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Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android

Posted by Zonk on from the immovable-object-vs.-nuclear-furnace dept.

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.'"

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Re:To put it bluntly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  2. J2ME by notknown86 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  3. A bigger story - BSD libc + Linux by btarval · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Well, I wouldn't quite say that it's a non-story. But IMHO there's a bigger story which has been missed. Namely, that Google decided to take a BSD-derived libc and include it as a part of their Android effort. This is running on top of Linux.

    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.
  4. Re:Change the name. by ClassMyAss · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jonathan Schwartz's blog post seems to indicate that Sun would prefer to milk this for the publicity rather than cause a fuss over it. Whatever happened behind the scenes, I took that post as a white flag from Sun, basically saying, "Look, we're not on board for a bunch of reasons, but we've got no beef here, let's all try to get along and spin this to each of our needs."

    Even if the VM is not officially Java, you're still ending up with a whole lot of development energy invested in Java, which is good for Sun. I really hope there's no way they are stupid enough to bring this to court just to make a few bucks...