Facts about Android | Hacker News Reader

Facts about Android

androided.me

31 pointsjaywalker22 comments

He is playing with words.

"Fact 1: Android runs Linux. But it’s not “the Linux.”" No, It IS "the Linux". A lot of distributions do not use vanilla Linux kernel. You are free to change whatever part you want. It does not change the fact that it is still Linux.

"Android was not developed by Google!" Does he think current android platform is developed by only the original members of the Android inc? It has been 5 years.

Your views may differ. But I would take the statement "not developed by Google" as "not born at Google." I would compare that to SQL Server which wasn't born at Microsoft amongst a lot of other things.

Also, the fact that Android is not Linux means that you can't take a Linux app and port it to Android...it won't work...amongst other things there is no glibc; there is no windowing system; etc.

This discussion is somewhat turning into pedantry, but if it depends purely on linux then you can probably run it as a native app. The problem is that you're missing a lot of the system dependencies that are extensively used on Desktop linux.

Many linux deployments are servers, and they won't run a windowing system - that doesn't make them any less of a 'linux' distro. Programs like Apache for example are a fundamental part of the ecosystem and aren't dependent on X.

When we talk about Linux, we're usually talking about GNU/Linux. Android/Linux is a very different beast, and it's not pedantry to draw a distinction between them. The capabilities of GNU/Linux are closer to BSD than Android/Linux.

Except they're really not different. Just because Android runs a distinct userspace and windowing system doesn't make its Linux kernel any less Linux. You can easily install a Busybox userspace on a rooted Android device, and on top of that you can start building an entire GNU/Linux userspace, complete with package managers and X server. Install a VNC viewer in Android, and you can even connect to your local X server and have a fullscreen X session.

By that logic BSD is also exactly the same thing as Linux.

Even Mac is like a PC, then!

Maybe what you mean is that there's no GNU in their Linux?

Summary:

1. Android is a Linux derivative with non-mainline changes, suck as "wake locks".

2. Android uses a non-Java ME (the official Java for mobile devices) Java environment. It's closer to Java SE.

3. And it doesn't use the JVM, it uses Dalvik.

4. Android was not initially developed by Google. It was acquired by them. The company was composed of former Danger staff who worked on the Sidekick and such. [I'd argue this point, as Android is a completely different best than the builds that were coming out around acquisition time. The only thing that's practically the same is that both used the Linux kernel).

5. SQLite is pervasive in Android.

Oh come on. First, these are not new at all. Second, they are not interesting facts, they are irrelevant facts.

Oh, come on. First, nobody claimed they were new, just interesting. Second, since when must something be relevant to be interesting?

Fine, it might not me interesting to you. It might not be very important or relevant, either. It's easy enough to "vote with your feet" against it. No need to be hostile. Bring something to the table, instead.

I just don't understand how it got to spot #1 on HN. Maybe vote spamming? I can't imagine any of the regular readers of HN could have been exciting by this list.

I can smell the nerd from the first comment, which uses characters to distinguish differing pronounciations of "th". Is that a peccadillo of his own, or is it a thing?

You should see the unreadable mess in his blog.

http://thedutras.blogspot.com/

When did English drop those letters? 400 years ago? If he really wants to use those letters, he should also use the grammar and vocabulary constructs.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8102/pg8102.html

(all that being said, I would mind a few more letters to use in English, particularly the schwa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa would make everybody's life easier w/r to spelling).

perhaps he has a very different keyboard?

It’s widely believed that Oracle has shot itself in the foot by filing this lawsuit.

Is it really widely believed? And how did Oracle shoot itself in the foot with this lawsuit?

Here is what James Gosling had to say about one of the patents Oracle alleged Google infringed:

Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer’s eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun’s genetic code. Alas….

I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over.

source: http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/the_shit_finally_hits...

When I read "It’s widely believed" my brain was immediately expecting the wikipedia 'who' link for weasel words!

Do you think any of the "facts" mentioned on the page are drawbacks for Android? Let's recap: forked Linux, competing with Java ME within Java eco-system and having a non-JVM virtual machine to run the programs.

It sounds like all of these facts would be covered in the introduction to any android development book. Its version of linux is forked but that doesn't matter because your not developing for a desktop your developing for a phone. It doesn't need java me because even though your not using a non-JVM vm you just need to use whatever is allowed in the java api (same goes for sqlite).

I didn't get the impression that the author was presenting any of these as drawbacks for Android. I think he or she discovered some interesting things about Android and thought it would be fun to share them with those who didn't know about them.

They are the kind of things that I would have perceived to be drawbacks were I planning a development platform, but they don't appear to have hurt Android. I suspect that Google's backing might be influential in this regard.

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