Android uses Java? Um... no | Hacker News Reader

Android uses Java? Um... no

prng.blogspot.com

17 pointslogic15 comments

I've noticed a pretty good correlation between the deliberate use of 'um' and saying something stupid (with great conviction). You can apply it as a sort of internal filter - 'would I um someone with that?'. I think it's not mentioned in 'How to disagree'.

Not sure the author understands even what he/she is addressing or that it even exists. Everyone involved understood that it wasn't using Java syntax/grammar that was the issue.

He was not commenting on the suit itself but the commentary in the blogosphere. "Many of these blog posts and article talks about how "Android uses Java". Heh. That simply isn't true."

Independent invention (i.e. clean room) isn't a defence against patents.

It sucks when I can write a cleanroom interpreter/compiler that happens to understand Java bytecode and nobody would raise an eyebrow but when Google does it, everyone able will pull their leeching fingers out because Google has money.

If patents were forced to be applied and enforced unilaterally, nobody could do anything useful because everyone would be so busy filing lawsuits and hiring defense lawyers.

It's not as bad as the reverse, because it means you're less likely to be affected unless you're already rich. Which sucks, but hey, at least you're rich.

The author is arguing a point analogous to "Napoleon didn't invade the Soviet Union", when he overheard a discussion about the French invasion of Russia.

One is uncertain whether to feel pity or contempt for the author in the aftermath of this confusion.

I myself am torn between "meh" and "wtf".

It's almost the exact opposite of that. The peanut gallery seems convinced that Napolean invaded the Soviet Union (i.e. that Google uses Oracle's "Java" in Android). And when someone points out this is wrong (and in fact quite silly, hence the "Um.. no") people respond that everyone knows that the U.S.S.R and Russia are the same (i.e. using Apache Harmony and a Google written VM is the same as using Sun's JDK and JVM), even when it's just been pointed out that they aren't.

It's kind of like the owner of a C compiler and some standard libraries suing you for using a different compiler and different standard libraries. (Maybe they've got stupid patents that they can hit you with, but you're getting hit by them even though you didn't use their stuff).

The author is a Director of the Apache Foundation, and a former employee of Google who worked on their open source outreach projects. And one of his employers before that was Oracle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Stein

So while Stein's argument here may be seen as deliberately obtuse, in a manner that a technically precise thinker might use to make a point, it's not uninformed.

He absolutely understands the issues involved. Note especially his further refinement of what he means by 'Java' as 'Java™' in his followup comment.

Pointless technicality.

"JUST MAKING NOISE."

well said...

how did this make the front page?

Fandroids.

As I understand it, the Dalvik VM used by Android is byte-code compatible with the canonical JVM. Moreover, the byte-code assemblies that are run on it are compiled from source files which conform to the specifications of the Java programming language.

I fail to see what manner of obtuse semantic dickery could render such a setup as "not java". Though I suppose Java developers don't believe in Duck typing...

Regardless, whether this particular setup amounts to a particularly patent-infringing use of Java technology is a legal, rather than semantic, matter.

You understand incorrectly. Dalvik is a register based VM, unlike the stack based JVM (and most other byte code VMs I've heard of). There's a JVM to Dalvik byte code translator, but that's not hardly the same thing.

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