Open Source JAVA ME
Sun plans to open source most of the Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) by the end of 2006. What does this mean to developers? Will it help reduce fragmentation?
Well, according to Sun’s Senior Director of Mobile & Embedded Platforms, Shannon Lynch…
"Open sourcing Java ME will accelerate the adoption of a single platform, driving more implementation consistency and reducing fragmentation."
I am not so sure. Shannon hopes open source will encourage most phone OEMs to eventually use Sun’s implementation. The open source code needs extension and adaptation to run on a particular hardware phone platform. This extra work represents a significant investment for most phone OEMs (or the vendor they obtain their implementation from). If they are not already using the Sun implementation they are not going to be able to change overnight. Furthermore, I believe that the OEM specific extension and adaption is actually one of the sources of differing capabilities between Java implementations and hence one cause of fragmentation. Maybe Shannon is hoping that adaptations also end up in the code base. I am not so optimistic. Also, it’s not just the JAVA implementation but also the differing phone capabilities (camera, memory, screen size etc) that cause JAVA application fragmentation.
On a more positive note, open source J2ME will allow developers to understand what’s going on ‘under the hood’. Also, it will provide many code examples that can be re-used in end-user code.
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