Alexandre Trilla, PhD - Research Engineer |

Blog

-- Thoughts on data analysis, software development and innovation management. Comments are welcome

Don't be evil, Google

08-Jan-2009

Reading Gottiplati's opinion on ONJava, available here, I realize of the critical situation that Java developers are facing presently since the birth of Dalvik, Google's (Java) Virtual Machine (VM) for the Android mobile phone platform.

Dalvik is a VM that is used to run software coded in the Java programming language, with some special libraries provided by Google, but which doesn't output Java bytecode, but Dalvik bytecode. This fact creates a new "Java specification" not compliant with the standards for the JVM proposed by Sun Microsystems ages ago and widely used by all Java developers. Now, a brand new way of doing the same with the excuse of a more optimized VM which produces services (software) that can only be provided (run) by Google (Android). Is Google a Microsoft wannabe in the end? Where is the Don't be evil ethic?

In Dalvik: how Google routed around Sun's IP-based licensing restrictions on Java ME Stefano delves into the licensing aspects around this matter, showing that Google has played a smart game with Sun. Things are not looking very nice with the additional entropy that Android introduces into Java ME. Google offers sweet services, undoubtedly, and makes tons of money, but as it seems it rather uses it to bribe programmers with a juicy prized competition that frigthtens the ethic (see the Android Developer Challenge for further details). But that's life, Google has definitely come to stay. The Plan for World Domination is nigh, as pessimistics would say. It's funny how this rhymes!