JavaFX Runs On Raspberry Pi

mikejuk writes "Oracle seem to be concerned that the Raspberry Pi manages to run Java properly and they are actively working on the problem. To prove that it more than just works, what better than to get a JavaFX app up and running — what could be more cutting edge? Unfortunately the trick was performed using a commercial version of the JDK with JIT support and some private code, but it is still early days yet. Java and JavaFX on Raspberry Pi takes us into a whole new ball game." Watch the video at the linked report to see it in action.

Re:How is this news?

[Ignacio]

http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/ZeroSharkFaq [classpath.org]

"What architectures do Zero and Shark work on?

As of December 2008, Zero is known to work on Alpha, ARM, IA-64, MIPS, PowerPC, x86, x86-64 and zSeries.

Shark should be able to build on any Zero-supported system that LLVM has a JIT for. As of October 2009, this is ARM, PowerPC, x86 and x86-64. "

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[reg]

>Please, the vast majority Java was open sourced in 2006 under the GPL

The code was. But if you want to write any Java code you need to use Java APIs. Those are copyright and subject to Oracle's terms of use. Go to http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/index.html [oracle.com] - see that link to a copyright statement at the bottom: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/legal/cpyr.html [oracle.com]. That document says:

1. 1. This software ... provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use ...
2. 2. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, ... any part, in any form, or by any means.

So what is the license agreement: Try to download the documentation (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/java-se-7-doc-download-435117.html [oracle.com]). That has a click though agreement to http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/licenses/java-se-7-spec-license.txt [oracle.com], which in turn says:

1. License for Evaluation Purposes. Oracle hereby grants you a fully-paid, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, limited license (without the right to sublicense), under Oracle's applicable intellectual property rights to view, download, use and reproduce the Specification only for the purpose of internal evaluation. This includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification, provided that such applications do not themselves implement any portion(s) of the Specification, and (ii) discussing the Specification with any third party; and (iii) excerpting brief portions of the Specification in oral or written communications which discuss the Specification provided that such excerpts do not in the aggregate constitute a significant portion of the Specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

But, they could advance a case against any Java developer, because no matter how they learned Java, these licenses do not extend third party rights, so each developer has to officially learn about Java through the Java specifications. And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

If you use something other Java SE, then you are even worse off, because the APIs are not actually published. The licenses for various versions of Java have changed slightly over the years (the one for Java 5 - which Google is being sued under - says that the license overrides all other statements from Sun, although Oracle's lawyers didn't read that far into the license else they would have used that clause to nullify the damaging testimony about Sun's approvals of Google's actions.

Before you accuse people of astroturfing, learn the turf.

Regards,
-Jeremy

Re:No to Java : not trustworthy:

[sourcerror]

Oracle went total asshole, but I don't believe they can pull off that API copyrighting stuff. (In Europe it's already thorwn out.) Also, the whole debacle is unlikely to affect J2EE and J2SE developers.

Re:Foot, meet bullet.

[peppepz]

You're mixing the licenses of the GPL OpenJDK (the GPL does not allow "field of use" restictions), Oracle's binary JDK, and Oracle's Java specification.

So - you can use the APIs for internal evaluation only. In other words - if you wish to use them for any other purpose you need another license from Oracle.

Did we red the same piece of text?

includes (i) developing applications intended to run on an implementation of the Specification

means exactly that you can develop all applications you want using the Java APIs, how do you interpret that as "they could advance a case against any Java developer"?

This is exactly the case Oracle has advanced against Google (who violated clause (i) above by implementing the specification).

No, Google
1) did NOT use the GPL OpenJDK, and therefore they're not covered by the GPL license; and they expressly chose not to use the OpenJDK because they dislike the GPL, as Google said explicitly in their published emails;
2) violated this part, of the license, that you omitted to quote:

2. License for the Distribution of Compliant Implementations. Oracle also grants you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty free, limited license (without the right to sublicense) under any applicable copyrights or, subject to the provisions of subsection 4 below, patent rights it may have covering the Specification to create and/or distribute an Independent Implementation of the Specification that: (a) fully implements the Specification including all its required interfaces and functionality; (b) does not modify, subset, superset or otherwise extend the Licensor Name Space, or include any public or protected packages, classes, Java interfaces, fields or methods within the Licensor Name Space other than those required/authorized by the Specification or Specifications being implemented; and (c) passes the Technology Compatibility Kit (including satisfying the requirements of the applicable TCK Users Guide) for such Specification ("Compliant Implementation").

In other words, Oracle claim that Google created a Java-based platform that is not compatible with Java, and called it Java. Which is what Microsoft did in the 90s (and has nothing to do with the developers of Java applications). A judge will decide if this is the case, but saying that every Java user could be sued for writing Java applications is frankly not true.

And if you are using Java for any purpose other than evaluation, you are in violation.

Again, you're omitting to say that the license explicitly allows you to:
1) develop applications for Java (ANY Java platform implementation)
2) develop complete implementations of the Java platform.

There is only one thing you can't do: develop an incompatible implementation of the Java platform and call that thing Java. You can create incompatible implementations of the GPL code of course, but then you can't call it Java. Oracle thinks that Google did that.