IBM-Oracle pact is a good news for Java developers and for the open source community in general. OpenJDK is a more natural open alternative to Oracle J2SE and is well backed by the Java community, so IBM’s move to shift “its development effort from the Apache project Harmony to OpenJDK” makes sense. And remember IBM also wanted to acquire Sun mainly because of Java. Apache Harmony on the other hand never gained enough popularity because of the TCK-issuance tussle between Sun and Apache. But Harmony remains as another open-source implementation of Java, free from legal infringements.
Now a lot of people see this pact as a threat to Google’s Android platform, and associate it with Oracle’s lawsuit against Google, but I don’t think this is the case (although Oracle may think otherwise). First of all OpenJDK is not built for mobile platforms, it could be a threat to Oracle’s own J2SE but not to Android. Secondly Google uses Apache Harmony, which has been rewritten and is Open. Google also uses a Dalvik VM, which is a special virtual machine written from scratch for mobile devices, and is also backed by the Open Handset Alliance. Dalvik VM is also open-source and uses it’s own form of bytecode, which is “distinct and different from Java bytecode“. So Google is not using any Java component in their Android platform, which would obligate them to require a license from Oracle.
As a developer, I think IBM’s move is good for Java being Open. To Google it is kind of an opportunity to start owning Harmony and to control development on it; and Google should seriously start investing in Harmony and capitalize on this opportunity. And for the lawsuit, I think Google can win it, if it is not thrown out of the court, may be fined for “some incompatibilities” in their version of Java. But it is the time this suit is going to take, “may” cause some hardware vendors to slowdown their production of android phones, but the demand will drive it and I don’t see it happening because Android phones are much cheaper; a lot of android phones are lined up for 2011 with Android-3-based tablets.
Oracle, a patent troll, just wants money and will try to prolong the lawsuit as much as they can to get some leverage from “time” and “doubts” about future of android. But in the end it is not going to matter much because Oracle is not Android’s competitor and doesn’t have a “real” mobile platform except for the dying-j2me, which they inherited from Sun.