Sun concerned Google's Android will fracture Java

Earlier in the month, Google released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone software project that shun the existing Java standard-setting process in favor of a Google-specific variety.

"Anything that creates a more diverse or fractured platform is not in (developers') best interests," said Rich Green, executive vice president of Sun's software work, speaking to reporters at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. "The feedback from developers is, 'Help us fix this.'"

He said Sun wants to work with Google to nip any problems in the bud. "We're really interested in working with Google to make sure developers don't end up with a fractured environment. We're reaching out to Google and assuming they'll be reaching out to us to ensure these platforms and APIs will be compatible so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible," Green said.

Google didn't adopt a terribly conciliatory tone in its response, arguing that when it comes to Java fragmentation, Android is the solution, not the problem.

"Google and the other members of the Open Handset Alliance are working to help solve fragmentation and supporting the developer community by creating Android, a mobile platform that responds to the needs of the developers, has the backing of industry leaders, and will be available as open source under a nonrestrictive license," Google said in a statement.

And asked whether it would discuss the issue with Sun, Google said, "We're talking with industry leaders around the world about Android and the Open Handset Alliance but we're not commenting on any of those discussions."

On Monday, Google indicated that it expects fellow members of the Open Handset Alliance phones who are working on the Android phones to help keep its variation of Java familiar to programmers.

Java today is governed by the Java Community Process, in which a number of companies vote on which features to accept into the Java system and create standard mechanisms called application programming interfaces (APIs) by which Java software can use those features. The extent to which Android will or must conform to these APIs is not clear.

For those who need a refresher on the Microsoft history here, the software company licensed Java back in the 1990s, way before it became open-source software. However, Microsoft added some features to Java that meant that it could work differently on Windows machines, a move Sun saw as undermining the "write once, run anywhere" promise of the technology.