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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.”

12 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      As long as it pisses off Larry Ellison, it's worth it.

    2. 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.

    3. Re: Good time to be an Android developer! by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sure Google is telling Larry that he can kiss their puckered brown Oracle.

      Google could tell Larry to go fuck himself.

      But I wouldn't be surprised if he married himself.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re:Good time to be an Android developer! by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

      OpenJDK is under the GPL, which means there will be a lot more GPL in Android now.

      Here is the commit message. Right now they are just copying files over, so it's not entirely clear what they will be doing with the OpenJDK stuff, but it's in there. Presumably Google will modify it to use Dalvik (or whatever VM they are using now).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:Good time to be an Android developer! by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The difference between OpenJDK and Java JDK is meaningless (In Android), so nothing will break

      If that's true, why haven't they been using it all along? The first commercial Android phone was unveiled in late 2008. The OpenJDK class library was pretty complete by then.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    6. Re:Good time to be an Android developer! by stephanruby · · Score: 5, Informative

      The difference between OpenJDK and Java JDK is meaningless (In Android), so nothing will break

      If that's true, why haven't they been using it all along? The first commercial Android phone was unveiled in late 2008. The OpenJDK class library was pretty complete by then.

      The answer was Eclipse. Eclipse didn't work very well with the OpenJDK.

    7. 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: 4, Informative

    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*

  3. Apache Harmony by staalmannen · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. 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 ...

  5. 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".