4 ms·

Though I understand their reasoning to a degree, it does seem perverse that they adopted the most pedestrian bit of java -- the language -- while jettisoning th

by shellac 12y ago

Though I understand their reasoning to a degree, it does seem perverse that they adopted the most pedestrian bit of java -- the language -- while jettisoning the crown jewel -- the JVM. It hasn't been trivial to get other JVM languages working on Android, and ironically that list now includes Java 8. Oracle are largely to blame, I suppose.

pjmlp 12y ago
Oracle was right. Google just went greedy by not wanting to pay for the license.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  You can't make an open source platform around a core that requires a commercial license. Had Google done as you suggest, there would be no AOSP, which is fairly strategically central to Android. Tactical choices are constrained by strategic goals.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    AOSP is practically useless without the closed source services from Google, which get increased from release to release.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Its not useful directly to end users. It is useful to third-party OS builders, which presumably is the entire point of AOSP.
      - pjmlp 12y ago
        I was talking about third-party OS builders, which could anyway pay for licenses as they always did. End users have no use for open source, besides free beer.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > I was talking about third-party OS builders, which could anyway pay for licenses as they always did. Or they could build their own OS's from scratch, as they always have also done, sure; but an important part of Google's strategy, though, was to make the core of Android open source, which they couldn't do if something as fundamental as the basic runtime required a paid license from a third party. And AOSP is -- empirically -- not useless to third party builders without the separately-licensed Google services. > End users have no use for open source, besides free beer. Just-for-me modifications are a real thing, if maybe not all that common, so I wouldn't say "no use".

by shellac 12y ago

pjmlp 12y ago

Oracle was right. Google just went greedy by not wanting to pay for the license.

dragonwriter 12y ago
You can't make an open source platform around a core that requires a commercial license. Had Google done as you suggest, there would be no AOSP, which is fairly strategically central to Android. Tactical choices are constrained by strategic goals.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  AOSP is practically useless without the closed source services from Google, which get increased from release to release.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Its not useful directly to end users. It is useful to third-party OS builders, which presumably is the entire point of AOSP.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      I was talking about third-party OS builders, which could anyway pay for licenses as they always did. End users have no use for open source, besides free beer.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > I was talking about third-party OS builders, which could anyway pay for licenses as they always did. Or they could build their own OS's from scratch, as they always have also done, sure; but an important part of Google's strategy, though, was to make the core of Android open source, which they couldn't do if something as fundamental as the basic runtime required a paid license from a third party. And AOSP is -- empirically -- not useless to third party builders without the separately-licensed Google services. > End users have no use for open source, besides free beer. Just-for-me modifications are a real thing, if maybe not all that common, so I wouldn't say "no use".