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Was Android moving to OpenJDK really a Google gift to devs?

Semi-seasonal stocking filler was caught up in Oracle's Android fight

Mumble mumble, Open Source, mumble...

One person taking this line is Codename One co-founder Shai Almog, who hailed the development. His firm has, so far, resisted using OpenJDK.

“I think this would be great for Android as it will eventually move to a newer more modern version of Java and might enjoy better tooling as a result. It would also mean that some optimizations that might have been avoided by Android's Runtime due to potential patent litigation might be applied to ART leading to additional benefits,” he wrote.

Almog added: “The reduced stress among Google developers about IP cleanliness could also boost the productivity at Google and allow the Android developers to focus on building a better product.”

So there is a legal and IP overhang relating to the case with Oracle. Mountain View hasn't exactly come out to explain its embrace of OpenJDK.

Google didn't respond to The Register’s requests for comment – but in a statement reported elsewhere, Google talked noncommittally about Java being open source and how Google has been a long-standing contributor to OpenJDK. The release of Java 8 last year and the introduction of new language features such as lambdas were factors behind the decision to move, according to one report.

Another nugget worth extracting from Google’s statement, which supports the view this was a technology switch, is this:

We plan to move Android's Java language libraries to an OpenJDK-based approach, creating a common code base for developers to build apps and service.

So all's well that ends well? Some think not.

Java might be open-source but it’s not free – the copyright was owned by Sun and ownership passed to Oracle with the acquisition. As an independent implementation of Java, Android was off the Oracle roadmap and beyond Oracle's copyright police. Being on OpenJDK ends that.

That pushed Mozilla’s former chief technology officer Andreas Gal to accuse Google of handing Oracle a huge victory, saying Oracle has been allowed to sink its “claws” into Android.

“All the sudden Oracle gained a good amount of roadmap and technology influence over the most important mobile ecosystem by scale. Oracle is a mobile titan now,” Gal wrote here.

“The entire middle part of the Android stack will be subject to proprietary Oracle control. Google calls this “reduced fragmentation” in their press release. That’s true, kind of. There will be less fragmentation because Oracle will control anything Java, including Android,” he wrote.

It's questionable how much control Oracle actually has over Android via OpenJDK, a project with multiple members – a significant one being IBM.

IBM has shared power over OpenJDK with Oracle - having been granted power to appoint the group’s vice chair in 2011 – Oracle is responsible for appointing the group’s chair. IBM fought Sun for years over Java; it won't cede an inch of the control it gained thanks to Oracle.

But there is one concern, stemming from Oracle's control of the copyright. Oracle has gained power to pursue those in the Android community that it claims infringe on Java's copyright. What form might that take?

The Free Software Foundation hinted at one possible problem here. FSF chief Bradley Kuhn reckons there is a threat to Android makers who fail to comply with GPL, plus the Class path exception.

That Classpath exception exists in GPL and is used with OpenJDK. It means the source of code that is not licensed under GPL, and that is distributed with GPL, doesn’t have to be released under the GPL, too.

Kuhn reckons Oracle might try to exploit the Classpath exception as a “way to extract revenue with no intention standing up for users' rights.” He wrote: “Thus, we should expect Oracle to aggressively enforce against downstream Android manufacturers who fail to comply with ‘GPL plus Classpath exception'."

Kuhn didn't provide details and didn't respond to The Register's requests for clarification.

But Oracle does has form and it's this that seems to be the basis of Kuhn's claim. Oracle's proved a tough task master of the other open-source projects it took with Sun. It has proved assiduous in going to court over what it perceives as the slightest hint of infringement of its rights in other fields.

Whatever Google's tactical machinations might have been, and this won't settle favourably the Oracle suit, going OpenJDK should be seen more as a logical, even inevitable – if late – technology step for Android.

It will, though, be a tough pill to swallow. It will deny Android, and Oracle opponents, the clear legitimization a court victory against Oracle would surely have delivered and which they feel is theirs. ®

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