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Google Confirms Next Android Version Won't Use Oracle's Proprietary Java APIs

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-our-own dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google is ditching the Java application programming interfaces (APIs) in Android and moving to only OpenJDK. The news first came by a "mysterious Android codebase commit" from last month submitted to Hacker News. Google confirmed to VentureBeat that Android N will rely solely on OpenJDK. “As an open-source platform, Android is built upon the collaboration of the open-source community,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat. “In our upcoming release of Android, we plan to move Android’s Java language libraries to an OpenJDK-based approach, creating a common code base for developers to build apps and services. Google has long worked with and contributed to the OpenJDK community, and we look forward to making even more contributions to the OpenJDK project in the future.”

6 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Good time to be an Android developer! by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder how much stuff this is going to break?

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    1. Re:Good time to be an Android developer! by maligor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wonder how much stuff this is going to break?

      The difference between OpenJDK and Java JDK is meaningless (In Android), so nothing will break. I think the core build systems has been using OpenJDK over official java for a while, and I would imagine this is the shift for the app developer stuff, but it won't really change anything aside from having to download a new JDK.

    2. Re:Good time to be an Android developer! by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't quite get why Google doesn't address one of the app developer's longest standing complaints, and ditch Java completely. They don't have to do it right away, just next version of Android they should feature a new runtime based on something else, and over oh say 5 years, (when the old apps are probably not terribly relevant) they can hard compile all of the existing apps in the play store that haven't been updated to both ARM and X86 (for e.g. old games that the developer no longer maintains but people still want to play) and then remove the old runtime.

  2. Re: Abstractions: a purely academic concept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    OO is useful in some limited scenarios but has little practical use.

  3. Does this mean anything at all by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OpenJDK is 100% compatible with the Java public APIs. So they are switching to something which is the same ...

  4. Apache Harmony getting replaced by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wasn't Android using Apache Harmony as basis? Given that Harmony is no longer being developed due to OpenJDK being just as open and available, it's only a logical choice to upgrade to a modern Java API.

    Additionally, using OpenJDK instead of Harmony (or any other Java Classpath implementation) does nothing with respect to using "Oracle's Proprietary Java APIs".