Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android 124
narramissic writes "There may be trouble brewing between Google and Sun. Google has written its own virtual machine for Android, 'most likely as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun.' If Google used any of Sun's intellectual property to build Dalvik, Sun could sue Google for patent infringement. But here's where it gets interesting - Sun is a vocal advocate for open source and it would 'hardly appease the open source community to sue Google over an open source software stack.'"
Re:To put it bluntly. (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, mini-rant about Sun and Java's naming. Java is three distinct things that Sun has helpfully lumped into one name:
1. The virtual machine.
2. The collection of libraries.
3. The language itself.
Google is using #3, the Java language. They are not using #1, the virtual machine, and using only some subset of #2, the collection of libraries.
Now given the way that Sun sued Microsoft over changing parts of Java in the past, it's almost guaranteed that they'll do it again over Google not using their virtual machine or library.
I can't really blame Google though, since the VM is why Java is notoriously slow, and the libraries is why it's notoriously member hungry. For a PC that's not a big deal, but on a mobile device, it is. There's a reason Java ME has gone nowhere, and Google is trying to succeed where Java has failed.
How about an Android for this Web ? (Score:2, Interesting)
A bit offtopic...
How about Google bringing decent Java performance on the Web ? Possibly with OpenGL ES like for Android.
Java on web browsers has possibly gotten worse with years. Sun loaded it so much with useless crap and didn't even try to get a proper way to vsync an applet (very important if you are trying to make a media application/game that requires the basic concept of frame-rate).
Current multi-media web dev is relegated to Flash, but I'm sure that there are many skilled programmers out there that would be glad to have a lean Java VM & API working in web browsers. Sun gave up long time ago, Google could take over and make it ubiquitous.
J2ME (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:To put it bluntly. (Score:2, Interesting)
danger too (Score:1, Interesting)
Change the name. (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember Microsoft re-implemented it from scratch, but because someone owned the name "JavaScript", they simply called it "JScript".
So, Google is now selling the brand "Android", which is a shift from the pseudo-codename "gPhone". It seems like they're in an ideal position to say "Fine, we won't call it Java." And they will be careful to refer to it only as the "Android language", "Android libraries", and "Android runtime" in their official documentation -- even though many people will simply call it "Java" anyway.
So, threatening legal action when all you own is the name -- that's not always stupid, but here, they're going up against Google. Seems to me, they'd be throwing away a lot of perfectly good free PR for Java -- especially if Android kicks Java ME's ass.
Re:To put it bluntly. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dalvik source available? (Score:1, Interesting)
A bigger story - BSD libc + Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a blow aimed squarely at the Free Software Foundation, and RMS's efforts to establish GPLv3. Good luck in trying to square that one away.
Now, why in the world Google would do this is beyond me. IHMO it smacks of too much money, and too many engineers with not enough relevant things to do. But hey, if Google's goal is to try to minimize both versions of the GPL, well, I can think of no better effort.
Re:Change the name. (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if the VM is not officially Java, you're still ending up with a whole lot of development energy invested in Java, which is good for Sun. I really hope there's no way they are stupid enough to bring this to court just to make a few bucks...
Re:To put it bluntly. (Score:2, Interesting)
1) The first VMs were truly awful and slow
2) Terrible browser integration with applets
3) AWT as a whole was just a mess, and Swing didn't do much to help things.
4) Brought the language out as a trimmed down C++, only to realize that some of the stuff in C++ was actually useful and put it back in later (it happened with generics and static imports, and if reason takes hold it will eventually happen with operator overloading)
1) is pretty much fixed now on the desktop, but when you go to the mobile world you're basically bac to first-gen VM territory. It will be interesting to see if Dalvik is much better than your run-of-the-mill J2ME VM these days; I'm sure it's possible, but I think it's yet to be proven (I'd love to see actual tests side by side!). 2) is irrelevant for phones (interestingly enough, apparently Android can't load Java applets from the browser - ha!), but supposedly close to being fixed on PCs - of course, this is now a decade late, years after everyone has written off the applet as a delivery mechanism. 3) is still making Java development hell, so I'm thrilled that Google has decided to throw the whole mess out and start new, I suspect Google will do it much better. Maybe some of their interface code, once opened up, will be useful enough to swim upstream and help out "real" Java?
Re:Does Sun make any money from Java on phones? (Score:3, Interesting)
The general model of GPL for apps, LGPL for frameworks that apps run on top of, makes sense. You want to extend the kernel? Write in GPL. You want to run some app of yours on top of it? No problem, you are free to do so. This is precisely what the LGPL is for.
Re:To put it bluntly. (Score:2, Interesting)
What about this list of Networks Operatos and Carriers [sun.com]
Or the Java ME Device Table [sun.com]?
Or, for that matter, what about these phones from Nokia [nokia.com], Motorola [motorola.com] and Sony Ericcson [sonyericsson.com] just to name a few?
I agree that there's a lot NOT to like about Java, but calling it a failure it's just trolling... and I just fell for it!RT
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