GPLv2's implicit patent license and Dalvik [LWN.net]

GPLv2's implicit patent license and Dalvik

Posted Jun 7, 2011 0:24 UTC (Tue) by aryonoco (subscriber, #55563)
In reply to: GPLv2's implicit patent license and Dalvik by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Android, forking, and control

I think James is making a huge mistake in thinking that Google could have just used the GPL Java. First of all, let's remember that when Android was started in 2004, there was no GPLed Java. Secondly, Sun was clearly making money off Java ME, and did not want to push Java SE into the mobile space as that would have cannibalised its revenue.

The speaker is also glossing over technical reasons for creating Dalvik and Bionic library. Both are much leaner and have a much smaller footprint than Java VM or glibc. These were/are major considerations when Android was created, considering the limited resources available in mobile phones.

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GPLv2's implicit patent license and Dalvik

Posted Jun 7, 2011 10:40 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

...Dalvik and Bionic library. Both are much leaner and have a much smaller footprint than Java VM or glibc...

In the case of glibc, there would have been several existing light-weight alternatives already in 2004, some with other than GPL licenses.

GPLv2's implicit patent license and Dalvik

Posted Jun 7, 2011 21:04 UTC (Tue) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link]

Aren't portions of Bionic based on BSD libc?

http://codingrelic.geekhold.com/2008/11/six-million-dolla...

Also, it seems the rationale for making Bionic are license, size, and speed:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/patrick-brady-dissects...

Libc licenses

Posted Jun 9, 2011 8:52 UTC (Thu) by justincormack (subscriber, #70439) [Link]

I think all the other light weight libcs are in fact LGPL/GPL, eg uclibc, dietlibc. Newlib is partly LGPL too.

Libc licenses

Posted Jun 29, 2011 16:13 UTC (Wed) by JoelSherrill (guest, #43881) [Link]

newlib contains very little code under [L]GPL. No [L]GPL code is supposed to be in any configuration unless it is in the OS specific code. For GNU/Linux, this source is under the libc/sys/linux subdirectory.

If Google had chosen newlib, there would have been less work to get it clean for Android than putting together a new library.

FWIW newlib is used by Cygwin and RTEMS along with bare metal users of GNU tools. It supports a variety of architectures. Newlib is an old project with a community around it.