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Google Confirms Next Android Version Won't Use Oracle's Proprietary Java APIs
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.”
I wonder how much stuff this is going to break?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
All the apps continue to be developed for iOS. That's where the money is, less theft, less radically different OS's.
it crashes faster, okay?
Table-ized A.I.
If you're developing for Android it is worth checking out Kotlin along with the Anko libs from Jetbrains.
Kotlin, by the company that provides the Android Studio platform, is built on the Java platform and adds a modern, fashionable multi-paradigm (OO, functional) syntax, fixes some gaps in the Java standard libs, adds optionals that are (IMHO) easier to read than Swift's. It seems to be the best bet for getting a modern, fashionable language on Android, ie does not add to download size, seamless operation with other libs, etc.
You can also use Kotlin as a backend language, eg with Spring Boot, and it compiles to JavaScript too, so can be used client-side. You could even use it on iOS if you wanted, with RoboVM.
I've spent the last few years developing focusing almost 100% on iOS, but am willing to give Android another try in 2016
.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Lol, good lord, thanks for that laugh.
"Old man yells at systemd"
If Oracle gets a billion dollars from their lawsuit, they won't care if they lose users in the process.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As for the rest of us, well, we have to get real work done! And that means getting down and dirty with messy APIs, with legacy code, with ever-changing specs, and facing down the uncertainty that's present in real projects.
That sort of thing only increases the importance of having an abstraction layer so you don't spread all those problems throughout your code, the problems stay on their own messy side of the line.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Proprietary" is a word meaning ownership. Oracle does not own any APIs.
If you mean "hold the copyright to" well the US Congress wrote the law and it says they can't.
The courts last year said they sort of can (in the 9th District). So in the 9th district Oracle
has copyrights (but it's still not their proprietary anything) and in the other districts nothing.
SCOTUS declined to hear it. Perhaps with conflicting rulings in other districts they will
harmonize this and once again APIs will be free from copyright throughout the world. This
is now true EXCEPT for the US Federal 9th District.
Ehud
The one where last year they had 8 cores and 3 GB RAM, obviously.
.: Semper Absurda
"As an open-source platform, Android is built upon the collaboration of the open-source community,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat.
Is that why they are making 'closed source' versions of apps that was a part of the open source Android? Like Camera, Dialer, Keyboard, Contacts, Calendar, etc. It seems, if Google could, they would make Android closed source... I just take it that they don't want to pay licensing costs to Oracle anymore.
Wow. Longtime Java programmer here. Switched to OpenJDK a few years ago to make deployments on Linix easier (many distros stopped providing Oracle JDKs through their package managers). Not a single thing broke. Not even a little.
So many many mane projects are likely to continue to work after a switch from Oracle to OpenJDK. Basically, as long as you don't directly use any com.sun.whatever or sun.misc.whatever code directly (like everyone used to do for base64 encoding, or writing JPG files), then you should be fine. Basically, if you have been doing what both Sun and Oracle have been telling Java programmers to do for about 10 or so years, now, your code should move from one JVM to another without blowing up.
But isn't Android "not Java"? *ducks*
i hate java, and i hate the java on android even more. good thing there is an NDK.
I fiddled around with java and it was interesting, but I confess I didn't put enough time into it to get fluent.
I could see a lot of the upsides/benefits to it but I just got sidetracked by other stuff and lost interest. It didn't "grab" me the way some other languages did, but some of the java jockeys I know are pretty adept with it and won't use anything else.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It'll get worse, thats what it means
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Oracle Lawyers Confused by Latest Google Move. Have no idea who to sue so sue themselves.
Highly appropriate that the captcha is "losers." Which is a good description of Oracle/Larry Ellison.
Anything source compatible is copyright violation subject to the dmca thanks to the Oracle court case.
Compatibility is intermingled with copyright. Terrible decision
http://saveie6.com/
They never used Oracle/Sun Java but Apache Harmony due to the " no GPL in userspace" rule in Android. My guess is that this has nothing to do with Oracle and everything to do with that Apache harmony isdead and it is annoying to maintain a fork. Using OpenJDK could increase quality and security thanks to more eyeballs.
This guy looks most orcish to me, but who knows. He certainly shares the hair thing going on with Trump.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If Google were to replace their existing implementations of the Java APIs with the implementation from OpenJDK and followed the GPL in doing so, they would be legally in the clear since the GPL explicitly lets Google use that code (and those APIs) and says that doing so is not a copyright violation as long as you follow the license.
OpenJDK is 100% compatible with the Java public APIs. So they are switching to something which is the same ...
Anything source compatible is copyright violation subject to the dmca thanks to the Oracle court case.
No, there might still be a fair use defense. Eagle Technologies copied the IBM bios, for example.
The Oracle vs Google trial is ongoing, it is up to Google to present a fair-use defense (but these things move slowly).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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".
At least at this site posts should be accurate enough to distinguish between interface and implementation correctly.
Title should state that next version will switch *implementation* of Java API from Google's proprietary *implementation* (taken from Apache Harmony as they had told the judge) to OpenJDK *implementation*.
Ditching Java API (Application Programming *Interface*) would be a catastrophe for entire Android ecosystem as Google would need to reinvent all the library APIs for Java language. At that point Java would no longer be of any value to Google and they would be better off using other language and its libraries which may happen if "fair use" will not be granted by the court.
The Java language value is number of developers using it. However the true wonder of the Java ecosystem are myriads of ready to use open source libraries. Without Java API implementation those libraries won't work.
Limitations? Name one.
Fuck off,asshole. You're full of shit.
ignorant rant mixed with bleats, snorts and narfs
You work in the real world, eh? It sure shows.
Google Confirms Next Android Version Won't Use Oracle's Proprietary Java APIs
That's not what Google is doing. It is switching the internals from Apache Harmony to OpenJDK. Seriously, who the fuck writes these titles and headings. Slashdot, news for nerds and hackers? Suuuuuuuuuuuuure.
I think most Android developers would just be happy if Android wasn't locked to JDK6. A real christmas miracle would be if they could stop using Gradle and its outrageously long build times.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
OpenJDK is 100% compatible with the Java public APIs.
Does this mean Swing apps will run on Android?
For the most part, Microsoft CLR users already don't care. Have you heard of IKVM? They're already yo-ho-ho-ing code like Zookeeper libraries and other stuff at a prodigous rate. And given that the CLR has versioning that lets it update its binary engine without deprecating the entire universe that came before, they're doing it with a language with features at least 5 years ahead of what the Java working groups are even considering.
Given the open sourcing and license of the .NET core libraries, CoreCLR and compiler... Quite frankly the community would be better served if Google used the CLR. Microsoft actually doesn't need a lot of buy-in. They're already leading one of the top 5 most deployed binary platforms in the world. What they want is developers to recognize their platform is actually the technically superior and most open option.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Seriously? You can't allocate objects on the stack, you can't manage your own memory, you can't have multiple inheritance, you can't use unsigned ints, the list goes on.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The IBM vs. Compaq case about BIOS would almost certainly have gone the other way today if it had not by itself set a precedent.
At the time, copyright was a more limited concept, and a work had to show artistic merit to be protected. It was decided that the mere functionality of a program did not have artistic merit, only the particular expression, and Compaq only copied the functionality without copying the particular expression. Today the same applies in theory, but the standards for what is required for sufficient artistic merit to be worthy of copyright protection have slipped to the point where pretty much anything goes.
The outcome of Oracle vs. Google is going to be extremely interesting and potentially very damaging to the software industry.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
The IBM vs. Compaq case about BIOS would almost certainly have gone the other way today if it had not by itself set a precedent.
Maybe. There's a clear interoperability clause written into copyright law now, so it seems like it would probably still go the same way.
The weakness in Google's fair-use interoperability defense is that they didn't use Java for interoperability purposes. So I'm interested in seeing which way the case will go, but I don't have much hope for them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If the most complex software you write is a guestbook, then yes, you should probably avoid OO. The rest of us, though, who write complex, 10,000+ line code bases have much nigger problems than the 4 guestbook signatures on our nerdrage blog with a total of 3 posts bitching about MS, Oracle, and systemd.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
"Working correctly" is out of scope for this app?
Requiem for the American Dream
I see a good reason to use spell checking, or if not then what program do you use for spell checking?
Wtf is a mane project?
Psycho touchscreen spell correction
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The only spellcheck fails in that post are OO, nerdrage and systemd, at least according to my Firefox. The real error passes spellcheck, but fails the grammar check and meaning check Firefox doesn't have.
I see the recall reading the OpenJDK was the reference build for Java 7 anyhow. Java 6 had a bunch of nastiness that was pure oracle, but for 7 the Open JDK had most of the desired functionality with the Oracle version just bolting some additional functionality on to it.
That's basically Object Oriented Programming, the way it is implemented in Java (and in C#).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The source, please?
Is the situation different [and Eclipse fully supports OpenJDK] now?