If Oracle Wins... | Hacker News Reader

If Oracle Wins...

3 points16s4 comments

What will Google/Android do? Is it too late to switch to a language like C++? Google already has a lot of C++ expertise and since C++ is not owned by anyone (ISO standard) no one like Oracle can come in and immediately have such a strong position on them as they seem to have with Java and their newly acquired patents. Just curious as to what others think. Is it too late to switch?

View on HN

It's too late to switch, I think (and the worst case outcome WRT to that is likely to be as the thread started by lukesandberg notes).

C++ is also an awful choice: unsafe, unmanaged (manual memory management) and rather confused compared to Java (a good example of the Worse is Better vs. Right Thing approaches; Java is a remarkable example of a wildly successful language done using the latter philosophy).

C++ has its places (e.g. VLSI design and simulation) but I don't think most of what most people want to do on a smartphone outside of games is in that domain.

most patent or IP battles are resolved via licensing. Oracle has no incentive to destroy the android product (they don't compete in the mobile space) so the only outcome i expect is google possibly paying to license the technology.

Which is complicated if your product is open source e.g. Firefox and H.264. No matter how low the licence fee, even zero might not be enough depending on the licence terms, open source and royalty payments don't mix.

On the other hand Google, despite already paying H.264 licence fees for itself, has just spent about 200 million dollars on trying to create an open video standard usable by anyone in the form of WebM, so maybe Oracle thinks they can and should pay similar amounts to guarantee an open mobile java.

They have Chrome OS in the works and smart phones are getting more powerful, almost comparable to netbooks.

Assuming that this is relying on C++ as Chrome does; might they be able to adapt Chrome OS?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com