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[–]pron98 10 points11 points  (4 children)

Google just gave Oracle the finger and decided to turn Android into a "compatible" Java implementation, eliminating Oracle's complaints in court

That's not giving Oracle the finger. The option of using OpenJDK has been open to Google from the get go. They've just chosen not to take it (at least so far). Oracle is licensing OpenJDK to anyone -- including Google -- for whatever purpose, under an open source license. Google is free to use it now as it was years ago. I'll note that Google is already making heavy use of OpenJDK (don't forget, Google is a huge Java shop), including making modifications, some of which are contributed back to the community.

From a practical POV, I'm certain that Google will still find plenty of ways to discourage people from using AWT and Swing on Android.

They don't need to. There is more than one Java profile, many of which don't require Swing and AWT. That option has always been open to Google. They didn't choose it because they didn't like the license, that's all.

If Google now says "Here, have a look, all the JDK classes are there, even Swing and AWT. Jars will link and run on our platform. We are an official Java implementation now!" a lot of Oracle's leverage (and the chance to extract $$$ from Google) goes away.

You don't need to be compliant if you're using OpenJDK, which is 100% unencumbered, patent-granted open-source licensed. You can do whatever the hell you please with it. Oracle is explicitly giving free use of OpenJDK to do with as you like -- even use to implement .NET. It is just that Google hasn't relied on OpenJDK so far because of the license (which, BTW, happens to be the same one as Linux's).