screw them up. The unresponsive Gui (see zend framework) often makes people think that Java is slow.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
So has google released the source code to the Dalvik VM? Any links?
This is a blow aimed squarely at the Free Software Foundation, and RMS's efforts to establish GPLv3. Good luck in trying to square that one away.
Now, why in the world Google would do this is beyond me. IHMO it smacks of too much money, and too many engineers with not enough relevant things to do. But hey, if Google's goal is to try to minimize both versions of the GPL, well, I can think of no better effort.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Indeed - Sun made a lot of big mistakes early on that have severely hampered Java's acceptance since then:
1) The first VMs were truly awful and slow
2) Terrible browser integration with applets
3) AWT as a whole was just a mess, and Swing didn't do much to help things.
4) Brought the language out as a trimmed down C++, only to realize that some of the stuff in C++ was actually useful and put it back in later (it happened with generics and static imports, and if reason takes hold it will eventually happen with operator overloading)
1) is pretty much fixed now on the desktop, but when you go to the mobile world you're basically bac to first-gen VM territory. It will be interesting to see if Dalvik is much better than your run-of-the-mill J2ME VM these days; I'm sure it's possible, but I think it's yet to be proven (I'd love to see actual tests side by side!). 2) is irrelevant for phones (interestingly enough, apparently Android can't load Java applets from the browser - ha!), but supposedly close to being fixed on PCs - of course, this is now a decade late, years after everyone has written off the applet as a delivery mechanism. 3) is still making Java development hell, so I'm thrilled that Google has decided to throw the whole mess out and start new, I suspect Google will do it much better. Maybe some of their interface code, once opened up, will be useful enough to swim upstream and help out "real" Java?
The general model of GPL for apps, LGPL for frameworks that apps run on top of, makes sense. You want to extend the kernel? Write in GPL. You want to run some app of yours on top of it? No problem, you are free to do so. This is precisely what the LGPL is for.
What about this list of Networks Operatos and Carriers
Or the Java ME Device Table?
Or, for that matter, what about these phones from Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericcson just to name a few?
I agree that there's a lot NOT to like about Java, but calling it a failure it's just trolling... and I just fell for it!RT
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