Java Reference
In-Depth Information
The
Linux
operating system—which is popular in servers, personal computers and embed-
ded systems—is perhaps the greatest success of the
open-source
movement. The
open-
source software
development style departs from the
proprietary
development style (used,
for example, with Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac OS X). With open-source de-
velopment, individuals and companies—often worldwide—contribute their efforts in de-
veloping, maintaining and evolving software. Anyone can use and customize it for their
own purposes, typically at no charge. The Java Development Kit and many related Java
technologies are now open source.
Some organizations in the open-source community are the
Eclipse Foundation
(the
Eclipse Integrated Development Environment
helps Java programmers conveniently develop
software), the
Mozilla Foundation
(creators of the
Firefox web browser
), the
Apache Software
Foundation
(creators of the
Apache web server
that
delivers web pages over the Internet
in
response to web-browser requests) and
GitHub
and
SourceForge
(which provide the
tools
for managing open-source projects
).
Rapid improvements to computing and communications, decreasing costs and open-
source software have made it easier and more economical to create software-based busi-
nesses now than just a few decades ago. Facebook, which was launched from a college
dorm room, was built with open-source software.
9
A variety of issues—such as Microsoft's market power, the relatively small number of
user-friendly Linux applications and the diversity of Linux distributions (Red Hat Linux,
Ubuntu Linux and many others)—have prevented widespread Linux use on desktop com-
puters. But Linux has become extremely popular on servers and in embedded systems,
such as Google's Android-based smartphones.
Android
—the fastest-growing mobile and smartphone operating system—is based on the
Linux kernel and uses Java. Experienced Java programmers can quickly dive into Android
development. One benefit of developing Android apps is the openness of the platform.
The operating system is open source and free.
The Android operating system was developed by Android, Inc., which was acquired
by Google in 2005. In 2007, the Open Handset Alliance™—which now has 87 company
was formed to develop, maintain and evolve Android, driving innovation in mobile tech-
nology and improving the user experience while reducing costs. As of April 2013, more
than 1.5 million Android devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) were being activated
daily
.
10
By October 2013, a Strategy Analytics report showed that Android had 81.3% of the
global
smartphone
market share, compared to 13.4% for Apple, 4.1% for Microsoft and
1% for Blackberry.
11
Android devices now include smartphones, tablets, e-readers, robots,
jet engines, NASA satellites, game consoles, refrigerators, televisions, cameras, health-care
million/
.
