2007_11_01_archive

OHA, Android and Eclipse

It's been amusing following the fervent speculation around the gPhone,

especially the collective sigh of letdown heard 'round the blogosphere

when Google announced the Open Handset Alliance and said in a video,

"there's no such thing as a single gPhone...we're enabling an entire

industry to create thousands of gPhones." Apparently the gadget-hungry

among us just wanted a sexy competitor to the iPhone, even though

there are already several reasonable contenders and one knock-off.

After the announcement, there was the usual talk about vaporware and

who was or wasn't a part of the alliance. However, things got a lot

more exciting today with the public release of the Android SDK. Yes,

Google is doing things in reverse order...putting the platform out

first and then letting the mobile devices follow.

I'm excited about Android. Why? Because Android has the markings of a

framework-oriented up-and-coming Eclipse project. It is internally

developed code to be open sourced into a Google Code repository. It's

been in development for a couple of years already and is running on

actual phones . The development environment for building against the

SDK includes an Eclipse plug-in, and Android appears to be designed to

allow vendors to extend it for both their commercial devices and their

specific applications. The only thing that's not clear is how

transparent and diverse the development of the SDK will be moving

forward. The open source mechanisms are in place, but the full

platform code base is not yet available. I call on Google to fully

embrace an open development model, with diverse contribution and full

transparency.

I'm also thrilled to see Eclipse front-and-center in the developer

documents, as several on Planet Eclipse have already noted. Of course,

it makes sense that an open mobile platform would be developed by an

open tool platform. While I'm sure we'll see other Java development

tool vendors running to join the party, Eclipse already has a leg up

because Eclipse already aligns with the philosophy of OHA. The JDT is

more than up to the task of building Android apps, and CDT will be

ideal for developing on the Linux-based Platform code.

Finally, some of the mobile-focused DSDP projects have potential

alignment with OHA: eRCP will need an Android runtime, TmL will need

to test their upcoming mobile infrastructure simulation with Android,

and MTJ will need to provide device-specific tooling for [DEL: JME

:DEL] Dalvik VM development. I call on the OHA alliance members to

pony up some engineers to augment Eclipse with additional Android

tooling.