JavaFX Runs On Raspberry Pi

mikejuk writes "Oracle seem to be concerned that the Raspberry Pi manages to run Java properly and they are actively working on the problem. To prove that it more than just works, what better than to get a JavaFX app up and running — what could be more cutting edge? Unfortunately the trick was performed using a commercial version of the JDK with JIT support and some private code, but it is still early days yet. Java and JavaFX on Raspberry Pi takes us into a whole new ball game." Watch the video at the linked report to see it in action.

Comments

Misread

[pr0nbot]

I think I've been reading too much Oracle/Java hate on slashdot. I misread the first sentence to mean, "Raspberry Pi manages to run Java properly. Oracle seem to be concerned and are working on the problem."

Re:Misread

[Infiniti2000]

The whole fucking summary is written in broken English. It's not your fault. "It is still early days yet."

Re:Misread

[Immostlyharmless]

That's exactly the way I read it. I'm sure it wasn't just you. I thought this was going to be another story about hardware lockdowns.

Re:Misread

[gv250]

RTFA. The entire article is written in the same broken English.

Re:Misread

[medv4380]

Are you sure that's not what was intended? They don't want Java Running on Mobile platforms without a licencing fee collected.

Re:Misread

[Dishevel]

Which means the submitter is the writer of the article and this is just a slashvertisement to get some hits on his site.
And Timmothy is a fucking useless editor.
What part of the "editor" job was done by Timmothy here?
Clicking the "post this shit" button?

Re:Misread

[sl4shd0rk]

I've been reading too much Oracle/Java hate on slashdot.

Nobody really admires Oracle except for corporate CEO types. The rest of us have what equates to the same admiration for a dentist's drill. The licensing model is basically un-consentual sex. Having Oracle gunning for more IP just makes everyone uncomfortable.

Re:Misread

[Anonymous Coward]

tiMMAAY!

Re:Misread

[b0bby]

I'd guess that the submitter, mikejuk, is British. "It is still early days yet" is a common expression in UK English.

Re:Misread

[xelah]

That's because that's what it actually does mean, and unambiguously so. Presumably the author either doesn't know how to use the subjunctive mood or didn't read his own article properly. (To the grammar-challenged and non-native: take the 's' off 'manages').

Re:Misread

[ratbag]

"It's early days yet" is a common expression in English, as spoken here in the UK. The "still" is redundant, either side of the Atlantic.

Re:Misread

[Billly Gates]

American english is more conservative than the UK english with rules like this. Oddly, it is more conservative but with more improper slang.

Re:Misread

[Belial6]

"Still" is not redundant it indicates that the speaker agrees with the listener on the time that has passed, but disagrees with the point that you stop calling it early.

Re:Misread

[ratbag]

I stand by my comment - "still" adds nothing to the sentence as used in the summary, which ends with "yet". There's no disagreement to state - it really is early days. "it's still early days, yet", "it's early days yet", "still, it's early days" and "it's still early days" all say the same thing, with varying economy. The third and fourth options say it most clearly, in my opinion, whereas the first seems clumsy.

Re:Misread

[Taco Cowboy]

What part of the "editor" job was done by Timmothy here? Clicking the "post this shit" button?

Seriously? Yes, that's what they do. It's been that way forever.

Actually, no.

It used to be more than clicking a button.

Editor used to check the facts, look for reference, balance the pros-and-cons, correct grammar mistakes, typos, performing cosmetic changes to the submitted article, etc., before the article can be viewed by all on /.

When Cmdr Taco was around he did all that

As to other editor on /. ..... well .... you be the judge

Re:Misread

[Threni]

> "It's early days yet" is a common expression in English, as spoken here in the UK.

Or as I like to call it, "English".

Re:Misread

[Spugglefink]

I stand by my comment - "still" adds nothing to the sentence as used in the summary, which ends with "yet". There's no disagreement to state - it really is early days. "it's still early days, yet", "it's early days yet", "still, it's early days" and "it's still early days" all say the same thing, with varying economy. The third and fourth options say it most clearly, in my opinion, whereas the first seems clumsy.

I think I'd say something like, "Even so, it's early days yet." That's the sort of thing they were trying to accomplish with still, I think, and I agree it's a bit clumsy.

Anyway, isn't Oracle about to swallow the universe or something? We have more important things to worry about.

Re:Misread

[thehodapp]

How does one go about becoming a /. editor?

How is this news?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Java has been running on ARM platform since Acorn RISCOS days. How is this news?

I'm guessing the RISCOS port for Raspberry Pi will run Java too?

Re:How is this news?

[Art Challenor]

JIT

There are a bunch of JVMs for ARM (OpenJDK, JAMVM, etc.), but no free/open JDKs that have JITs. The only open way I know of to get JIT performance is to run the Java classes through IKVMC and then use Mono with its ARM JIT.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some ARMs can even run Java bytecode - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle

Re:How is this news?

[Ignacio]

http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/ZeroSharkFaq

"What architectures do Zero and Shark work on?

As of December 2008, Zero is known to work on Alpha, ARM, IA-64, MIPS, PowerPC, x86, x86-64 and zSeries.

Shark should be able to build on any Zero-supported system that LLVM has a JIT for. As of October 2009, this is ARM, PowerPC, x86 and x86-64. "

Re:How is this news?

[SplashMyBandit]

OpenJDK is Free Software, under the GPLv2 with Classpath Exception - sez so here: http://openjdk.java.net/legal/gplv2+ce.html

Foot, meet bullet.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Oracle have shot themselves in the foot, and this is a good example of why. Even if the R-Pi runs Java, no one is going to trust Oracle not to sue them out of existence after the way they've abused Google over its use of Java on the Android platform.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle isn't suing Google for *using* Java. They're suing for *forking* Java. I think most people (outside slashdot populists) can see the distinction.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[Galestar]

The irony of this astroturfing/trolling comment

I think you misunderstand the definition of astroturfing. A single comment cannot be an astroturf unless that commenter works for the company attempting to astroturf. What company do you accuse him of working for?

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[gtirloni]

The Pedants Corporation

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[reg]

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt, which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[hendridm]

I think it's neat that we can sue someone over the way they (ab)use a language.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[squiggleslash]

We can, but the distinction isn't as large as you think it is. Sticking a framework over Java (and who doesn't do that?) creates an incompatible environment in that software for Java + Framework is unlikely to work for just Java. And lest you consider that OK because it's a superset, bear in mind that the majority of frameworks only need a subset of Java to be functional and useful, and anyone in the process of developing a J2SE implementation is inherently going to develop subsets.

Basically, if Oracle succeeds, then realistically anyone not using the official OpenJDK binaries from the official Oracle repositories is going to have to wonder how clear they are.

While I don't want to overstate the issue, given (1) Oracle has shown no evidence of working in good faith here, (2) Oracle's history of acting in bad faith (such as their refusal to allow benchmarks of Oracle software) and (3) the ease with which someone can create software that's a threat to Oracle, I'd be inclined to recommend people stay clear, not because there's a 99% chance Oracle will sue them, but because there's a 1% chance they will. And that 1% is somewhat larger than the chance of being sued by Guido van Rossum, Larry Page, or, for that matter, Microsoft. What's the point of taking a risk, no matter how minor, if perfectly clear and acceptable alternatives exist?

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live APIs and programming languages cannot be subject to copyright.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[peppepz]

You're mixing the licenses of the GPL OpenJDK (the GPL does not allow "field of use" restictions), Oracle's binary JDK, and Oracle's Java specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

Did we red the same piece of text?

includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification

means exactly that you can develop all applications you want using the Java APIs, how do you interpret that as "they could advance a case against any Java developer"?

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

No, Google
1) did NOT use the GPL OpenJDK, and therefore they're not covered by the GPL license; and they expressly chose not to use the OpenJDK because they dislike the GPL, as Google said explicitly in their published emails;
2) violated this part, of the license, that you omitted to quote:

2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Oracle also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under any applicable copyrights or, subject to the provisions of subsection 4 below, patent rights it may have covering the Specification to create and/or distribute an Independent Implementation of the Specification that: (a) fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality; (b) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the Licensor Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields or methods within the Licensor Name Space other than those required/authorized by the Specification or Specifications being implemented; and (c) passes the Technology Compatibility Kit (including satisfying the requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for such Specification ("Compliant Implementation").

In other words, Oracle claim that Google created a Java-based platform that is not compatible with Java, and called it Java. Which is what Microsoft did in the 90s (and has nothing to do with the developers of Java applications). A judge will decide if this is the case, but saying that every Java user could be sued for writing Java applications is frankly not true.

And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

Again, you're omitting to say that the license explicitly allows you to:
1) develop applications for Java (ANY Java platform implementation)
2) develop complete implementations of the Java platform.

There is only one thing you can't do: develop an incompatible implementation of the Java platform and call that thing Java. You can create incompatible implementations of the GPL code of course, but then you can't call it Java. Oracle thinks that Google did that.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[PCM2]

If the API itself is copyrighted, then it could mean that any source code that links to a library that implements the copyrighted API is a derivative work. It could also mean that any non-Oracle JRE is illegitimate, yes. These are issues currently being hammered out in the courts.

It seems clear that Oracle is attempting an end-run around the whole concept of open source Java. It may succeed. If it doesn't, that also leaves a lot of open questions.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[PCM2]

In other words, Oracle claim that Google created a Java-based platform that is not compatible with Java, and called it Java.

Except for two things:

1. Google doesn't say their OS runs Java. It says you write apps for Android in the Java language, which Oracle is still insisting is "free for anyone to use" -- just apparently not for Google to use. Google has never said that Android is an implementation of the Java platform, however, which is what Google licenses.

2.A large part of Google's "Java-based platform" is derived from Apache Harmony. To be in compliance with the Java license terms you quote, an implementation must pass the TCK. As we all know, Oracle has refused to grant the Apache Foundation access to the TCK, except under terms that would violate the Apache open source license. So it's a little disingenuous to say Google violated the license, when Oracle specifically wouldn't allow Apache (or Google) to comply with the license.

So IMHO it's still largely Oracle's acting in bad faith that led to this pass.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[khipu]

violated this part, of the license, that you omitted to quote: 2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Oracle also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license

Nobody has to give a f*ck about that. That license is a license you need to agree to in order to copy Oracle's copyrighted material. If you don't copy their copyrighted material, that license doesn't matter.

There is only one thing you can't do: develop an incompatible implementation of the Java platform and call that thing Java.

If that were the case, Oracle would be suing Google over trademark violations. But Oracle is suing Google over copyright and patent violations, so your statement that that is "the only thing" you can't do is wrong.

The Oracle lawsuit demonstrates that Java is, in fact, a quagmire of patents, copyrights, and trademarks, and it is neither free nor open.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[MightyMartian]

It demonstrates that Oracle thinks Java is. The court will ultimately decide if re-implementing the Java libraries does indeed constitute some violation of Oracle's IP.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[wonkey_monkey]

I think you'll find it's "The Pedants' Corporation."

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[PCM2]

2) You're talking about the Java SE license, which has nothing to do with the Google case.

I'm talking about the license text you quoted. If it has nothing to do with the Google case, why did you quote it? Go back and read the last line of the section you cut and pasted. It says TCK required. Oracle denied the Apache Foundation access to the TCK. Bad faith.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[PCM2]

Sorry to reply twice, but ...

1) Just like Microsoft did back in the 90s (emphasis mine):

An important distinction here is that Microsoft did purchase a Java license from Sun. So Sun definitely had a case that Microsoft violated the explicit terms of the specific contract it had with Sun.

Google, on the other hand, did not have a license from Oracle because it could not obtain one. The only license that applies here is Oracle's stated public grant of a license to implement the JDK. It seems to me that whether that license was being fairly and faithfully applied is an important legal matter here. If Oracle says "everybody can use Java, but only if you do this, this, and this, and we won't let certain parties do the last one," is that defensible?

I used to believe the way you do, BTW. When the lawsuit was first announced, I wrote an editorial called "Why Oracle was right to sue Google." But as the issues in the case have emerged and a lot of Oracle's original claims have been whittled away, I've started to see it the other way.

I do believe that Google's choice to go with Java as its main language may prove to be a mistake, though. I think it made that decision out of a desire to move quickly against Apple, but it did it in a kinda sneaky way and it ended up getting bitten. How badly remains to be seen.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[reg]

You're mixing the licenses of the GPL OpenJDK (the GPL does not allow "field of use" restictions), Oracle's binary JDK, and Oracle's Java specification.

No, the OpenJDK and binary licenses have never been part of the actual case. The Java SE 1.4 and Java SE 5 versions of the license I quoted are the only licenses Oracle has entered into evidence (although I've not read all 1000+ documents).

Did we red the same piece of text?

includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification

means exactly that you can develop all applications you want using the Java APIs, how do you interpret that as "they could advance a case against any Java developer"?

Well, OK, anyone that has used Java externally, or has commercialized their use. This is a classic industry license which lets you look, but if you want to play you have to pay. You are allowed to determine if Java is right for you. Sure, Sun always interpreted this as meaning "Java is free for use" (and Oracle still claim that), but Oracle are showing that they can come up with some very interesting interpretations of the law. So, maybe Java is safe, maybe Oracle will need more cash and change their tune...

No, Google
1) did NOT use the GPL OpenJDK, and therefore they're not covered by the GPL license; and they expressly chose not to use the OpenJDK because they dislike the GPL, as Google said explicitly in their published emails;
2) violated this part, of the license, that you omitted to quote:

2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Oracle also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under any applicable copyrights or, subject to the provisions of subsection 4 below, patent rights it may have covering the Specification to create and/or distribute an Independent Implementation of the Specification that: (a) fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality; (b) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the Licensor Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields or methods within the Licensor Name Space other than those required/authorized by the Specification or Specifications being implemented; and (c) passes the Technology Compatibility Kit (including satisfying the requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for such Specification ("Compliant Implementation").

In other words, Oracle claim that Google created a Java-based platform that is not compatible with Java, and called it Java. Which is what Microsoft did in the 90s (and has nothing to do with the developers of Java applications). A judge will decide if this is the case, but saying that every Java user could be sued for writing Java applications is frankly not true.

This part of the license is irrelevant. Google do not claim to implement Java or a compliant implementation. They are therefore not entitled to patent protection (which is why they are being sued for patent infringement). This is why the case is split into two portions: a copyright portion, because Oracle claim Google have violated the first part of the license, by copying the APIs (and a bit of code). Google's defense is three part:

1. That this license is invalid because the APIs are not subject to copyright (this is what the judge will decide),
2. That even if they are subject to copyright, their use is fair (clause (ii) and (iii) of the Java SE 7 license I quoted are not in the older ones, but appear to be trying to define "fair use") and
3. Even if the use was not fair, it was de minimus (minimal) and so they should be allowed to get away with it. (and the copied bits of code were copied but minimal).

Usin

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[peppepz]

You're right, I didn't express myself correctly. It's not the Java SE license itself that has nothing to do with the Google case, it's the TCK requirement.

Google never implemented Java SE. They never claimed to implement Java SE, and therefore they never needed the TCK to prove that their implementation could be called Java SE. Had they tried to implement Java SE, then the TCK availability would have been a requirement for them in order to call their implementation "Java". This is the case for Apache Harmony. But this didn't happen in Google's case, because they didn't implement Java SE in the first place, they just defined their own blurry subset of Java, so different from the Java platform that running the TCK over it wouldn't even be a well-defined operation, let alone have any chance to succeed.

Oracle denied the Apache Foundation access to the TCK. Bad faith.

Sorry if I insist, but Sun never licensed the TCK for free to anyone (without FOU restictions). They're not doing a special exception for Google. Why would it be "bad faith" on their side to decide their own license conditions? It's FRAND in my opinion.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[ChunderDownunder]

the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

Except, curiously these bits. Namely running on ARM (this is the closed source Java SE embedded) and JavaFX, which AFAIK hasn't yet been upstreamed to the OpenJDK.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[AngryDill]

Not yet anyway. I'm sure in time that WTO or WIPO will ensure that youe country's "intellectual property " laws get "harmonized" with those in the US.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[Raenex]

I do believe that Google's choice to go with Java as its main language may prove to be a mistake, though. I think it made that decision out of a desire to move quickly against Apple, but it did it in a kinda sneaky way and it ended up getting bitten. How badly remains to be seen.

I don't think it was a mistake, given the traction they've gained with it. They knew full well the whole thing could turn out ugly -- the released email from the lawsuit makes for interesting reading. They did try to play nice with Sun and get a proper license, but not too suprisingly Sun wasn't willing to relinquish control.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[julesh]

But as the API is distributed under GPL-with-classpath-exception (which essentially says "you can use this to link an application with however you want, but if you distribute it as a library it has to remain under GPL") it doesn't matter to a typical user whether the API is copyrighted or not: there is a publicly available licence that allows you to use it under almost any terms you might want.

This is the nice thing about free software -- its copyright holders can try as much as they want to screw you over, but in the end they have agreements in place that prevent them from doing so.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[PCM2]

It's true. "Mistake" might be too strong a word. Look at what they got by going with Java: They got a language that a lot of people already knew, they got Eclipse, they got all the other Java tools (like Ant, or whatever)... it gave them an incredible head start. Even if it ends up costing them some money, in the long run it was probably the right choice.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[khipu]

But at least, Java is as free and open as the GPL - which clears all problems of copyrights and patents (as far as Oracle is concerned);

All that guarantees is that you can use that GPL'ed implementation in perpetuity without fear of getting sued by Oracle; that doesn't make the language or platform free or open. A free or open platform must demonstrably allow conforming independent implementations, and nobody has ever been able to create one of those for Java.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[khipu]

No, the fact that people get sued over this stuff demonstrates that Java is a quagmire of IP claims. And this isn't the first time either. Sun may have been playing nice with Google since they had to, but they had screwed over lots of companies with Java-related IP claims before Google.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[peppepz]

and nobody has ever been able to create one of those for Java.

IBM's VM for Java? BEA's JRockit?

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[khipu]

IBM's VM and BEA's JRockit are VM implementations. Furthermore, IBM was a Java licensee (and BEA probably was as well, founded as it was by former Sun employees). Hence, they are neither independent implementations, nor implementations of the Java platform.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[peppepz]

They pass the TCK for the relevant JSR => they are an implementation of it by definition. Of course they have to pay for that, that was Sun's source of revenue. IBM offers a full JDK, not only the VM, and it was the main contributor to the Apache Harmony project (to the point that the project starved when IBM retired its support).

The fact that "probably" some employee of some company once worked at Sun proves nothing. By your reasoning, since Google is full of former Sun employees, Dalvik is not an independent implementation.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[khipu]

Stop bullshitting. If you want to claim that there is an independent Java implementation, i.e., an implementation that was produced from spec only, without licenses from Sun, the burden of proof is on you.

In fact, I think it's doubtful that any implementation can meet that standard in principle, since the Java specification itself comes under a license that restricts your ability to build independent implementations. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/ Sun and Oracle have consistently refused to even subject Java to a standards process.

That is highly unusual among programming languages and platforms. You can implement C, C++, Fortran, and even C# from spec without any legal obligations to any company.

Java is the epitome of proprietary programming languages, and the fact that Sun, Oracle, and people like you keep lying about it makes it even worse.

No to Java : not trustworthy:

[Bozovision]

Oracle's ludicrous claims in the Oracle/Google Android trial have shown that they are not trustworthy. Do not base your work on a base where you can be ransomed. No more Java. :-( And when you read Java stories, wonder to yourself every time whether it's the Oracle PR department astroturfing Java stories in an attempt to make Java appear relevant or to attempt to repair the damage.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[cbreak]

That's exactly it. If even one of the most prominent Java users Google is sued only for using the Java API (as basis for their own VM), then just imagine if someone else uses the API in combination with Oracle's own JVM, they'd have even less defense. And most people probably are not even able to pay for a Google-style lawyer army.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[cduffy]

If you make a Java ripoff and not be very diligent in your chinese wall cloning efforts, then you probably do have something to worry about.

Have you actually followed Oracle v. Google?

The amount of "Chinese wall" breakage is minuscule -- the rangeCheck function and a bunch of *Impl files which were only ever used in the test suite and which never made it into any shipping phone. The jury is likely to decide that this copying is de minimis, and thus excusable, and even if they don't, good luck showing substantial damages from it.

The place where Oracle is placing their stand isn't on claims that Google got their clean-room development procedures wrong, but on a claim that the APIs themselves are copyrighted, and thereby that anything built to be compatible with them necessarily infringes. That's a very different ballgame, and a much more dangerous claim.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[sourcerror]

Oracle went total asshole, but I don't believe they can pull off that API copyrighting stuff. (In Europe it's already thorwn out.) Also, the whole debacle is unlikely to affect J2EE and J2SE developers.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[ashpool7]

No, not closely, but really, if you're not trying to hack around the licensing agreement, it's not that big a deal to use Java.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[khipu]

Google never agreed to any licensing agreement.

And, of course it's not "that big of a deal to use Java". But neither is using Windows or C#. It's just that they are all proprietary platforms effectively controlled by a single company.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[cduffy]

Oracle went total asshole, but I don't believe they can pull off that API copyrighting stuff.

There's a good chance they can -- the jury's instructions were to assume that structure and organization are copyrightable elements, with the judge to decide later whether this is actually true. So -- it'll be down to Judge Willium Alsup to make this determination (and then, of course, the various appeals courts to decide if they agree).

Indeed, Europe doesn't allow this... and good for them. Sadly, I'm on the side of the pond where it's still an open question.

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[julesh]

That's exactly it. If even one of the most prominent Java users Google is sued only for using the Java API (as basis for their own VM), then just imagine if someone else uses the API in combination with Oracle's own JVM, they'd have even less defense. And most people probably are not even able to pay for a Google-style lawyer army.

Except that Oracle has explicitly publicly licensed that API for use with their implementation (and any other implementation that passes the tests in a test suite that they'll offer to sell you).

Still waiting on my Pi...

[__aavqan3009]

so this story is a moot point.

Re:Still waiting on my Pi...

[Sarten-X]

No, this story is "Thursday". Tomorrow's R-Pi story will be totally different, about a completely different computer program running on a computer.

Re:Still waiting on my Pi...

[citizenr]

Their production line is written in Java.

Re:Still waiting on my Pi...

[tomhath]

Their production line is written in Java.

The problem is that they tried to produce it in an abstract factory, based on an interface specification.

JavaFX != Java

[timeOday]

And for that matter, JavaFX 2 (a Java library) is apparently a huge break from JavaFX (a scripting language for the JRE).

This is all pretty confusing.

We picked up JavaFX for a while because, amazingly, there was no practical way to replay video in Java. (Please don't tell me about that crufty, abandoned joke from 2001 called JMF). Then JavaFX keeled over and died when Oracle bought Sun. If JavaFX 2 provides a video player widget, maybe it is useful.

Re:JavaFX != Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really that confusing. JavaFX 1 was a scripting language with a graphics library underneath. JavaFX 2 did away with the scripting language (thank god), and now you write standard Java and it uses the graphics library underneath. The whole kit and kaboodle is part of JDK 7, and works very well.

Re:JavaFX != Java

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell does the web have to do with anything what so ever in this discussion?
Don't you realize you are posting to a JAVA discussion??

Re:JavaFX != Java

[Billly Gates]

The tools suck ass too.

They are no tools. Sun's excuse was to use Adobe Flash Builder to create JavaFX??

Well if I paid all this money for it, why don't I use compile it to a flash? Idiots.

Oracle is even worse and more out too lunch.

Re:JavaFX != Java

[SplashMyBandit]

Here are some other Java video options:
Cortardo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortado_(software)
FMJ (a play on JMF)http://fmj-sf.net/
VLC Java Bindings - http://code.google.com/p/vlcj/

Although, even with those options we wanted to do single-frame stepping forward and backward, so we wrote a JNI interface (although these days you'd use JNA instead) to FFMpeg and used that. Worked a treat.

Don't worry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Oracle won't sue anyone for using Java on this platform until there is some money to be made. You are OK playing with it on the RaspPi for now...

Re:Don't worry...

[Kagetsuki]

But it wasn't reverse engineered, it was re-implemented. The issue is weather or not you can copyright a language and an API and what terms the Java language and standard API were licensed under - things that were never really defined in a non-ambiguous way.

I also think you read the parents post differently than I did. I consider "re-implementing and deploying" to be synonimous with "using" and in that case Oracle has totally alienated anyone who would try to implement and deploy their own native Java on their own platform. In a way this is the absolute opposite of the paradigims that govern languages like Ruby and Python. With Ruby and Python re-implementation and modification is encouraged. Both projects have evolved by taking ideas from alternative implementations and incorporating them. Some VMs for these languages are actually commerical - so I cold write my own Ruby VM and sell it and nobody would complain.

Also, as someone who is coding Java on Android right now I'd like to say this: WTF is wrong with you Google!? JAVA IS AN AWFUL LANGAUGE! Why the hell didn't you just use C++? As much as I dislike Apple I must say they made a damn fine choice with Objective C. God damn.

Re:Don't worry...

[squiggleslash]

Dalvik isn't a reverse engineered JVM. It's not even a JVM. It's a VM, but has almost as much in common with the Java VM as UCSD p-Code.

Nor was the library reverse engineered. Reverse engineering doesn't involve reading official specs and writing your own version from those specs. It describes a process of cloning something by determining how it works by looking at the tool itself, and then creating a functional equivalent. The FFMPEG team, for example, wrote a compliant MPEG 1 decoder, but reverse engineered their Real Video decoder.

Oracle is suing Google for using the Java programming language in a way that Oracle doesn't like. That's essentially what's happening, nothing more and nothing less. Google felt the best solution for the work they were doing was to take a commonly used, familiar, and robust programming language (which until this lawsuit nobody thought was copyrightable), to implement a subset of the libraries that come with the language in its native form (kinda like every C compiler since the 1970s came with most of the stdio "API", but not the Unix functions like open() or unlink()), and to include its own Android specific libraries too.

Until the Oracle lawsuit, nobody on planet Earth had a problem with that. As I said above, if that were illegal, then so was every C compiler from BDS C (CP/M) to Lattice C (Commodore Amiga, Sinclair QL.)

What's different? Sun's management at the time - their CEO even - didn't see this as a legal or moral problem, even if they did see it as a potential business problem. Schwartz is on record saying he was glad Google picked Java over alternatives such as "Microsoft Windows".

Yes, Google is being sued for using the Java programming language in Android. They're not being sued over "reverse engineering", they're certainly not being sued for making a JVM (because they didn't), this is about Google using Java. And anyone considering making Java a part of anything they do in future has to consider the cost of doing so if Oracle prevails.

Re:Don't worry...

[Tetch]

Without getting deep into subtleties of their lawsuit against Google which I don't understand, what Oracle has effectively done is scare the pants off anyone who was contemplating using Java for any purpose ever again.

Perhaps that was their purpose .... maybe they just want to be rid of the burden of maintaining something they have to give away for the public good, without prospect of making megabucks from it. If that's the case, I just don't understand why they can't just hand the source to the community, and declare themselves to be no longer involved.

Imagine ... if Grace Hopper and the CODASYL Committee, or John Backus and colleagues at IBM, or Peter Naur, Donald Knuth and the ACM had been as pathetically venal and moronic as Oracle Corporation ... what kind of sadly crippled and fractured industry we'd be working in now.

Perhaps it's bye-bye-Java time. Sigh. What a bunch of slimy creeps there must be at Oracle Corp ... Whassamatter Larry ? Need a new yacht ?

Re:Don't worry...

[julesh]

WTF is wrong with you Google!? JAVA IS AN AWFUL LANGAUGE! Why the hell didn't you just use C++?

Because in order to support the fine-grained permissions system Android has, they needed a language that supports full type safety, i.e. that disallows casting a pointer to an object to a pointer to a different kind of object. C++ can't do that, and while Objective C is closer it's still a "no cigar" situation. It's impossible in C++ to write a library that reliably acts differently depending on whether its client is trusted or not, and while I think it's theoretically possible in Objective C the fact that you can create new implementations of basic types (e.g. strings) allows all kinds of attacks that are simply not possible in a less dynamic language like Java where this can be prevented.

Re:Don't worry...

[Kagetsuki]

I tottally forgot about that, and that does make a lot of sense. Still, Java as a language I dislike. Of course there are other JVM langauges like Scala, which I do like, which you can already "kinda" use to write Android apps.

Also take my anger with a grain of salt - I'm in a two week Android/Java dev crunch time and the long winded code style and over-simplicty which makes you break everyting down into little adapter objects is getting to me.

Yeah right...

[ilsaloving]

You would have to be a fool to write *anything* new with Java. There is nothing in Java that is worth the risk of Oracle ramming a lawsuit up your posterior as soon as they think you have money they can bleed from you.

Re:Yeah right...

[kaffiene]

FUD

Whole New Ballgame

[ThatsNotPudding]

That game being Oracle suing everyone for daring to reference a Java API. A pox on Larry Ellison's yacht House.

Re:Whole New Ballgame

[Anonymous Coward]

And who looks stupid in reality? Dalvik is not a java vm, it does not execute java byte code and use a different instruction set. Also relevant; Google never claimed it to be Java. IOW, STFU astroturfer.

I fail to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Why developers who want to control their cpu keep putting someone else between themselves and their hardware. C/C++ and many other higher level languages are functional and productive in the right hands and don't have these copyright/patent/etc issues that Java/Oracle (insert third party here) have. In other words, you can either control the computer or let them tell you what you can do with your computer. Take your pick.

Java community you perplex me to no end.

Re:I fail to see

[Desler]

The only patent and copyright issues are from other implementations of the language. Not from programming in the language. Absolutely no has or will be sued for using OpenJDK. Also, no one writing Dalvik apps is being sied. Only Google is being sued over their own reimplementation of the JVM and associated libraries which Oracle is claiming copyright and patents on.

Re:I fail to see

[kelemvor4]

Why developers who want to control their cpu keep putting someone else between themselves and their hardware. C/C++ and many other higher level languages are functional and productive in the right hands and don't have these copyright/patent/etc issues that Java/Oracle (insert third party here) have. In other words, you can either control the computer or let them tell you what you can do with your computer. Take your pick.

Java community you perplex me to no end.

Things were damn near utopian with java before oracle bought sun. Java devs don't instantly hate something they've come to be rather fond of instantly when some shitball company buys it? Surprise, surprise..

Re:I fail to see

[gl4ss]

not nearly really utopian. the way they ran relations to mobile sucked bigtime always, they could have handled j2me jsr's etc really much, much better. that side which was extremely relevant for the last decade seemed like it had nobody at the helm - so they had total licensing control which was very strict but then they enforced all the wrong things for the api implementors.

I'm rather surprised at this javafx announcement(seems some guy working at O doing it too?) really. if they hadn't fucked up with javame and javafx so badly years and years ago android wouldn't have been relevant(really, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Musicpinboardmobile.png and you'll understand why oracle is pissed off about android - they view it as something that should have been their moment of glory, not googles).

and I'm surprised since this is the first time I hear about a device which is available for purchase that runs javafx :). and the irony it being Pi.. damn.. . yes it appears to have been available for a beagleboard too, but that never hit my radar(probably because running it on beagle was oracle inside thing only?? ), it's probably available for some other devices too. as far as real development goes it seems pretty useless and the pi fanbois are blowing it's usability out of proportion though.. a running dalvik with gpu accel would be really useful, not this.

it seems the whole thing is just internal oracle stuff too. but they might be keeping javafx alive for the sole purpose of having more guns for the lawsuit or some other lawsuit...

Re:I fail to see

[Kagetsuki]

Well the only "great" thing about Java is the JVM - which in and of itself isn't that great. Google easily could have implemented a full NDK and provided template makefiles to produce ARM and x86 binaries and just made a system to sort them out and choose the right one for download/install.

As for higher level languages some do have big benefits. Ruby and Python can do some amazing things in very little code and with very little coding time - and the reality is most machines perform well enough now that you don't need to worry about performance of most apps. If you do you can always write someting in a mid or low-level language and link it up.

Also, the whole Java motto of "write once run anywhere" is total BS. Every single device and implementation out there is totally different to the point you can't even write non-GUI apps and expect them to run on non-target platforms -- don't even get me started on GUI stuff. Add to that the fact the Java langauge is dated, featureless and ugly. I mean come on, when you can't even implement vectors, er..."ArrayLists" without array style accessors there's something wrong. Don't even get me started on anything involving nested data tables or the fact you can't override initializers or... GHAAA I HATE JAVA!

Re:I fail to see

[Billly Gates]

Both Oracle and mostly Sun killed Java. It was a great technology actually in the 1990s. It was neglected and crippled ... for portability according to Sun because Sun wanted to sell more Solaris workstations which also were ugly and very outdated compared to Linux. No point and clicks allowed to run the .class files!

Anyway JavaFX sucked because there was no tool to create them in. Sorry but a text editor does not give me visual layout, colar callibration, and other things that Adobe Flash Builder has. It is the argument for Photoshop vs CLI imageMagik or Latex where you type things and use your imagination for what it *might* look like. That is unacceptable. Sun didn't commit to JavaFX enough to build a gui editing program for it. Instead they made a template for Adobe Flash. Gee so I pay $$$ for it and I can also just compile my video for flash instead? Why use JavaFX then? Idiots

javaMe is truly awefull too. It is not smart about screen resolutions and each mobile developer has to rewrite the app for each phone. Even .NET mobile is better for crying out loud. Java was great when it was new but after drinking their own coolaide it whithered. Now Oracle is the collections agency trying to maximize on its asset for maximum profit anyway possible for the poor saps stuck using it.

Re:I fail to see

[bro1]

Well the only "great" thing about Java is the JVM - which in and of itself isn't that great.

I also find these things great about Java:

* tooling (IDEs, code processors, ant, maven, etc)
* Java community is great - you can get free frameworks and libraries and support for anything you want to develop
* standardized APIs
* portability (I use Linux at home and Windows at work - it's great to have the same software running everywhere)

Things I am still waiting to be great:

* Nice GUIs (hopefully with Java FX 2.x)
* Easier deployment of desktop apps

Re:I fail to see

[Kagetsuki]

Well, for me:
*tooling: I use vim, and eclim is around so it's not an issue. Code processors I'll give you, that is well done. I don't like ant or maven (simply a preference).
*I have found the Java community to be absolutely awful - information is scattered and when you go for help you'll run into people with the same eletist traits as Gossling. Of course this is all probably because I'm involved in the Ruby community, so my standards are a little biased. The Android dev community isn't so bad but it's also not "great".
*standardized APIs are neat if you have to work in enterprise frameworks and the like, but I like choice. Best comparison here would be C++ - there is a rich standard library set but there are also a lot of options, and the Boost libraries are "standard enough" if you need "standardized".
*portability: I see your point on the Windows/Linux gap, but honestly I can't think of anything other than LO and Minecraft that I use that's Java based. Actually LO and Minecraft are two spectacular peices of Java software. Any other suggestions?

I completely agree with you on the Nice GUI point - first time I wrote Java was right when Swing came in and it was a nightmare of digusting and awkward with layers of inexplicable font awfulness. It doesn't seem like that situation has improved dramatically, but at least LO looks OK, and eclipse is bearable... but nowhere near what I would consider nice. I wasn't aware desktop app deployment had any issues but it's not something I've dealt with so I'll take your word on it.

Bitter

[kelemvor4]

It might run JavaFX for you but for me it doesn't run a damn thing. Why? Because I can't seem to ORDER one! Well, unless I go over to ebay and pay $200 for one... PLEASE RAMP UP PRODUCTION, PI TEAM!

Re:Bitter

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Did you register interest at either RS/Allied or Element 14/Farnell? If yes then congratulations, you've indicated that you want Raspberry Pi production to increase. If no then why not? That's how RS and Farnell know that they should be baking more Raspberry Pis!

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is no longer manufacturing the boards -- at the moment production is totally in the hands of RS and Farnell!

Re:Bitter

[kelemvor4]

I registered with element 14. I didn't realize these guys were actually manufacturing the boards, I thought they were just resellers.

Re:Bitter

[ZeroSumHappiness]

The first run of 10k was commissioned by the Foundation to be produced by a Chinese factory. Those 10k boards were then shipped to Farnell and Allied to be resold. At the same time, Farnell and Allied were both given non-exclusive licenses to produce the Raspberry Pi on their own. At the current time all Pis to be built after the first 10k production run will be made by Farnell and Allied however they desire (most likely direct shipped from factories in China.) If we're lucky more manufacturers will license the Pi as well.

How is this techy news worthy?

[Virtucon]

What they're saying is that a small form factor device that is supposed to run Linux runs software that Linux can run now.

Wow, that's news? I'd say it's a test case. yes there may be hardware differences but those should be minimal and this would be a porting effort.

The topic should be "Raspberry Pi runs software it's supposed to."

Re:How is this techy news worthy?

[PCM2]

I guess the telling part is that Java is supposed to be a language that's "write once, run anywhere," but in reality Java developers can't be certain that a substantial Java library from Oracle itself will even compile or run on any particular platform. Turns out it did this time.

Re:How is this techy news worthy?

[ChunderDownunder]

Running on the Pi shouldn't be an issue - Sun have had a proprietary 'embedded' JVM for years. Whether it runs *well* is the issue.

I'm not sure why the presenter was using VNC, which might add to the CPU usage. No remote display forwarding - it's X11 after all!

Re:How is this techy news worthy?

[kaffiene]

Moron. What's interesting is that this is a full JIT JVM, not just a bytecode engine like Dalvik. There have been JVMs in the ARM space for ages, but not JIT JVMs and not the the standard JVM either.

But whatever, just spread FUD and ignorance if that's easier for you.

Re:How is this techy news worthy?

[julesh]

Moron. What's interesting is that this is a full JIT JVM, not just a bytecode engine like Dalvik.

Dalvik has been doing JIT since Android 2.2 was released nearly 2 years ago. Please try to keep your facts up-to-date if you're going to claim other people are spreading FUD.

Not exactly Quake3

[mdragan]

Well, it's a clock. One that's not running very smoothly.
At least they manage to use up the whole CPU for drawing some arcs, that must be a incredible accomplishment.
Reminds me of the 8bit computer days when some were using fast asm routines to draw circles, some were doing it painfully slow with BASIC.

Funny

[Vahokif]

Don't you think it's funny that all the Boycott Novell doomsayers were saying Mono was a Microsoft trap every time it was mentioned and now their beloved Java is the reason someone is actually getting sued?

Just what I always wanted

[scourfish]

I've waited for so long for JavaFX - the same software framework that adds bloat and makes both my cable box and my Blu Ray player take a gazillion years to boot up and has slow menus that take the same time to display as a 386 running a copy of Windows 3.1 - to run on my embedded hobbyist devices.

Re:It doesn't matter

[Billly Gates]

Java is a classic example of a great shiny new technology where incompetent management ruins the product and technology.

Java was way ahead of its time and fucking awesome in the 1990s and Sun could have done so much back then. Sun refused to:
1. Let you compile for .exe's so a user could just point and click to run a program
2. Failed to integrate into the hosts native OS when no equilivent Java api would suffice
3. Didn't charge money for it. I know slashdotters hate this idea but more money generated could have funded more things like how C# and .NET keeps improving
4. Failed to implement a mobile strategy thatw as cost effective and didn't blow
5. Let Java fall behind

#5 is a big one. If any programmer could create a java program and it would run across all platforms as a native executable that would rock. Nope, Sun wanted you to tell users to type java program.class each and everytime. ERRR no can do. Java should charge for its enterprise versions and have a free one for regular hobbists so that way Sun could add more development and can grow it. Worse today in 2012 Java is far behind C#. C# has enumerators, boxing, and other features (I think Java supports enumerators now, but I have not touched it since 2005). Still it is very late to add this in 2006 and later when C# already had it. Sun lost Android for wanting to keep its Java2ME proprietary and refusing to make its executables more platform specific for better performance.

Sun only cared about Solaris and their servers. They let java wither and refused to give an inch in terms of portability for that reasons.No one cares about the licensing anymore unless its $$$ which Oracle is trying to do right now. Its still a great language but like Netscape before it is old and stale.

I hated C#.NET on principle when it came out. But I see no real innovation for anyone to want to go back. Oracle is being compentent with charging arms and legs for it and thats it as it wont matter anymore. What a shame as in a different universe it could have been the #1 language to develop on. It just didn't evolve and was screwed over by management.

An analogy - Let me know if this works

[Torodung]

In a fictional analogy, this sounds a bit like the Linux kernel and an accompanying distribution being open sourced and freely distributable/modifiable via the GPL, but somehow POSIX winds up as the copyright of an interested party, taking away the ability to write anything that uses the APIs for the next 95-120 years? Am I getting this right? They're coming after professional developers for reading and implementing the specification? And they want to draw license fees for that standard corporate copyright term?

If that's the case, this lawsuit is a radical departure that deeply concerns anyone who develops or hopes to develop software. Oracle has to lose this. What a mess.

Well duh

[nukem996]

No shut its running like shit hes using a VNC session. If I recall correctly the PI has hardware accleration, if he was using that it would be much much smoother.

wtf...

[cadu]

I wonder why this is making headlines here...

What on earth disallows me to : 1- Run a Linux Distro on the thing? 2- Put Java via OpenJDK on that? 3- Enjoy the order of magnitude loss of performance for running interpreted code on such a restrained system? FFuu...

Anyone here is with me that Slashdot is hitting a hard downhill on news quality since 2006's ?

Haiku OS?

[fygment]

Would the Pi be a good match for the Haiku OS ... or vice versa?