IBM and Oracle To Collaborate On OpenJDK 160
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by
Soulskill
from the what-does-the-color-blue-taste-like dept.
from the what-does-the-color-blue-taste-like dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Today, IBM and Oracle announced their intent to work together to accelerate innovation on the Java Platform, leveraging OpenJDK. IBM and Oracle will also collaborate to support the Java SE 7 and Java SE 8 schedules presented recently at JavaOne and to continue to enhance the JCP."
Here's a question ... (Score:2)
Re:Here's a question ... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure this IBM-Oracle teamup will produce an amazing result with the reliability of LotusNotes and the developer friendliness of an Oracle database tool.
It'll also have... well, crap. You're going to get sued if you use it no matter which parent is dominant there.
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Java is the new Caldera Linux; buy it and you'll end up being sued by the very same people who sold it to you.
Well, think about it like this... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, think about it like this - there was one giant slow mega-corporation working on stagnating Java development before.
Now there are TWO mega-corporations known for their agility working on a single piece of software. With strong commitment to committee-centered development.
Re:Here's a question ... (Score:5, Informative)
Can somebody more familiar with Java and the overall Java scene clue us in as to whether this is a good thing?
These joint announcements would appear to break the log jam that has prevailed over Java for the last few years. Sun simply didn't scale to open projects and gradually found itself at odds with the JCP on many fronts. Oracle and IBM have now slated specific items from the JCP backlog for future OpenJDK implementations, implicitly anointing both the JCP and the (open source) OpenJDK as the official future of Java. That is the closest thing to a 'plan' that has appeared in the Java world in about four years.
The Oracle vs. Google thing is very troubling. Google made Java work in a huge way on Android. Networked, mobile, embedded stuff was use case for which Java was originally intended. Java badly needs to inculcate that success. Otherwise it will assume the role its detractors have often accused of it; the COBOL of our day.
Re:Here's a question ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise it will assume the role its detractors have often accused of it; the COBOL of our day.
So it will be wildly successful with billions of lines of code still in use powering a ton of the infrastructure that modern-day business relies on?
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Otherwise it will assume the role its detractors have often accused of it; the COBOL of our day.
So it will be wildly successful with billions of lines of code still in use powering a ton of the infrastructure that modern-day business relies on?
Shhh!
Re:Here's a question ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd rather get paid than be cool.
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Yup, and most of it will be written by people who have a lot of knowledge of the problem domain and a tiny bit of knowledge of programming, making the code very hard to maintain. It will then be used for about 20 years longer than the original designers expected.
I've likened Java to COBOL before. It's not a criticism, just a point that they both fill the same niche. Java was created as a language for average programmers (that was a stated design goal) and it's succeeded in this - people with little know
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The downside is, sometime in the 22nd century, people will be screaming & tearing their hairs out maintaining the ancient code that I wrote back in 2010! Though that will be their problem, not mine.
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Thing is though that Android doesn't actually use Java, just a java syntax, so if anything the success of Android is hurting Java by further diluting it.
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Thing is though that Android doesn't actually use Java, just a java syntax, so if anything the success of Android is hurting Java by further diluting it.
So what happens if Dalvik becomes the new Java? I, for one, have more trust in Google than Oracle.
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Saying it's not Java is like saying gcj is not Java because it compiles Java code to native code rather than to JVM bytecode.
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You can't take a compliant java application and compile it into Dalvik and have it work, you can't take compliant java byte code and run it in dalvik and you can't take dalvik byte code and run it in a compliant JVM.
gcj is not java, it's a convertor from java to machine code.
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It's a start.
At this point, there are a few major threats to java. Oracle and IBM getting into a hissy fit and forking it, the fact that Oracle is involved in it poisoning it, the JCP process getting bogged down and causing it to stagnate, and .NET just being a lot easier to use.
This change doesn't actually eliminate any of these problems, but it does mitigate at least the first three, which are crucial to doing anything about the 4th.
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As a long time Java developer, I had mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, IBM has been a pretty good steward of java and platform independence. On the other hand, it scares me that they are getting in bed with Oracle, since Oracle has shown they support Open Source only where they have a direct benefit (i.e they are first in line to use open source code, but they don't seem to want to contribute much back, IMO).
Now maybe we can get a decent JDK with yum (Score:3, Interesting)
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Not trying to be facetious, but this is the #1 reason I'm using Ubuntu instead of FC or OpenSUSE. (Not just Java specifically, but Java, restricted codecs, Flash, etc.) It also updates all of the relevant alternatives for me, as part of the package install, which is also very nice.
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The Java, Flash and restricted codecs are all in the Opensuse repositories. Opensuse installs flash and java automatically when you install it if you have the 'non-oss' add on CD. If not you can simply add this repo after installtion and install them.
The restricted codecs are a 1-click install: http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_formats [opensuse-community.org] [opensuse-community.org]
The procedure might be slightly different from Ubuntu's but it couldn't be simpler, really.
(double-post the other one I accidentally clicked 'p
What's wrong with OpenJDK? (Score:4, Informative)
It already is a drop-in replacement, unless you're dealing with software that makes remarkably stupid assumptions about the JDK it's running on.
Unfortunately, that may be a lot of software -- I know Oracle's own JDeveloper uses some internal Sun JDK stuff, when there's no reason they couldn't use the standard public API for the same thing which OpenJDK also supports.
Still, if it's in your power to do so, fix the app. If OpenJDK breaks it, chances are, a future Sun JDK will break it, too.
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My experience at it is that it will crash about every time you change a bit in a page. Went back to the Sun JDK in no time.
Hopefully one day that gets better (and I'm sure it will, eventually)
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It [OpenJDK] already is a drop-in replacement [for Sun JDK], unless you're dealing with software that makes remarkably stupid assumptions about the JDK it's running on.
I assume Tomcat is "stupid" software then? It has issues running under OpenJDK. Many other Java applications also become unstable or unpredictable under OpenJDK - soi much so, that I wouldn't trust openJDK on any platform or for any application.
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That's not what I said.
I think Firefox is altogether an excellent browser, but I think they've made some remarkably stupid decisions with regards to HTML5. That doesn't make all of Firefox "stupid software."
Similarly, I would imagine Tomcat is mostly well put together, but has made some stupid assumptions about the JDK it's running on. I'm also curious if it still has those issues...
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But which behavior? Actual, specified behavior, or private interfaces no one had any business using?
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But which behavior?
Locking up, crashing. Those trivial kinds of things that don't happen with Sun or IBM JDKs. Nothing to do with using non-public APIs.
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Any examples you can share?
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So now I'm curious -- you've just pointed out a potential problem and a solution which didn't require going beyond the standard API. It also seems like unless your library is incredibly poorly written, this would be a trivial change.
I suppose if I really, really needed signal handling, I'd do JNI, which would be incredibly ironic -- but really, if you're deliberately using features you know aren't supported on all Java platforms, you shouldn't be surprised when they don't work on all JVMs.
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And my point was, if you don't have a "pure Java" application, and if you are making assumptions about both the platform you're running on and the JVM you're running on, it actually seems like an improvement to switch to JNI, which only makes assumptions about the platform.
After all, C does have pretty consistent signal handling where that concept makes any sense.
Re:Now maybe we can get a decent JDK with yum (Score:4, Informative)
Its passed the certification test for Java [softwhere.org].
What else, besides your companies policies, would have to change for you to consider it a drop in replacement for the official JDK that is available in mainstream yum repositories?
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Minor revisions I'm not sure, but I've had a lot of "enjoyment" with SAP which seems to be very fussy about JVM versions. [sap.com] I thought they were supposed to be backward compatible, but apparently not.
And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:3, Interesting)
I get that java is *the* enterprise-y choice for applications, but I still don't get it. I don't see the economic incentive for Oracle to keep this project, so I'm guessing the bulk of the Dev work is transitioning to IBM.
What is communicated as a collaboration is more a transition for what would have likely gone abandonware with a rats nest of Intellectual Property issues perpetually constraining re-use.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong because I never got Java from the beginning.
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Oracle have so much existing software written in Java that they kinda need to keep Java alive.
Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the economic incentive for Oracle to keep this project,
Maybe because Oracle, being enterprise-y, has an absurd number of applications which run on Java? Improving Java performance means nearly all Oracle applications run faster. Making Java more flexible as a language and as a VM means they have more powerful tools and better techniques going forward, which they can use for developing things which plug directly into all that legacy Java code they've got.
And while Oracle certainly has the rights to close as much of it as they like, hopefully even they realize it's in their best interests to collaborate with the community (including IBM), rather than trying to go it alone.
I'm guessing the bulk of the Dev work is transitioning to IBM.
And why do you think IBM has a better incentive than Oracle?
Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:4, Informative)
And why do you think IBM has a better incentive than Oracle?
Disclaimer: I work for IBM's Java Technology Center.
Because IBM also uses Java as the core component of all its software brands - Rational,Lotus,Websphere,Tivoli - all of them run on IBM's Java. Also IBM provides JDKs for its own platforms (AIX, z/OS and Linux on System p/z) to support the same brands. Essentially,Java is crucial to allow modern enterprise applications to run on mainframes and legacy OSes like System p/z without having to code native applications for them, and which can benefit from the traditional stability and processing power of large mainframes.
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In other words, IBM has the same incentive as Oracle, so my point stands.
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I don't see the economic incentive for Oracle to keep this project, so I'm guessing the bulk of the Dev work is transitioning to IBM.
Well, look at it this way: your stereotypical Java enterprise project probably uses Oracle as its database. Conversely, while many .NET enterprise projects still use Oracle, the default database choice there is probably SQL Server. A project built in freer languages is probably looking at something like a PostGRE and not Oracle, etc. Java projects really are one of their b
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I'd be curious to actually know the real numbers, how frequently enterprise Java applications run on Oracle. I've worked for several large enterprises that standardized on Java as the development platform, but almost exclusively used MS SQL instead of Oracle for the databases.
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This is an uneasy truce where two competitors agree to not put pressure on the swords that they have at each others throats. Oracle invested considerably in Sun, and knows that the biggest asset that Sun brings to the table is their Java related people and knowledge-base (and not Sun's proprietary hardware). Java is incredible valuable to Oracle since they have also bought up BEA Systems (who produced WebLogic - leading J2EE container) and are using this acquisition to position them as a vendor that can do
BEA? You gotta be kidding (Score:2)
"BEA Systems (who bought WebLogic - leading J2EE container)..."
There. Fixed that for ya.
In the early days (around '98 or thereabouts) if you wanted to write Java code that talked to an Oracle database you went to download it from Weblogic's website (long before they were acquired by BEA). It wasn't so much the case that Oracle's driver implementations were crap, it was that they just plain didn't exist!
Weblogic had a bloody good app server; sad that they got totally borged and reborged.
Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:5, Insightful)
This is some of what Java has going for it:
1. Massive standard class library covering everything from smartphones to distributed application servers
2. Huge amounts of third-party support. If you can think of it, someone somewhere has written a library for it, and chances are it's open source
3. The best IDEs in existence. NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc. all come with built in support for unit testing, dependency management, source control (mercurial, SVN, git, you name it), profiling, local and remote debugging, etc.
4. Agent support for instrumentation and runtime redeployment. Using tools like JRebel I can edit code in my IDE and see the results instantly in the application server, and *still* take advantage of strong typing, etc.
5. Object-Relation-Management (ORM). Tools like TopLink and Hibernate mean that you can reverse engineer a class model from a DB, or generate a DB from a class model, and use the ORM API to effortlessly add optimistic locking, transaction management, and object based queries to your app
6. Application servers support distributed transaction management (XA) and messaging (JMS) on top of a generalize connection management framework (JCA) in which any vendor can provide a standard connector (resource adapter) to their systems and participate in global two-phase transactions
7. Open driver support for virtually every data store; lots of choices for embedded in-memory SQL/RDBMS databases
8. Container-based pooling, caching, and transaction management
9. Dependency management and build systems like Ant, Maven, Hudson, and Sonar that enable you to very easily configure scheduled builds with static code analysis, automated unit tests, and concise reports of errors with references to changesets included in the build
10. Perhaps the largest collection of forums, blogs, and online documentation for any platform
11. Strong typing, API contracts, and runtime introspection identify issues at compile/deploy time, rather than runtime
12. Strong industry support from multiple vendors (Google, Oracle, IBM, RedHat, etc.)
So, if you're writing a little GTK widget for managing your MP3 collection, maybe Java isn't for you. But if you are a medium-to-large business chances are you either develop or administer an enterprise-scale Java application.
Another thing to consider is that the vast majority of Java tools and libraries are open source, and many of the specifications are formed once an open source toolset reaches a certain level of maturity/popularity. For example, Hibernate did most of the legwork for JPA; JSF was initiated largely due to the success of Struts; and WebBeans is a formal spec defining the basics what Seam provides. So all Oracle really has to do is keep the JCP going and publish the standards while RedHat (JBoss), IBM, the Glassfish development team, and everyone else provides the implementations. Oracle stays competitive with IBM and RedHat by offering a development stack (based on Oracle DB, Oracle AS, Oracle JDeveloper, etc. all of which use Java) *and* continues to collect licensing fees from the other players. Plus they have a little more say in the JCP process, which gives them a slight advantage when ratifying new APIs.
Not to mention that Java is installed in over 2.6 billion handheld devices, each of which pays a royalty fee to Oracle.
What surprises me is that Oracle is partnering with IBM on this venture. I wonder what IBM has on Oracle?
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"I wonder what IBM has on Oracle?" Business respectability. No one in their right mind trusts Oracle further than they can spit a two-headed rat. IBM is similar. However, if you have two two-headed rats, you, as a PHB, can buttress your choice of Java + Database + business application software as being dual sourced. Without IBM, its Oracle and their dumb lawsuit against Google. Few organizations would attempt what Google has done with using the language but not the infrastructure. But yer basic PHB won't se
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It's true! People say "Java is the new COBOL" as if that's a bad thing. Java has become the lingua franca of business logic. Kudos to the non-Microsoft world for taking that spot.
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Re:And Nothing(?) Was Gained (Score:4, Insightful)
Because if Java fails, .NET takes over, and .NET integrates a lot smoother with MS SQL than with Oracle(not that you can't access Oracle, just that the built in frameworks are all based on SQL). MS SQL is essentially the number one threat to Oracle's business in the short term, since for the vast majority of cases it's a perfectly viable solution, generally costs less(presuming you already have any MS products in your organization), and to be honest, Microsoft are a lot nicer to deal with than Oracle.
IBM and Oracle both desperately need Java to survive, that's half the reason that Oracle bought Sun in the first place.
WTF? .Net? On linux/ibm/sun/hp/nokia/htc/windows (Score:2)
Java = yes .Net = no
I'm not a big fan of java, but come on... Java is *everywhere* from a phone in your pocket to the mainframe in the datacenter, including windows, and .Net is nothing but Windows.
Really, it's a no contest/brainer.
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If you're talking about Web Services which is where things like Java and .NET are growing, the only thing which has to be Windows is the server you're hosting the application on, and .NET is sufficiently nicer for that to be a tradeoff you consider. Relying on any third party plugin to be present on your client's PC is really rather risky in this day and age anyway.
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MySQL is a joke, always has been, it's possible that Oracle could make it into something that's not a Joke, but if you're running anything enterprise level in MySQL that's not a LAMP CMS then you're insane.
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MS SQL is getting quite tolerable in the mid to to upper mid range. It's still not in a place to compete with Oracle at the top end, but for most use cases it's perfectly adequate.
I don't know anyone who isn't a MySQL salesman or an open source fanatic who has never heard of Postgres who thinks MySQL is capable even in the mid level use case.
That's not to say that Oracle pouring money into it couldn't make it good, or that they don't have plans for it or for Innobase, but as is, it's a joke.
So will they stop suing Google? (Score:3)
No? Then I don't know that I care.
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Do you remember when MS had their own JVM and then started adding "extensions" to java? Yeah, that was bad. It was MS's embrace, extend, extinguish strategy. Id bound whatever you implemented on MS's java to Windows platform. Which is exactly the opposite of what java is all about. And yes, Sun sued them and MS discontinued it's own java and tarted .Net. Sun was considered to be the good guy and MS the bad guy.
Now please explain to me how Google, doing exactly the same as MS did, is now the good guy?
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Because Microsoft called it Java, and Google doesn't?
Not the same at all. (Score:2)
The Microsoft tactic was to embrace, extend, and extinguish Java.
Google wants to use some of the Java stuff, build on it, and adapt it to their own platform.
Do you see the difference? Google isn't trying to kill portable Java, and isn't claiming that Android is a portable Java. Microsoft was pretty much deliberately trying to head off "compile once, run anywhere" by letting people develop what they thought was portable Java, discover it would only work on Windows, and then shrug and avoid other platforms.
Th
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"while the Google thing is a patent dispute, which would be as if they sued Microsoft for .NET."
They sued .NET for excactly the same reasons: VM patents.
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Google is not doing exactly the same thing.
The big difference is that Microsoft and Sun made an contract where Microsoft were given a license to use suns source code to suns java implementation, in order to optimize it for Windows. Provided that their implementation were a full and exact implementation of Java.
What Google have done is made an independent implementation of the java language* and part of the class library which Sun ship java. It would be the same thing if they had choosen c# instead and then
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given that android executable files arent called *.jar and arent java bytecode, i dont see how that matters, APK files dont run on any JVM, JAR files dont run on the dalvik VM and google doesnt claim that it does.
As for your multi-os example, i fully agree that is a strength of java as a platform (which i use myself as well, even though windows has been all but banished from my personal IT structure), but when writing anything for a mobile device you need an emulator anyway, even if you use j2me instead of
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Please turn in your programmer card. You've fallen for the deception that a language specification is the same thing as an execution environment, aka virtual machine, or -- even worse! -- an entire software platform. How did you become confused? Because common practice is to use Java as a cover-all term to mean Java the language, Java the JVM, and Java the platform. A programming language defines semantics, NOT the governing machine. A standard can include library details, but that is NOT the same as the co
It's a trap (Score:3, Insightful)
Not sure how, but it must be. OpenJDK is something Oracle doesn't make money on, as far as I can tell. Whenever Oracle touches something it doesn't make money on, it always makes an attempt to crush it between it's teeth.
Re:It's a trap (Score:5, Informative)
Oracle makes money selling software that uses Java.
People working on improving Java without Oracle having to pay them is, therefore, in Oracle's interest.
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Whenever Oracle touches something it doesn't make money on, it always makes an attempt to crush it between it's teeth.
Given how much it has already in Java, maybe this is why IBM stepped it and made an offer Oracle couldn't refuse?
Not Sure (Score:2)
I'm not really sure if this is good or bad. It sounds like it couldn't get much worse. The cloud Java has right now is will it become a language ment only for interfacing with an Oracle system or will it be maintained as a language for things outside of the database world. IBM at least has a stake in it being more then just a lang to interface with one kind of system. That being said they can't be any worse then Sun was since a lot of the new functions in Java 6 and Java 7 came from IBM anyway. Heck ju
What does this mean for Android? (Score:2)
If Oracle is actively supporting a free open source, implementation of the JDK, how does this affect their case with Google? how do they claim damages for a product that is available for free?
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Right, I understand that Google can't fork openJDK and do what they want with it, but since they didn't do that and claim to have written their JVM from scratch, how do you compute damages against a product that is available for free, source code and all. If anything, Android promotes Java and makes it more popular, so I fail to see how Oracle can claim that it damages them?
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The J2ME VM is not free; phone vendors pay a lot of money to Snoracle for it. Just multiply the price of J2ME by the number of phones that have Dalvik instead of J2ME.
Re:What does this mean for Android? (Score:5, Informative)
The complaint with Google was that Google was infringing on Oracle's patents and copyrights via Android. Google's official and legal response [groklaw.net] was along the lines of, "WTF are you talking about?"
My own theory is that Sun (and now Oracle) liked the profits they were receiving via licensing royalties from mobile phones that shipped with an embedded Java environment. Google did an end-run around these royalties by developing their own third-party JVM, Dalvik. When it looked like Android would gain a decent foothold in the smart phone market, Oracle probably thought they needed to do something. Maybe they have this opinion that they "own" all parts of Java.
(My understanding is that Dalvik and Java(tm) are completely different, except that the human-readable source code for both happens to be the Java programming language. A programming language itself, so far as I know, cannot be copyrighted. Patented, maybe, but you would have a tremendously difficult time trying to find any feature of a "modern" language that doesn't have decades of prior art.)
As for OpenJDK, Oracle appears to be the copyright holder of the source code and are entitled to any Java copyrights or patents applicable to it. Whether they give it away for free or charge for it doesn't matter.
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Too many cooks in the kitchen... (Score:2)
I really don't think bodes very well for OpenJDK. Both Oracle and IBM have tons of resources but often don't see eye to eye and aren't above using this and the JCP as a proxy for competitive battling. I see this drowning in politics and little in Java being improved in a timely manner. Meanwhile, things like .Net will accelerate with Microsoft firmly at the helm, and other open source options that are more agile (Ruby on Rails, etc.) and have more benevolent or open-minded stewards will become more popular
Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen... (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? How do you get that. Now you have the resources of *two* giants working on Java and ensuring it remains compatible and new features are added.
> I see less and less hope for Java adopting the positive language and library features from the C# and Ruby worlds. I am currently working on a C# project, and things like LINQ, anonymous types, extension methods (haven't used dynamic yet) and the functional/fluent programming styles they enabled enhances my productivity compared to Java.
Java users for large-scale projects doesn't generally don't want to adopt these things. They have massive existing investments and projects that take years to complete (due ot the sheer number of featiures being built). They can't throw that away every two years for the next coolest version of Visual Studio with new things in it. Enterprise software architecture is a different beast and has strategic considerations that don't correspond to tactical niceities (eg. LINQ). A lot of the Java feature conservatism is deliberate because you can get people with less experience to be *productive* in Java earlier.
The deliberate simplicity of Java means you can do *massive* projects with it (where you get a spectrum of developer abilities and the time scale is long where the people who start the project may not be around at the end). When you start to use more obscure features you limit how big your project can get, since not everyone will use the feature in the same way or be bug-free with it. I'm sure those C# features are nice, but it turns out Java already has a vast array of alternatives (some see this as an advantage, some as a disadvantage) and the features you speak of are significant for small projects but aren't a significant part of the code-base for *massive* projects.
In short,
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The process can slow down if Oracle and IBM decided to apply their efforts in different directions. If one is pulling one way, and the other pulls the other way, then nothing happens, just a lot of strain. Now, it could be different, but so be it. Having seen IBM and Oracle reps work in as part of a OMG standardization process, it could definitely go either way. They could really get some work done in the JCP, or they can just bog it down to nothing.
I know when C# and .Net come up, it is hard to split them
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It's about bloody time... (Score:5, Interesting)
The way I see, IBM is progressing now towards a stewardship role in Java, without bothering with all the SUN's hardware business (which would have been a dead-weight for it)... and this without spending a extra nickel, on top the strong investment in Java IBM already has.
Almost a perfect solution... the only drawback being the Imaginary Property in Java still being owned by Oracle (with known consequences... the minuet and other high society dances Oracle chose to drag Google into).
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At a certain time, people wondered why IBM let the SUN be bought by Oracle: it would have been a more natural choice given that IBM is so much into Java.
Oracle is also heavily into Java though - they bought BEA to get WebLogic, huge chunks of their Fusion middleware stack is written in Java, etc.
Minecraft (Score:2)
An unnamed source at IBM informed us that their primary goal with the joint venture was to improve Minecraft's performance
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I've yet to notice any standard SDK libraries missing from the Android SDK. Even stuff like BigDecimal is there.
Not that Google actually claim that the Android SDK is a Java SDK, of course.
[Opinions mine, not IBM's.]
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I've yet to notice any standard SDK libraries missing
All of AWT and Swing are missing. That counts for a lot, especially since those APIs extend into a lot of third party libraries that have nothing to do with UI or even graphics (eg: the Rect2D class is commonly used for doing geometry calculations).
Re:Oracle, OpenJDK?? Yeah Right. (Score:5, Interesting)
They claimed to be using the Java language
Actually the main plank of Google's defence is that Android does *not* run Java. The test of whether they succeed or fail is largely whether they can convince the court that Dalvik is *not* a Java VM. And sure enough if you scan the Android SDK you'll find just about nowhere that it says you are programming in Java. It's pretty weird and interesting.
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That's not gonna hold up if their implementation still falls under the Java patents.
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Can you explain how not being Java defends them against being sued over patents?
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You're right, it doesn't help them with patents, but patents are not the only thing Oracle is contesting here. What it does do is it helps them avoid being sued for the same problem Microsoft was (successfully) sued for. If Google claimed Android was real Java then they would be in trouble because Oracle owns the Java trademark and use that ownership to ensure that anybody claiming to run Java must be running "real" Java.
If Google really did implement full Java then they could potentially claim they are
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Google is creating the same situation as Microsoft did with their custom HTML standards, once Googles implementation starts being used in other google products, and people start using that instead, it will create all kinds of problems for everyone (non-inter-operating libraries, for example).
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Umm... What about the fact that the Android SDK includes compatible implementations of the Java class library, using EXACTLY the same names and APIs? How can you both include core APIs named, for example, java.lang.Object while at the same time claim that it has nothing to do with Java? The Android SDK documentation has specific portions that describe what the specific differences are between it and a full Java implementation.
In the end, though, I believe that none of this has ANY bearing on weither Google
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They newer claimed it had nothing to do with Java. They just newer claimed it was Java.
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LLVM has bytecode too. Completely different bytecode than Java. I suppose that's just java in disguise too though huh?
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The difference in the context of this discussion is meaningless. The point is there are numerous languages that compile down to bytecodes, doing so doesn't automatically make anything Java.
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Google never claimed to make a Java for Android. You will see no Java in Android, no advertising about Java in Android and nothing similar. What Google did was to build a VM and use the Java syntax for the language.
Google is only guilty of re-using the Java developers and the Java tools like Eclipse. Oracle sued Google over specific technologies in a VM, it doesn't sued over trademark.
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Excuse me, when I go reread the history book on this.
Didn't IBM and Microsoft wrote a chapter together on one OS already? OS2?
What relation does OS2 have with Java?
Excuse me, but reading the history book myself, a bunch of relevant things emerge:
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Uh yeah. Because writing a desktop PC operating system in the late 1980's and continuing development of an enterprise-class programming environment in 2010 are exactly the same thing.
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IBM didn't "let" MSFT get away with anything, IBM shot itself square in the foot with OS/2. You see there was a lot of MSFT AND IBM code in OS/2, and MSFT was happy to let them have OS/2 because they knew they'd shoot themselves in the foot, which they did! They tried tying OS/2 to sales of IBM hardware, which at the time was more crazy priced than high end Macs are today. The public saw they could pay out the ass for slower 'big blue" hardware and OS/2, or pay a hell of a lot less and get cutting edge (rem
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Last time I checked, the Java platform is the dominant platform for enterprise applications. Unfortunately for OS/2, it never even came close. IBM and Oracle coming together is hopefully a good thing.
Incoming? Too late. (Score:2)
Waaayyy too late, dude! The bloatware from IBM is already entrenched, and it's called J2EE. After all, they had to something with theat stinking pile of poo called the San Francisco Framework that came out of Taligent...