Android isn't a Java Platform - Say Hello to Dalvik

Joshua Layne joshua at willowisp.net
Tue Nov 13 17:07:18 CET 2007


William Weinberg wrote:
> Dear OpenMoko Friends
>
> See the following blog about the "neat tricks" that Google performed to
> sidestep Sun Java licensing requirements.
>
> http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/
>
> The short of is
>
> - Android code is written to a unique dialect of Java (super/subset)
> that runs on Android's own Dalvik VM.  It's not J2ME or any other Sun
> profile and apparently not subject to Sun's licensing regimes
>
> - In doing so, Google created a new platform, better technically
> perhaps, but not a Java-based platform.  This act by definition
> increases fragmentation, whatever you may think of the ugly Java-based
> status quo in the broader mobile market.
>
> Your comments and reflections appreciated.
>   

There are apparently good reasons for doing that type of fragmentation 
with java (although I would argue staying as close to the spec as 
possible would be better) in open source development

Bug labs details this a bit on their blog - Sun has no certification 
program for open source implementations of java, so it kind of forces 
the issue. http://www.bugblogger.com/2007/10/gpl-sun-java-tr.html

This one _may_ not just be google throwing their weight around.

regards,
joshua




More information about the community mailing list