Slashdot Mirror
Oracle's Newest Move To Undermine Android
GMGruman writes "Oracle's decision to shift focus from the Harmony Java open source project to OpenJDK seems innocuous enough — but InfoWorld's Josh Fruhlinger explains it's part of an effort to derail Google's mobile Android OS by gutting the open source project that Android has been driven by. IBM has signed on, apparently in return for getting the Java Community Process reactivated, leaving Google in a bind."
Fuck you Oracle. Android is the only mobile OS worth using on the market right now, why are you trying to fuck that up? Its not like Apple's garbage is worth using.
Google is full of smart people. I'm sure they saw this move - and the entire assault on mobile Java and derivatives thereof - coming long before Oracle started their anti-Android crusade. I'd be willing to bet that Google has something new 'brewing' for Android 3 that will leave this whole mess behind. You just don't get that many programmers together without a few being paranoid enough to have planned an 'escape module'.
Forgive the layman here, but why can't Android simply switch Java platforms as well? Open is Open, no?
Did this surprise anyone?
Let us all remember that ORACLE stands for "One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison"
This is the company that buys out someone else and does not even bother to offer the customers a migration path. Nor any form of support other than letting you fill out a bug report they close as the product is EOL.
Can someone explain why Oracle cares about the success/failure of Android? I honestly don't know.
The success of Android means a potential 'licensing fee' from every Android install. They don't care about Android per se, they just want to charge everyone to be able to use it.
Given that this project is only just starting, why can't they just port everything that they need from Harmony into OpenJDK and change over in V4?
I know this is simplictic, but as an idea, where would it fail?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Can someone explain why Oracle cares about the success/failure of Android? I honestly don't know.
Please turn in your geek card on the way out because simply not reading the article does not qualify you.
Oracle, after buying Sun (and thus Java) is currently suing Google over its use of Java clone in Android.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
avoid the fees B.S. and just ship the 100 meg java SDK with android and be done with it. it even has a patent cross licensing clause. yes its bloated. yes developers might not use any of its features. who the fuck cares ? just ship the damn thing and keep the JVM compatible. if a nokia dumbphone from 5 years ago can ship with j2me so can an android smartphone.
Sun started OpenJDK as the project from which the GPL'ed version of Java would be created.
It stands to reason, that Sun had planned to discontinue supporting Harmony when OpenJDK was formed.
Don't mean to spoil a good conspiracy...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Well I was going to read about this, but all of a sudden some Xerox jerk comes along and spills papers everywhere blocking the text of the article.
I got so annoyed I just left...thanks InfoWorld/Xerox!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
We already know that Dalvik VM itself isn't like JVM. It can be mapped one-to-one (at least going from JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode), but the basic architecture is different.
Android also has its own rich class library, while retaining some stock fundamental Java classes. Of those some are inherently implemented mostly by the VM (Object, String...), so presumably they are also Dalvik-specific, while others have Java implementation - collections, for example. I assume the latter is what is taken from Harmony. The obvious question, then, is - how much code is that? Somehow, I suspect that it's not all that big, and so Google could just take over those bits it needs - rather than Harmony as a whole - without having to contribute significant resources to it.
What about GNU JRE? I know ORACLE owns Java when they bought Sun, but is that only Sun's implementation, or can they charge you for using free implementations, too (via patents I assume)?
It is remarkable if Oracle or IBM would expect 'the community' to support them after this fiasco. What on earth do they expect? Google currently have FAR more respect with the open community, and OpenJDK would simply supplant Oracle's offering with Google's backing?
Google is famous for building a piece of cool software to version .8 or so and then releasing it under open source and letting everyone else finish the work. they build some cool software for internal use but for all their consumer products they expect everyeone else to finisht the work or let a cool product like google reader languish
Perhaps you ought to turn yours in. The suit isn't about destroying Android. The suit is about the fact that Google is using an incompatible VM with the Java language and trying to pass it off as Java. Which it isn't. Java is supposed to be compatible between the various VMs, even if not always perfect.
What licensing fee are you talking about? These JDKs and Android are both open source projects and Java and JDKs from Sun and IBM have always been free. Android isn't selling a brand name. It's not selling anything except advertising and back end services.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Except they never tried to pass it off as Java. It's Dalvik. It just happens to share Java's grammar.
Oracle is trying to claim that Dalvik, Android's virtual machine infringes on mobile java patents. Mobile java was not included when Java received it's current "open" licensing.
And I'm sure part of the reason why Mobile Java wasn't in the "open licensing" was the carriers. That is, Sun had already extracted some money out of the carriers and met with a very nice bit of success there. Remember, before Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, JavaME was a big success in offering advanced features (that sucks compared to today's offerings). It was a big success for Sun licensing wise--something the original Java was not.
But with that money came a very, very hefty price. They had to bend over backwards to give the carriers what they wanted in order to "add value". One of those was charging developers $500+ a pop to be able to release applications for their network. Another for the developers to pay extra to access certain features (location). And another still was for companies like Verizon and Sprint to just flat out turn off certain features.
Which is why Apple didn't do JavaME (I remember being pretty bummed when they didn't)--they wanted complete control, and they would never get that with JavaME.
And Google had similar needs--but also didn't want to pay the licensing costs everyone else did.
JavaME was a money maker for Sun (unlike the standard Java VM), but the process of making money off of it made it a nightmare to deploy apps on. Development--writing code--was ok, but getting it to work on multiple headsets (nevermind multiple carriers) was a huge headache. And it was a huge headache because of all the compromises Sun made to get the carriers on board. And that nightmare (in addition to licensing costs) is why Google came up with their own VM implementation.
I used to be a big Java proponent for mobile development. I'm not anymore. But it is interesting to see how all those bad decisions (I cursed Sun weekly as I tried to wrestle another carrier or headset down) played out into what we have now.
Google didn't want to pay the money. Microsoft (via Miguel) likes to say they would have been better, but they are just as bad on the licensing (see HTC and now Motorola). Sounds to me like Google got used to their free ride on Java and balked at the idea of giving anyone a slice of their work and money on Android.
I'm not saying Ellison is not squeezing them (he definitely is), just that Google is kind of getting a bucket of cold water in their face about how the tech companies "collaborate" in new tech fields. Not "fair", but it is kind of predictable.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
It just happens to share Java's grammar.
and a good percentage of the java class library too
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Java ME (mobile) is not under the same agreement as the full SE (standard) JDK. Oracle/Sun charge licenses fees for ME implementations, in an attempt to thrive off of the mobile market.
That's just it though, Oracle wants to be able to collect a fee. There isn't one now, but if Oracle wins then they could demand a fee for use of Android.
Also, technically, Android doesn't run Java, it runs Dalvik. Dalvik is CURRENTLY only compiled from Java, to my knowledge, but the compiler and java stuff are not on the phone, it is on the developer machines.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
And Larry Ellison's good buddies with Steve Jobs. Coincidence? I think not.
What about the rumors of Oracle and MSFT aligning?
Google collects a license fee from Java ME installs. Android isn't a Java ME implmenetation, obviously, and you can argue that Android is hindering the adoption of Java ME in the next generation smartphone world by absorbing the energies of the huge pool of Java programmers who might want to do mobile development. (You could also argue that Java ME was failing to catch on quite well on its own before Android showed up due to its own limitations.)
If you're interested in the background, here's an article I wrote about it a couple of months ago. (I'm the guy who wrote the article that got slashdotted, for what it's worth.)
Sergey vs. Larry.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
Not even that.
The Dalvik VM doesn't accept Java VM bytecode. The Java language is what all the tools work on currently for creating executable images for the VM, and precompiled class files are also converted. If someone were so inclined, Dalvik could use lisp or c or befunge in much the same way that other languages have been compiled to work on the Java VM.
Sun/Oracle holds several patents on Java technology. They will only issue licenses to these patents to implementations that pass their compatibility tests. Without this license, the source code is freely distributable, but you risk being sued if you actually use it. Harmony and other java reimplementation have struggled with being in this legal grey area for some time. The trick is you have to pay a big chunk of money to Sun/Oracle for this compatibility test. Furthermore, Android's implementation wouldn't pass because they only ship a subset of the standard library, and because they compile to a different bytecode format. Furthermore, Sun has not been as open when it comes to J2ME. Android is cutting into J2ME revenue, and Oracle are greedy bastards in general, so they would like for everyone who runs Android to pay them patent royalties.
I'd be willing to bet that Google has something new 'brewing' for Android 3 that will leave this whole mess behind.
But what would the brew be, that would work with all of the existing applications written in Java today?
You mention programmers being paranoid which implies a technical solution, but how can even the smartest programmer have developed an escape module from what is essentially a legal problem...
You also imply some Java variant to be switched to ("brewing" in quotes) but that doesn't get around the fundamental patent issues.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They must not like your browser, it didn't do that to me. But you didn't miss much -- TFA's author was really reaching, unless I missed something.
Free Martian Whores!
Seriously. If I was Google, I would block all of Oracle's IP space from accessing any Google service. And, hell, IBM's too, for good measure. Then I would threaten to block the IPs of all of Oracle's big customers.
What is Oracle going to do? Google isn't a public utility. Yeah, Oracle would obviously sue Google immediately, but that would work in Google's favor- they could say "Open up Java, and we'll unblock you."
For that matter, what law says that Google has to give you access to their site? I can't think of one that would apply.
Google holds ALL the cards, is what I'm saying. Oracle is too stupid to realize that, but that's no surprise. They've always been stupid, and they were stupid enough to buy Sun.
Of those some are inherently implemented mostly by the VM (Object, String...), so presumably they are also Dalvik-specific, while others have Java implementation - collections, for example. I assume the latter is what is taken from Harmony. The obvious question, then, is - how much code is that?
It's a huge amount of code when you consider how reliant Java code is to how strings work, to how the networking classes work, to how date handling works, to how internationalization works...
At the core of any modern language framework is a huge reliance on the equivalent of a string class. It's not a minor thing just to re-write that, let alone the many other classes that make up the core of the Java foundation frameworks.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
JVM's have a fixed cost to develop them, just as Dalvik has a fixed cost to develop new and exciting features like JIT's and better GC's. IBM has J9, BEA (now Oracle) has JRocket, Sun (now Oracle) has Hotspot. Instead of writing their own customized JVM's they've decided to collaborate (I assume) to cut costs and streamline the JVM's presentation and roll-out to customers. How is this some super secret attack on Android?
Harmony is open and will remain open for the foreseeable future. Its not like BEA/Oracle/IBM were big supporters of harmony before this deal was inked... The question being is if Dalvik's JVM its susceptible to software patents which will now be tested (again?) in court with Google.
Correction: If by attack, you mean that they are making a better product faster, then you can make that giant leap, but really, J9 and JRocket are really server targeted JVM's, so I think the alliance is really to make a better server JVM. Maybe they're seeing increased competition with .NET or the scripting web platforms and they want to step up their games, who knows.
Bye!
he doesn't mean that they should get a fee, the word potential was accurate. He means that Oracle wants a fee anyway. it's called entitlement culture, and this is what happens when intellectual property laws run out of wack.
It's not about the old people who think they deserve something from the young, it's what happens when you conflate owning something intangible in the same way as owning a physical product that people tend to get the other properties mixed up.
What IBM just did however, was gave google the finger, straight up.
Open-sourced code does not prevent patent licence fee free.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
But what would the brew be, that would work with all of the existing applications written in Java today?
It would be the Brew that is True, so Google wants to avoid the Vessel with the Pestle. I'm sure this means they'll choose the Chalice from the Palace.
I just don't see it as plausible. They're each other's main (commercial, for sure, and possibly period) competitor in too many of their core businesses.
It would be like the Democrats and Republicans deciding to run a single dual-party candidate in a Presidential election just to make sure the Green Party didn't win.
It's really Google that undermines Android by using the Dalvik VM, with its (even if slightly) incompatible bytecode instead of actual 100% Java that can run on any properly compatible JVM. That move just opens the platform to this kind of disruption. Why did Google do it, anyway?
If Google had made Android simply a (perhaps heavily) patched Linux kernel distro, with its own variation on the GNU tools and userland, with a standard JVM, it would have tapped the entire large and dynamic Linux developer community, and all the apps that already run directly on Linux, as well as all the Java apps that already run on other devices, mobile/embedded/desktop/etc. Why fragment the Linux/Java platform that way, and depend on defending the isolated fragment?
--
make install -not war
The only free mobile phone stack out there, from top to bottom, is MeeGo (formerly Moblin and Maemo). It is on Linux (GPL), then on Qt (GPL). There are NO FEES except for being in the Nokia Ovi (App) store. The problem is then handsets... or is it? Qt branches work on Android (NDK, marginally using Java via a stub loader) and in iPhone. So If you want to side step the license issue, and get platform independence, then Qt is the way to go.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I suggest a Parrot to Dalvik translator as it'd let developers use any language that compiles to Parrot. Python, Perl, etc. Java is a suck language anyway and Android breaks from many Java conventions anyway.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Are you also the same Josh Fruhlinger that writes the Comics Curmudgeon blog? Name seems familiar, and although I at first thought it was just a coincidence, the connection is understandable. After all, plenty of people are interested in programming, blogging, and comics. Like me.
What is that percentage?
I suspect that e.g. Swing makes a really huge chunks of J2SE class library, but Android, quite obviously, doesn't use that.
Yes! I have many secret identities!
Well lookit that. I guess I could have figured that out by clicking the homepage link in your comment page. I must say, I wouldn't be keeping current on developments in Mary Worth if it weren't for your blog over there.
Yes.. and why did they choose a non-native solution for a embedded platform? Are they aware how many cpu cycles (=battery power) ius wasted in pre-compiling code instead of doing something that could have been done on a development platform? Apple did that one right :Native apps save cpu cycles and improve response time.
The code is Java. Which is something Oracle can't charge you a fee for. I'm sure they'd love to. What Oracle charges for is the Java Micro Edition runtime, which Android doesn't use.
Android compiles from Java code to a Dalvik executable stored in an Android package. Dalvik is not Java.
The success of Android means a potential 'licensing fee' from every Android install.
What licensing fee are you talking about?
Android is based on Linux- you obviously forgot that they'll have to pay SCO a $699 licensing fee, you.... er, cocksmoking teabagger. ;-)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Why don't we all do like Google and put a "fork" in it.
As a Droid 1 buyer I have seen what has happened to android handsets. The platform is great but the carriers and vendors are screwing it up. My next phone will likely be a Nokia if they make anotherN900/N9 in late 2011.
Perhaps you ought to turn yours in. The suit isn't about destroying Android. The suit is about the fact that Google is using an incompatible VM with the Java language and trying to pass it off as Java. Which it isn't. Java is supposed to be compatible between the various VMs, even if not always perfect.
It can only be incompatible if they actually claim to be java compatible. They don't. They claim to be able to parse the java byte code, which they do. This is like ARM complaining that you can run ARM binaries in an emulator on another platform - only once more removed.
Java syntax -> java compiler -> java byte code -> compiled to dalvik byte code -> dalvik VM.
The magic happens in the byte code to byte code recompilation. Basically this means Android uses java's byte code as an object format. So unless there is something magical about providing interoperability and compatibility, which are absolutely, legally allowed, I'm not sure what Oracle is complaining about.
Hell, according to the die hard nutjobs in most IRC #java, they completely deny Android has anything to do with Java and a statement to the contrary will result in a kick/ban. Obviously, that's not legally binding but given how far removed Android's Dalvik is from Java, its difficult to understand the confusion when even Java's supporters don't recognize Android/Dalvik.
Apache Harmony is virtually feature complete, certainly as far as the bits that android uses. Do anyone thing IBM pulling developers from Harmony is going to hurt Google? At worst they'll hire a few more developers which I'm sure is a crippling overhead for a company their size.
I just don't see it as plausible. They're each other's main (commercial, for sure, and possibly period) competitor in too many of their core businesses.
It would be like the Democrats and Republicans deciding to run a single dual-party candidate in a Presidential election just to make sure the Green Party didn't win.
If the Green Party was a threat, they most certainly would.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Sure, maybe, but that's a world so far divorced from the current state of affairs as to not be relevant.
Much like a world in which people spend a lot of money buying databases that aren't Oracle or SQL Server.
I think we can we just safely ignore Oracle and IBM when it comes to small mobile low power environments, because honestly what do they know about it. They don't compete in that space, and have never shown an interest in that space.
Dalvik is a clean room implementation, so no problem there. Oracle's Java patents might take years to prove in court, and Google has a pretty nice patent portfolio of their own. I'm sure there are some search, clustering, or virtualization patents in Google's pocket that Oracle might need. I predict that this will just end up in a patent trade deal like most other tech lawsuits between giant corporations.
Most of all, I suspect Google is pretty flexible with Android's architecture, and could possibly target something other than Java to Dalvik and make that the primary language to support. Go on Dalvik seems like reasonable possibility to me. If Oracle tries to grab onto Google/Android too tightly it might just slip between their fingers.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This is like the smart-phone chicken-and-egg from a few years ago. When most smartphones ran WinCE, the smartphone market was small because WinCE was crap. Then Blackberry and Apple made devices that people wanted to use, and created the smartphone mass market.
Java ME is crippled by the carriers. The requirement to shag about with carrier approvals to get access to the network, or Bluetooth, or the local filesystem means that it's nigh on impossible to create useful, widely-used applets- about the only thing you can do is games. Imagine re-submitting your approval to basically every carrier on the planet, for every little revision you make: it only makes sense for specific vertical applications. Java ME can't recover from this, it's never going to be more than a niche solution even though it was intended to be the One Platform For All.
With Apple you have to jump through hoops to get into the MFi program and pay them a tithe for the privilege, but at least once you're there you know your product will work, and continue to work, without carriers getting in the way.
I'm still waiting to see how this will play out on Android, and hoping that the carriers don't screw it up. Now Oracle is throwing a spanner in the works as well and it's not looking too good. But if Android fails to establish an unfettered platform for useful apps, then we're back to Java ME (which is nowhere)... I'm actually casting an eye sideways at WP7, and the temperature in hell is rapidly decreasing.
I think you're spot on that Oracle feels Google may displace Sun in the mobile market. J2ME phone are on the decline so now manufacturers are looking at J2SE or Google's offering. From my perspective it's not like Google is the first one to come up with their own JVM. IBM certainly has a large suite of JVMs. BEA had/has JRocket. The difference there was they had licensing agreements, whereas Google did not. Maybe Oracle wants cash. Maybe they want a cross licensing deal. I think Oracle is overly sensitive about displaced in the Java market from all the years in under-performing in it themselves.
There's a lot of speculation that a nice juicy lawsuit with Google was a selling point for Sun. And Larry Ellison is the kind of CEO who sees a lot of value in that.
I personally think Google brought this on themselves. They should known better and could have tossed some money/cross licensing at Sun back when they were first launching Android. I think back then Sun would have been tickled to be a ground floor player in the Smart Phone Market.
Ah, but technically Android doesn't include a JVM. It has a "Dalvik Virtual Machine," which processes Dalvik bytecode; there's a second set of tools that transforms standard Java bytecode (compiled from Java code written in the subset of the language that Android understands) to Dalvik bytecode.
It's all very confusing but it's part of the way that Google has gotten away with not making Android a real Java, and thus not subject to Oracle's rules for the platform.. It also means that in theory they could create another toolset that allowed any language to be compiled to Dalvik bytecode, though I think that would be a hassle.
Um... What about the Google Apps? They are not included in the Android distribution, and probably licensed by the manufacturers for distribution with their handsets.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
You guys do realize Symbian runs Java... well I'm not sure about the newest versions of their MeeGo or whatever, but Symbian 60 v30 or whatever does. Also, RIM applications are Java run on the JVM within the BlackBerry OS.. way to just limit this to Google/Android!
Um, shouldn't that be Oracle collects a license fee ... ?
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
really quite simple. fork Java and support the open calls. if Oracle and big business wants to ignore the open Java, then their sites don't work. they'll come around or lose to somebody else's bizwebbiething.
fork it to fork him.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Most of Java SE is now available under the GPL. There is no Java trap any more, and hasn't been for about four years.
Native apps save cpu cycles and improve response time.
And lock your app store into a specific CPU (or have apps that only run on some platforms...). Assuming you want to build a software platform having an app store where you can deploy to as many potential hardware platforms as you can, you'll need a neutral distribution format - this means either a VM or a translation at upload for each hardware platform (and I know which of these options is simpler to support). Plus, native apps can be larger in size, requiring the hardware platforms to include more memory (which also burns power and increases the cost of the unit). It's a trade-off, not all of which is technical.
That is all.
But with no major financial backing for the development of its Java libraries, Android could slip behind and lose the love of its Java-savvy developer base.
Doesn't Google count as a major financial backer?
I dont have the data on the classs count but here is the numbers for the packages:
Names
Count
%
java.*+javax.*
53
36,301
android.*
30
34.246
Sorry slashcode table sucks
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
The puzzling thing about that is it actually depends on Android's success. So while attacking Google in court might be necessary, undermining Android in other ways would make no sense at all until Oracle knows if it is a beneficiary from Android or not.
Unless, of course, you put your tin foil hat on and give credence to the commonly cited "strong friendship" between Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs - then simply trying to destroy Android for the fun of it makes total sense.
Actually, the Dalvik VM is more closely tied to Java than you imply. It isn't really language-agnostic like LLVM bitcode. It contains instructions for dealing with java objects (e.g. "instance-of"), you have to use a garbage collector and there's no manual memory management.
C to Java compilers *have* been written, but they don't really work very well.
It can only be incompatible if they actually claim to be java compatible. They don't
IIRC they kind of do, by using the trademarked Java name in their class heirachy, and that trademark is only allowed to be used by test-suite-passing implementations
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Well, they're kind of caught in a pincer move here. If Google admits Dalvik is a JVM then they get sued for breaking Java the same way Microsoft did. If they claim it isn't a JVM then they have no patent protection since the patent licenses covering the JVM only protect JVM implementors. So Google has to pick one of these evils. It turns out the first one is a non starter because there is all kinds of stuff they don't implement in Dalvik to make it a real JVM so they are stuck defending patents.
However I am sure the court will still have a close and sceptical look at Dalvik nonetheless. Google is going to have to go to court and argue that they have this virtual machine which accepts no other language than JVM bytecode as its source input - and yet, this virtual machine is not a JVM! And then their reward for succeeding with this is to get sued for patent infringement which I think they will defend. At least half the patents will fall over, several more are nearly expired (FAT) so there are really only a couple of ones that are in play. Perhaps Google will just cop it and give Oracle some licensing money, hoping that the court will set a low value on these.
To be honest, if I was Google I'd be implementing an alternative language that compiles directly to the dex format as fast as possible - partly to convince the court that Dalvik is not a JVM but also partly as a stick to wave at Oracle and tell them - even if you win you will LOSE because we will move Android away from Java and you'll be left with a few billion $ one time payout but a huge black eye and Java developers fleeing the platform to Google's new language.
Notice how clever they are being with language though - the applications are written in the Java programming language, not executed. Look around - no where will you find that Google says Android executes the Java code!
Now - I have a feeling this may yet run into trouble in court. The primary legal support for Oracle here is trademarks and the test for a trademark is whether it creates confusion in the eyes of a consumer. So if you ask it from the point of view : "Would an ordinary reasonable developer, after reading parts of the Android SDK potentially be under the impression that Android is performing the function of a JVM?". Then I think the answer is very likely yes. Note that there just has to be potential for confusion. You don't have to prove that every developer would be confused. As long as it is reasonably possible that a subset of developers could be confused then there is a problem. So I think there may well be a problem.
Ack! Yes, obviously. Sorry!
If they claim it isn't a JVM then they have no patent protection since the patent licenses covering the JVM only protect JVM implementors.
Right. This is probably why Google's legal response to the patent claims in Oracle's suit is that the patents aren't valid (due to broadness or prior art, I forget which). They're also saying they didn't violate them, but obviously if they can get the patents invalidated that won't matter.
Found the list online, and I admit that it's quite a bit larger than I thought - e.g. I didn't expect to see java.sql there.
Good isn't using the J2ME
They are using Apaches harmony along with some android libraries which gets compiled to a Java .class file then recompiled to a the dalvik vm
Oracle is counting on people getting confused about the issue and using some vague VM patents to get their way. The patents in question could apply to any virtual machine. Such as the .Net platform
The reason for suing Google is Google is using the Java language but not the Java virtual machine. Since people see Java they are confusing the issue and thinking that Android is a Java vm when it's not. Oracle doesn't like that Google is getting the Java language for free and wants a piece of the action.
correct me please if i am wrong but I thought Android was a Linux based OS, and when you develop for android you are told to use the J2SE JDK, not ME JDK. I'm having trouble understanding how Oracle even has a case.
Also for all the people who simply must hate on Android. WE HATE the iPhone because its a closed platform with no freedom limited devices and controlled by a single corporate entity. It's like M$ times a billion. Its symbolizes everything we hate about the technology world.
Ya i think i'm going to start ignoring Infoworld/PCworld the last few articles i've read from them have been veeery streeaachy.
Google has gotten away with not making Android a real Java, and thus not subject to Oracle's rules for the platform.
The idea that a computer language should have rules imposed by a vendor is as absurd as the idea that a spoken language should have rules imposed by a government. In most civilized countries there is no such absurdity.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Oracle paid a bundle for Sun, and are willing to 'light it on fire to save the heating costs'. With RIM now relegating java apps to "legacy support" in RIM-OS-next, Android are it for Java in the mobile computing space. Why would Oracle want to pick a fight? Oh, right, they don't care, and just want to get whatever cash they can for the Java assets that were bundled with Sun.
My bet is that Oracle will calve "Java, Inc", and Google will buy it. The valuation will work out to about 1/4 the original price of Sun, and Oracle shares will rise.
I wouldn't say it's the only one worth using. Palm's (now HP's) WebOS is also linux-based, supports js, java, c++ based apps, and they are actively supporting the open-source community, even to the point of actively documenting how to (officially) gain root access. Not to mention much better multi-tasking support.
So don't feel like Android is the only remaining underdog to compete w/ Apple... Android itself is a rather closed environment compared to the alternatives that are also out there.
Can someone explain why Oracle cares about the success/failure of Android?
Here's my two cents. What's happening in the tech industry right now is akin to geopolitics pre-WWI. By that, I mean there is a alignment and re-alignment of companies with overlapping or even mutually-exclusive interests. To illustrate, you could put Google, HTC, Adobe and Motorola in one camp. In another, you might find Apple and Oracle. Apple and Oracle don't have many if any overlapping markets but I would say they are quite clearly aligned against Google. Ellison is a former Apple director and a fan of Mr. Jobs. He recently said that the firing of HP's Hurd by that company's board was 'the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs..." I would not be surprised there is some unwritten, non-binding alliance between Apple and Oracle and that this was one of the major objectives in the Sun acquisition.
In the age of public awareness of anti-trust laws, monopolized markets, and patent trolling and lawsuits, the best way to wage war on your competitor is to not. Get your buddies to do it for you. Dare I say, perhaps this is a kind of Cold War of sorts in the tech sector. Facebook's allegiance is still a prize to be one by either Google or Apple. What effect will Microsoft have on all of this is still yet to be seen... but I'd say they appear to be on Apple's side so far to the benefit perhaps of Office on the iPhone (one day??), but at the expense of their mobile division (good luck to Win Phone 7).
Didnt MS get sued By Sun for the very same thing? Yes im too lazy to google it
Jack of all trades,master of none
if Google has to pay a license fee to Oracle.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Seems like Python would be the obvious second language to be compiled to Dalvik bytecode.
See this thread from back in 2008 before Android even shipped.
Linked at the bottom of that thread are the Dalkvik VM docs (link updated to head).
Also is a Stack Overflow post that links to many methods for Python and scripting languages to create Android apps. (Though some methods like Jython are still using Java.)
The theory is that we have this capitalistic system so that the profit motive drives innovation which makes thing better for society. Life get better for everyone in the long run.
The practice is crap like this. Decisions are based on lawsuits and business strategies, not on innovation. Resources are allocated for defensive purposes or to pay lawyers or make "campaign contributions" (aka bribes). There is no level playing field, there is no open competition, unless you confuse competition with entrenched monopolies fighting over which of them will be the last monopoly standing.
The goal of all this is so that Ellison can build a bigger more automated yacht, or the Google Twins can move up a notch in the world's richest asshole competition.
All the innovation that we are exploiting now happened decades ago. We are coasting, and we will shortly grind to a halt because instead of funding actual innovation the institutions and individuals are wasting their resources on crap like this. But what happens next? To innovate takes time and money, so how do we get back up to speed? It's not going to be pretty.
Why is Snark Required?
Being from Nokia, forget it. They're just as bad as other companies and have lawsuits against competitors. Personally, I was turned off by them after I bought an expensive Nokia monitor, which got good reviews. It didn't display colours accurately, it showed a greenish tint, so when I called while it was still under warranty I was told to ship it in. I had to pay for shipment but when I got it back it showed the same tint. Some may say that that was because of the graphics card in the computer, but the green tint was displayed when I've had different PCs connected.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I see what you did there
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Google currently has some good margins and takes in a lot of cash. if they were to develop their own visual studio clone for android development it would cost a lot of money that they would have to eat in lower margins and lower stock price.
If Google has $5 Billion to invest in an off-shore wind farm project they have the money to put into Android development as well.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Sun and IBM's JDKs are not under an open source license.
And the fact that something is distributed under an open source license doesn't protect you from patent lawsuits.
In particular, Oracle can assert patents against you even though they give you the JDK under the GPL: the GPL is a redistribution license and applies to your redistribution, not theirs (they don't need a license, they hold the copyright).
The "Java is open source" and "Java is an open standard" claims are just marketing lies; Java is neither.
If it encourages Oracle to abandon that truly awful Sun "wrap my packages in mislabeled RPM bundles with mislabeled RPM's" practice, and migrate to OpenJDK's far more stable and usable packaging and layout, I'd be all for it. Just as a hint, you don't need to include all the documentation inside the bundle. And you do _not_ need to compress RPM's.
Sun's tendency to insist on their own special sign-ins and wrappers, just to extract the RPM's, caused me and others I worked with to simply throw out Sun Java packaging and switch to IBM or OpenJDK wholesale. If you can't do the packaging right, why would we have confidence in the quality of your software?
Many Android applications already have native shared libraries built using the NDK. How do they manage compatibility and distribution now?
I find TFA pointless. It basically says that Google won't be able to maintain a fork of Harmony (and only those bits which are actually required for Android!) without IBM's help, while at the same time stating that Google already has more people working on OpenJDK than IBM has.
Inexplicable.
The problem is that manufacturers lock down their phones (even Google does that, on their directly-branded models), so their bootloader won't accept unsigned OS images. Some manufacturers go even further and lock down applications installation.
Even if MeeGo is as open as it gets, it has all the mechanisms in place to become as closed as Android is if manufacturers so wish (see MeeGo's security framework). Nokia has already shown with the N900 that they won't lock their handsets, but other manufacturers might have a different vision. I hope that the development of a large "independent" application repository will encourage them not to.
Not absurd, just not economical. Systems are born in a finite community.
Ellison won't just settle for money. He'll also want leverage with patent licensing - all he can get his arms around. The man is greed personified. Cutting a deal with him is almost as certain death as partnering with Microsoft. It's an asymetric suicide pact.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
... nothing to see here.
Fucking non-story.
correct me please if i am wrong but I thought Android was a Linux based OS, and when you develop for android you are told to use the J2SE JDK, not ME JDK. I'm having trouble understanding how Oracle even has a case.
Android uses Dalvik VM which is a direct competitor to Java ME.
Java SE SDK is used only for development, because that what every developer can easily get off the net - compared to the Java ME. Yet, in the end the apps get retargeted to Dalvik VM.
My reading of the reports was that Oracle tries via court to enforce that Dalvik is an unauthorized fork of the Java ME.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I believe the fee I mentioned for the Ovi store has an additional caveat - that you also have Nokia sign the binary. I believe that as long as you're shipping a signed binary (not self-signed) everything is copacetic.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
And if Google decides to fight (they have no choice really) how many of the patents are going to be invalidated as obvious/having prior art? Probably all of them. (I wonder if Oracle considered that potential outcome.)
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
and I admit that it's quite a bit larger than I thought
That should have been expected. Embedded systems are not that powerful thus it is pretty common for standard libraries to include lots of small utility stuff, specifically optimized for the platform.
I didn't expect to see java.sql there.
Scrolling a bit, one can see that SQLite is included. That is also quite good decision to provide developers with familiar framework for the storage needs.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
IIRC they kind of do, by using the trademarked Java name in their class heirachy, and that trademark is only allowed to be used by test-suite-passing implementations
Not true in the least. They are referencing a trademarked name an by law, they are required to denote its trademarked. Thusly, legally, when I say, "Java", I should actually be saying, "Java(tm)". I would then add a reference to the bottom saying something like, "Java is trademarked Oracle Corporation." Given that the majority of their documentation is not for general public consumption, but rather developers, a lackadaisical approach is hardly out of the norm.
Its not that they are attempting to claim Java trademark nor confusing use of Java as their own trademark. The fact remains, they are referencing a standardized language, syntax, and specification as well as freely available APIs which are programmed in the Java language. How else would they refer to this body of work without referencing the language in which this body of work is clearly specified, when in fact, you largely code to those same specifications? Exactly.
The magic happens in the byte code to byte code recompilation. Basically this means Android uses java's byte code as an object format. So unless there is something magical about providing interoperability and compatibility, which are absolutely, legally allowed, I'm not sure what Oracle is complaining about.
From what I understand, Google's patent infringements do not relate to the use of Java as a language or Java byte code to Dalvik conversion, but mostly relate to the general use and implementation of a virtual machine in general. .NET and its CLR do not use the Java language or require byte code conversion from Java yet Sun/Oracle still collect licence fees Microsoft due to patent infringements. To quote James Gosling from a recent interview:
Microsoft .NET just smears over a huge pile of Sun patents. When they did the .NET design, they basically cut and pasted from the Java spec. The way that they did CLR, you know they swizzled the way the instruction set went but the way this thing really operated, they exercised essentially no creativity when coming up with .NET. They've done some things since then that have been kind of good but as part of the various court cases we ended up with this rather odd patent deal with them that involved them paying us fairly tasty amounts of money. And I'm sure that the lawyers looked at the Microsoft numbers and said, yeah I want that from Google.
From what I understand, Google's patent infringements do not relate to the use of Java as a language or Java byte code to Dalvik conversion,
Agreed. My previous comments were directed at those who seem to believe the problem stems from the fact that java -> dalvic is an issue. My post points out its likely not in the least.
As Google's response to Oracle indicates, Oracle has yet to indicate exactly what is infringing, which legally means, nothing is infringing. So unless Oracle names specific offenses in their response, which they were supposed to do in their initial filing, once again Oracle doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Furthermore, the VM implementations are entirely different beasts so its not likely Oracle even has a basis for complaint. And if they do, its entirely likely prior art exists. Java did nothing new in their VM proper. Really, Java's big improvements have been in garbage collection (to which Dalkvik beats its own path) and in hot spot JIT, which in of itself isn't entirely novel.
So long story short, Oracle has a long, long, long ways to go do establish they are anything other than a spoiled brat demanding the keys to the candy store.
But it doesn't use the Java class library as developed and distributed by Sun or Oracle. It uses a clean room implementation (Apache Harmony) of the same class structure and method interfaces. The interfaces are the same, but the code behind them are completely different (or as different as two programmers trying to achieve the same task ever are).
To argue that this is an infringement on any of Sun/Oracle's IP rights is to say that the SCO ABI argument was correct. As I recall, the court took a dim view of that characterization.
I can put my Android Apps together in a language and toolkit I already know. Thankfully it never ends up running on the slow, piggish JVM. Instead it runs on Dalvik, which is register based like the Parrot VM. Register based VMs always beat a stack based VM (JVM) for performance.
Google is doing what you should always do in a patent battle. You should always argue that you are A) Not doing that and B) even if you are they are over broad and invalid due to prior art. A is easy and B is probably still hard even after Bilski.
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
Why would using instanceof be a tying factor to Java. It's the same as the 'is' operator in C#. I personally like the instanceof terminology better. More keystrokes, but it is extremely clear that you are asking if something is an instance of the object you are testing for.
Automatic memory management is hardly a Java thing. Plenty of other interpreters do that too. Back to C#, the only way you can come close to manual memory management is to use the 'using' keyword to define a scope for an object. It gets collected when you leave that scope. It is all automatic otherwise. .dex and .class files are hugely different in structure. The byte codes do not translate 1:1. In fact the dex file ends up being bigger because Dalvik is register based. Still ends up being executed faster because Dalvik is register based.
Maybe you have deeper arguments behind those statements, but I'm not seeing them.
It's been a few years since I've dealt with Parrot, but the GP actually makes an extremely interesting point. I don't think you'd get to use any language with a grammar engine automatically on Parrot. There is still the sticking point of accessing the android.*, dalvik.*, and the org.* classes in those languages. If you can't talk to android.widget.* you can't talk to the UI.
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
Sure, maybe, but that's a world so far divorced from the current state of affairs as to not be relevant.
Much like a world in which people spend a lot of money buying databases that aren't Oracle or SQL Server.
A lot more money is spent on DB/2 than on SQL Server.
Advice: on VPS providers
Nokia has already shown with the N900 that they won't lock their handsets
You can't assume that at all. The ADP1 from Google wasn't locked down in any way either - it wasn't career locked, it came with full root access out of the box, and unlocked bootloader allowing you to load an OS of your choice on the device; and even change the bootloader.
That's not my issue at all, but it seems to be yours. To me Sun was a business and corporation and in order to survive they needed to offer something at a cost others were willing to pay for which would allow them to make a profit. The fact that Sun instead used billions of dollars to buy other companies didn't help them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Each piece of the puzzle doesn't tell as much, but this combined with other Oracle behaviors more clearly indicates some underhanded behavior.
A confluence of questionable ethics.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Java is open source!
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I've heard that elsewhere but don't know it. What I do know is that I spent almost $2000 for a Nokia monitor for graphics and photography and other than it's size it sucks. I got it instead of another because it got good reviews.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
From what I've heard from Nokia, it looks like they will provide the N9 [the successor of the N900] with the ability to switch at boot time between a "DRM" mode and a free mode; while in the free mode, you won't be able to access DRM-restricted media. How this will be accomplished exactly I don't know, and that's what effectively scares me a bit.
Cyanogen?
Fresh?
OpenDesire?
Baked Snack?
Bugless Beast?
ROM List
I really doubt most of the developers are licensing anything.