Simon’s Blog

It’s been a while now since Google’s Android announcement, and as people digest what details there are, it’s clear that we’re short of more than a few important facts. Of course, the way Android’s communications are handled is entirely up to Google and the rest of the “open” handset alliance. However, for every minute that passes without the Android team being either willing or interested in clarifying answers to key questions, the lower their credibility sinks. Why? The core attribute of the Android brand is that it’s supposed to be open… and right now, it looks entirely closed.

There are some questions that people are interested in learning the answers to. These include:

• Is Java a core part of Android or not? If it is, why has the word “Java” been deliberately absent from all the PR about the platform?
• If Java is a core part of Android, how does the so-called “custom VM” (notice a word missing before the “VM”?) in Android compare with the capability of the Java VM in Sun’s JavaFX Mobile platform? For example, will a full implementation of Java SE run on Android? Will Swing be supported? Will JavaFX Script be supported?
• If Java is a core part of Android, why is there a need for a second, optional Java VM from Esmertec? Does this mean that existing Java ME applications won’t be guaranteed to work on Android phones, and that major Java ME mobile JSRs won’t be either implemented or supported? Why would Java ME be an optional part of a mobile platform with Java at its core?

There’s no doubt that there’s some deliberate obfuscation going on; and it’s obfuscation that makes absolutely no sense, given that we’re told that, at its heart, Android is all about being open. I can’t think of a single good reason for the information that would provide the answers to these questions to be kept secret. To me, it seems to be a net negative for the Android/Open Handset Alliance brand. The Bayesian in me can’t help but be concerned that if Android is so bad at being open now, it won’t be any any good at the “open” thing in the future either. In fact, Android seems so closed, it reminds me of Apple.

Remember when Apple’s Leopard was presented by Steve Jobs, he made no mention of ZFS? It was left to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz to let people know that ZFS was being incorporated into Leopard (for anyone interested, by the way, ZFS support is finally starting to get fully-featured in the brand new Leopard 1.1 developer preview). Similarly, with Android, it’s been left to Jonathan to try to let the world know about Java in Android - he calls it a “Java/Linux platform”.

I really hope that, after the 12th Nov, the Android kimono is not only opened a little, but totally removed. If it isn’t, I suspect that people will start drawing their own conclusions about the true openness of Android.