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back to article Sun opens Java tools in mobile fight back

Sun Microsystems has open sourced its Java toolkit for building mobile applications just as the role Java plays on handsets comes into question. The company has released the Light-Weight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) under a GPLv2 license with a classpath exception - for binary linking with an application - as an incubator project to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Java mobile multi-platform pah!

    Java mobile isn't truly multi-platform to get most applications to work you need to compile different versions of the app for different devices, this has been a bug bear of Java gaming for eons. It truly sucks.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Java mobile multi-platorm pah!

    And this is solved by using Linux, how? Java is the closest thing to multiplatform out there that we have. Maybe something else will come around, but Linux certainly isn't it. All of the Linux handsets out there run Java. Hmm, I wonder why...

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  3. Drak

    @AC

    I believe the reason that java has problems running on all platforms is not that it wont compile, but that the VM is unable to detect what kind of GUI toolkit to use as they always seem to be changing on most all platforms.

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  4. John Parker
    Boffin

    multiplatform...

    One of the problems (Device build fragmentation) will remain regardless of the language/VM implementation. This is because different handsets all have different capabilities wrt. draw speed, 3D capabilities, real VRAM, available static/dynamic RAM, CPU speed, FPU/not, storage space, persistent record space, to name but a few. The handset manufacturers aren't all going to switch their entire phones to contain a homogeneous hardware specification, just to make app porting easier on whatever VM implementation exists.

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  5. A J Stiles
    Heart

    Fragmentation

    Well, the fragmentation in the market may be due at least in part to the lack of a complete Open Source toolkit ..... people re tempted to write their own, incompatible ones, and if nobody opens up their Source Code then everybody's one ends up being incompatible with everyone else's.

    The existence of a GPL toolkit means that anyone can use it, without paying for it, just as long as they don't try to bogart any changes they may make to it. What's not to like?

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  6. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    Android

    Android only happens to run on Linux. It's essentially a Java platform using Google's Java engine and APIs instead of Sun's. Unless performance is at least x2 better, it's a pointless re-invention, like much of open sauce.

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  7. BillPhollins
    Jobs Horns

    True, but...

    It's not Sun's fault the various Phone manufactureres don't implement Java (or MIDP etc.) properly. Having said that, I'd trust Sun over the increasingly autocratic Google and Apple any day.

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  8. Zmodem

    its all a bag of pap

    need a singular version of all OS's on phones, linux would just end tp retarded like symbian, where java me rules

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Java mobile multi-platorm pah!

    I would say LWUIT is a good example to show that JavaME is multiplatform. It works on all devices I would ever want to target.

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  10. Joe Harrison

    So what

    I suppose these are the ones that come in .jad files? From time to time I install some interesting-looking Java phonelet thingy and I'm always astonished when it actually works. They mostly crash out with some undiagnosable problem. Wake me when Sun or anyone else provide useful things I can actually do stuff with.

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  11. Groz Bat
    Thumb Up

    Better than nothing

    Java may still have a way to go, but its still the only real cross-platform game out there.

    I have Java bus timetables from my local bus company on my phone. They work on just about anything.

    And I know that Java's not going to crash my phone, unlike some native apps.

    Even Nokia´s official radio player app reboots my brand new Nokia phone on a regular basis.

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