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OpenJDK being licensed under the GPL means that the APIs are under the GPL as well. You can legally create your own implementation of the APIs, as long as you d
by matharmin 11y ago
OpenJDK being licensed under the GPL means that the APIs are under the GPL as well. You can legally create your own implementation of the APIs, as long as you don't violate the GPL. Your project would be considered a "derived work" of the APIs, meaning you need to keep the same GPL license.
- superuser2 11y agoSo why didn't Google do that? Is their Java implementation closed-source?
- zanny 11y agoApache Harmony is Apache Licensed, and that license is only comaptible with GPL3+. OpenJDK is GPL2 + classpath exception, so no, Harmony is not a valid derivative work of OpenJDK. Since the only free software Oracle still maintains is the stuff they couldn't relicense from Sun, and the acquisition was before the GPL3 was finalized and even then Sun would not have been able to relicense all their stuff before being bought out, there is no chance of any Oracle products being Apache compatible in the future.
- kllrnohj 11y agoOpenJDk's initial release was May 8th, 2007. Android was already far along in development by that point.