> 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.
But that says as much about Java™'s stewards as it does about Android. Sun was already splitting the Java™ marked space by moving like a mammoth, yet still holding on tight to what they had (i.e. certifying Harmony which is ironically now shipping on 100.000 phones a month). > 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. Google liked the Java™ language and recognized there is a large developer base; they did not like the typical Java™ runtime overhead nor that they had to put their trust in the JCP, nor the costly JME licensing fees which isn't a truly open way of doing things. To the vast majority of developers, if it quacks like a duck... > My opinion is it is acting to fracture the market. It goes > completely against the one language/stack to rule them all model. Google is pragmatic rather than ideological. For all Sun's visions, look at where it got them. Meanwhile Google is offering Java™ client tools that just works (GWT), a cheap Java™ server platform (GAE) and now also a phone stack which is what JME should/could have been. > 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. It's a model used in C, .NET and elsewhere; perhaps you can't move the entire app (i.e. Swing or WinForms or GTK or QT), but you can still port the core and rebind with another UI toolkit. If you notice, Java™ is about the only language to mandate/shoehorn a UI layer. > But in theory Java's purpose is to > erase that sort of fragmentation. So perhaps Java™'s theoretical purpose remains a pipe-dream, as some would claim it always were. /Casper -- 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.
