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What language do you use to write apps for Android?

3 points by kmasters ↗ HN
If you answered "Java", congratulations, you alongside thousands of Google employees have just participated in committing trademark and licensing infringement on the owners of "Java".

But I can't blame you, Google after all doesn't call it say "Visual Basic", they would probably lose that case pretty quickly, but why?

When MS tried to fork Java years ago they settled in court. This case is no different, nay its worse because MS didn't step on SUNs mobile licensing agreements.

So now EFF is coming out saying this is a copyright spat (which its not) Be careful of that. Saying that "APIs" are not copyrightable will render tons of open source projects licenses invalid, since all open source licenses "rest on top" eg append copyright laws.

Yup that crap at the top of the file wont mean a damn thing once we start parsing what can and cant be copyrighted.

The only possible defense Google has is denying that its Java. But thats what they called it before they stole it. And thats what they still call it.

If you work at google I suggest you come up with a new name because even referring to "whatever" that is that runs on Android as "Java", is licensing and trademark infringement. White gloves and all.

4 comments

[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 25.9 ms ] thread
tjgq
> Saying that "APIs" are not copyrightable will render tons > of open source projects licenses invalid, since all open > source licenses "rest on top" eg append copyright laws.

I don't think this is true. Open source licenses dictate what you can or cannot do with the code, not with the API it implements. You're perfectly free to go ahead and, say, implement a closed source version of a GPL library - as long as it's not based on the original code.

Abolishing copyright /in general/ would render most (all?) open source licenses void, but that's an entirely different matter.

runjake
Flagged. The title is a bit baity. I came here hoping to read up on the beginnings of a good discussion of Android development options and instead I run into a random, incoherent rant of no value.

These kinds of rants are probably more appropriately posted at your personal blog, not in an Ask HN post. Your account is 10 days old and your comment history is filled with similar incoherency. Perhaps you should post less and read more until you get a good handle on HN culture?

Zigurd
The "use" of Java ends inside the SDK. Java bytecodes are translated to Dalvik bytecodes. There is no Java(tm) runtime in Android.

Since there is no Java runtime in Android, what are Google's obligations to Oracle? What are an Android developer's obligations? I see none in the licensing.