"One of the FOSDEM sessions that caught my eye was "IcedRobot:
The GNUlization of Android," which announced a new project that
hopes to take Android and change it so it has a clean-room
OpenJDK-based Java VM and will be based on what they refer to as a
more standard Linux kernel.
"The idea here is to get this Android fork to run on something
like a Linux desktop, hence the need to have IcedRobot on a more
vanilla Linux kernel. The swapping out of the Dalvik VM for
something from OpenJDK is a clear move to get this project out from
the litigious crosshairs of Oracle, which is currently suing Google
for trademark infringement over Oracle code that's allegedly in
Dalvik and shouldn't be.
"I wasn't in Belgium, and I am curious to hear how the community
will be reacting to this. The push to get Android running on a
desktop environment seems to be a bit... dated. Android is doing
quite well on the platforms upon which it runs now, and desktop
Linux is, while solid and stable, not exactly growing as fast at
the mobile platform base. In that context, IcedRobot comes across
as one of those "hey, let's see if I can run Linux on my microwave"
projects."
