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by sangnoir 2703 days ago
Google didn't reimplement Java from scratch for Android. They adopted Apache Harmony which was the first open source Java implementation - so blame IBM for copying method signatures. Sun refused to bless Harmony as an official Java (or rather, refused to provide the TCK required to certify Harmony) - so you can understand why signatures and packages were identical: because Harmony was always meant to be fully compatible with Java.

Don't let any animus towards Google blind you to the real harm this will ruling will cause if it stands: say goodbye to any S3-compatible APIs, and good luck to WINE and Proton and say hello to lock-in and higher switching costs.
1 comments
Illniyar 2702 days ago
That's not the all story. Sun/Oracle refused to provide the TCK with a license that would allow it to be used in mobile. They did agree to allow it to be a desktop/server only solution.

However the knowledge that Java isn't open-source compatible in mobile environments was known before Google started building their own.

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kodablah 2702 days ago
It should also be noted that now the policy is to not grant a TCK to any open source implementation that is not an OpenJDK derivative.
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