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

[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.

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.

[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

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:Still waiting on my Pi...

[citizenr]

Their production line is written in Java.

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: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.

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: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.