On May 19, 11:53 pm, Michael Neale <[email protected]> wrote: > oh I wasn't thinking it was a slip of the tongue - it was always > recited as if if it was beaten into him, perhaps with an early model > android phone as the beating stick. > > I was just curious as to why they would make that point - as it being > source? perhaps it is to get around the java TCK issue and calling it > java? > > anyway, just curious.
There are legal reasons due to the licensing around when something can be called 'Java'. Google is very smart saying the things they are saying about Android. At the end of the day Android is a fracture point that is slowly splitting the Java marketplace. The trademark 'Java' contains several things which are tested before Sun would grant a license to use the 'Java' trademark. The parts where Android doesn't match the Java spec include - Execution is not Java bytecodes - Does not include JNI or other native interfaces - Has only a subset of the runtime classes, and the subset they provide do not match any JSR Google is not as dumb as Microsoft and they know they woulda been scrutiny of Sun's lawyers .. so they never claimed it to be 'Java' and the phrasing Dick uses is as you think legalistic weasaling around the real issue. It's not Java but it's close enough to Java to be confusing to the marketplace and making people think it is Java. I've heard tech industry leaders who should know better describe Android as a Java phone platform. Sigh. My opinion is it is acting to fracture the market. It goes completely against the one language/stack to rule them all model. Even though you're using the Java language there are significant differences in the classes being used. That makes it hard to take an Android app and run it elsewhere. But in theory Java's purpose is to erase that sort of fragmentation. Unfortunately the 'Mobile' market is now just as highly fractured as ever. iPhone's model, Android, JavaME, HTML5, BREW, etc ... when will the disunity stop? - David Herron http://davidherron.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
