Without going into the speculation what Nokia or Blackberry will do in future products, IMO there is only one reason for adopting Dalvik in any mobile OS - to be able to migrate to Android while keeping the current developer/userbase and their software investment. Why ? Because the moment Android apps/services reliably run on a device and can be bought from the Android Marketplace, there is no reason for any new developer to even think about doing anything native for that particular platform. This is turn means that on the long run you have the same apps/services as your competitors, but you have the monetary/time burden of maintaining a full OS and a compatibility layer IN ADDITION to what every Android vendor does. That's why HTC/Moto/etc do Sense/Blur et al and not take a full OS and put Dalvik on top - it would be an overkill with no benefit.
Without going into the speculation what Nokia or Blackberry will do in future products, IMO there is only one reason for adopting Dalvik in any mobile OS - to be able to migrate to Android while keeping the current developer/userbase and their software investment.
Even after 14 years of using Linux as my primary OS, I keep WINE around for those occasional apps I am forced to use that have no open source equivalent. Presently that is only IE for one particular work related task, all my other needs have been met eventually by a suitable FOSS solution. My point is this is a two way street, and giving users the ability to run necessary software on a foreign system eases migration.
Even after 14 years of using Linux as my primary OS, I keep WINE around for those occasional apps I am forced to use that have no open source equivalent. Presently that is only IE for one particular work related task, all my other needs have been met eventually by a suitable FOSS solution. My point is this is a two way street, and giving users the ability to run necessary software on a foreign system eases migration.
WINE is a completely different story. It's (very) far from being a reliable solution for end users, Linux itself does a decent pre-filtering of tech-savvy people, it does not try to integrate with packaging and, last but not least, it is not advertised as a feature for major Linux distros. OS/2 is one example that showed that you *can* get too good in emulating windows. Very few people bothered to write OS/2 specific apps as users could run the DOS or windows version anyway. And then when windows introduced APIs OS/2 couldn't match around Win95, it was game over, as there was no serious native app-base to fall back to.
Dalvik is not Android... if you're saying "go dalvik" because you want to run Android applications you're going to be severely disappointed (much in the same way you'd be if you used Preenv to try to run Mojo apps)
And as for the "other" use of Dalvik under other OSs... To be honest I'd be surprised very much if anyone wanted to use Dalvik as a serious development platform. The only reason I could see for that to happen is for legal/licensing reasons, but from a technical PoV Dalvik is far from spectacular...
WINE is a completely different story. It's (very) far from being a reliable solution for end users, Linux itself does a decent pre-filtering of tech-savvy people, it does not try to integrate with packaging and, last but not least, it is not advertised as a feature for major Linux distros. OS/2 is one example that showed that you *can* get too good in emulating windows. Very few people bothered to write OS/2 specific apps as users could run the DOS or windows version anyway. And then when windows introduced APIs OS/2 couldn't match around Win95, it was game over, as there was no serious native app-base to fall back to.
I do understand your concern. I'm just trying to see if you'll consider the benefits of compatibility libraries and emulators as well as the drawbacks. I'll also have to disagree with you on Linux based systems being for tech savvy users only. Not only do we have the N900 itself as proof to the contrary, but I have converted a dozen or so family members and friends to using Ubuntu and none have had any more difficulties using it than they did Windows.
I do understand your concern. I'm just trying to see if you'll consider the benefits of compatibility libraries and emulators as well as the drawbacks.
Certainly. The bottom line is, however, that providing such a feature that is good for Joe Phone out-of-the box is something that can be done only by the vendor. I understand that (if it worked well) users would value it, developers, too, but as said above, for the vendor, it makes no sense because it's poisoning their (native) ecosystem unless they intend to switch to Android anyway.
Originally Posted by
I'll also have to disagree with you on Linux based systems being for tech savvy users only. Not only do we have the N900 itself as proof to the contrary, but I have converted a dozen or so family members and friends to using Ubuntu and none have had any more difficulties using it than they did Windows.
It's obviously not a black-and-white picture (yes, I did a fair share of missionary work among my relatives/friends, too), and obviously windows is not *only* used by computer neophytes. However, the average savvy-o-meter is, if I would have to guess, tilted to the Linux side (no, I don't have hard numbers or Stanford studies to prove it).
Hello,
First, I would like to point that the demo only shows usage of display/mouse and network. OK that is a great first step but "porting" all APIs into a "optimized" VM which is not "Dalvik", as any application should be "converted" ?!?
By the way, a commercial product cannot be "incomplete"/"beta", so many tests are required before... so wait.
I get a contact from a Nokia project leader which is interested in the pure Android Dalvik port to standard Linux platform (glibc, X11), a first step before getting runs on Maemo/MeeGo.
