G+_kevin jones Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 With the Oracle v. Google decision in court, do we see an accelerated shift towards the ART runtime away from Dalvik or is Google going to keep up with Dalvik to the bitter end? Personally, I kinda hope they accelerate a switch to ART and broaden their first-class language support to include more than pseudo-Java. If they really wanted to stir the pot, maybe some Objective-C support? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jack Deslippe Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 ART is no less at issue than Dalvik. That is just the runtime. The same Java APIs are at play... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mike Wolfson Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Jack Deslippe I was going to make the same point. It is the APIs at question - the interface to either Dalvik or ART. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Kyle Turpin Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 I'd misunderstood, but that makes sense anyway. I'll revise then and ask whether the API in question is unavoidable on both runtimes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Mike Wolfson Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 The problem is the language we (developers) use to communicate with the run-times. It is the commands we make in code to tell the OS what we want to happen that are being discussed.. Google and Oracle used the same language (and Oracle doesn't like that - or wants to be paid for it). Every Android app written using any of the problem language would need to be re-written (the purpose of keeping the APIs the same, is so that Java apps wouldn't need to be re-written to run on the Android runtime). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Kyle Turpin Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 That's sort of what I'm getting at, do one or the other runtimes favor the de facto standard of Java on Android over the other? Are they completely interchangeable from a development standpoint? Do they support other languages equally as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Joseph Cappellino Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 This is something along the lines of CrossOver Office by CodeWeavers. They took the known/existing API and implemented them with their own code. As a developer, I think this whole thing is just foolish. At this point, there would be no way for Google to switch languages. They might be able to deprecate some of the offending APIs, so that developers have a couple of versions to update their apps. But, even that seems ridiculous to me. Ah, well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Neil Sedlak Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Kyle Turpin The way APIs work, there is no way to "fix" this problem without winning the case, paying off Oracle, or completely breaking all apps and requiring then to be rewritten for a new API. The runtime behind the API doesn't matter in this case. It would be like someone claiming a copyright on red and green lights on stoplights. Your underlying stoplight infrastructure (runtime) still works and isn't a problem, but you have to replace every bulb in every stoplight with a new set of colors to comply. Then you need everyone to relearn how to drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Kyle Turpin Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Neil Sedlak Thanks, that's more to the heart of my inquiry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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