Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 21 2012 @ 02:17 PM EDT |
You're right it's a competitor
to the Java VM, but it runs Java
programs.
The subset of Java
programs running interchangeably on
both platforms is a null set. That is not
"interoperable". Unsurprisingly, as
I'm sure you've read here, Google's own
expert
witnesses said Java programs do
NOT run on Android and vice versa.
Given that Oracle doesn't
seem to have a clue which Java it's
talking about, and flip-flops between
whatever definition seems most
convenient at that particular moment, you can't
complain when we take a leaf
from Oracle's book, and use whichever of THEIR
definitions we find
convenient at any given moment.
I know you
know this, but:
"Java" is an ecosystem comprising a language, the bytecode it
compiles to, an
API, a JVM, and specifications related to these, and promises
portable binaries
("WORA"). To be compliant, you must be
compliant with all
the specs and pass the TCK, which is
approximately as fair
and
transparent a test as the Android Compatibility Test (look it up, especially
in
context of SkyHook). Basically, the TCK is Snoracle's way of controlling the
"open" Java ecosystem. The way I see it, Snoracle means "Java" to includes all
of this, because if you don't follow all this, you're breaking the WODE...
er...
WORA promise.
Well, Google re-implemented the JVM in their own
image, but wholesale
ripped off the
language and the bytecode (both not
copyrightable), as well as a bunch of the
API (may or may not be copyrightable)
and few trivial snippets of
code (copyrightable), and generates binaries that
run only on devices with the
Dalvik VM and not on compliant JVMs. And of
course, since they did this all by
themselves and
nobody by Snoracle knows
what the TCK really is, they've not passed the TCK.
As such, they have an
incompatible, unlicensed version of Java, which they try
to escape by calling
it "Android" instead. Oracle claims (and Google agrees)
that
Android programs
use Java the language, bytecode and APIs, but is not
interoperable with the
rest of the Java ecosystem, breaking Java's WODE --
WORA, dammit! -- promise,
thus fragmenting it. Oracle has
made a pretty clear case out of this, and most
of the case was on whether
they had legal standing to sue. I don't see the
flip-flopping here.
On the other hand, "flip-flopping" could be said
for pro-Google
commenters here. In this very same thread you'll find people
claiming
"Android is not Java".[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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