I'm thinking of a VM that would reuse Java's syntax (as Dalvik does), but would not be tied to being 'Java' in the TCK/OpenJDK sense. It would reuse de facto standard bytecodes (i.e. Dalvik's) for 'run anywhere'. Porting of apps and frameworks might be done by simple recompilation or by bytecode conversion as with Java-to-Android for phone apps.
Java developers' knowledge and IDE support would continue to be a vital base, and a lot of developers would also code in other VM language implementations on top of the class libraries, so Java's syntax wouldn't be limiting. Stability and features would depend on the Harmony team. The sword of Damocles of patents would not then hang over the VM, and the community would have freedom to take the VM forward in the Dalvik spirit and escape the stagnation of the JVM. Apache has the credibility and talent pool to do this and the nuts and bolts are all there already. The relative priorities for VM porting would depend on needs such as embedded/mobile, servers, etc. I would love to see such a VM for server-side apps; and for desktop/embedded Linux apps too if the performance and widget bindings were good, and if there was VM support for languages like JPython. Would this be feasible for Harmony as an alternative to a JVM release or mouldering exile in the attic?
