6 ms·

In this case, Joe is wrong. "Open-source" simply means that anyone is allowed to read the code. We may associate certain release schedules and commit policies

by shib71 16y ago

In this case, Joe is wrong. "Open-source" simply means that anyone is allowed to read the code. We may associate certain release schedules and commit policies with typical open-source projects, but those schedules and policies are not mandatory. Or even common. Browse GitHub or SourceForge to see the typical choices - "when I can be bothered" and "only me" respectively. I understand that Joe is in a position where he will need to deal with changes in the OS when it is released, but he still comes across as a self-entitled whiner.

jamesaguilar 16y ago
I disagree. I agree that Android fulfills the license requirements of open source. But it delivers few of the practical benefits that were meant to stem from the term (control of your devices/computer, the ability to modify the software you use). So in spirit it is nothing like what we would traditionally call "open source" and it is certainly nothing to brag about vis-a-vis iOS. I see no sense of entitlement in his complaints at all. They seem reasonable based on the difference between what I might expect from an open source project and what Google actually delivers. This is rare considering I tend not to like open source software or even the basic principle of it.
- shib71 16y ago
  We can fork and alter the code, and deploy it to our devices. I'll grant that it is not easy on some devices, but you can't argue against the carriers' right to change the code without compromising your own.
  - msbarnett 16y ago
    That's just shifting the goal-posts, though. Google touts the Android platform's openness as a benefit for developers and end-users. And yet: As a developer, I have, if anything, less visibility into upcoming changes to the Android SDK than I do into upcoming changes in iOS 4.2. As an end-user, Android's openness hasn't stopped carriers from foisting unremovable crapware on me, or given me any more control over my Droid X than I have over my iPhone 4. But whenever anyone dares to point out this disconnect between Google's marketing rhetoric and reality vis a vis openness, suddenly "open" means nothing more than "fulfills the letter of the contractual agreements of the GPL version 2 and provides no promises of anything beyond that". It's farcical.
    - moultano 16y ago
      >As a developer As a developer, your customers can run the app even if the app store says no. >As a customer As a customer, you can choose from a range of android powered devices including those not approved by Google. The nook would likely not exist were it not for Android.
      - msbarnett 16y ago
        As a developer, if my app doesn't make it into the main app store, I'd be throwing good money after bad by trying to run about trying to set up my own payment infrastructure and trying to convince people to buy and side-load my app (which, among other things, Android's openness would keep AT&T Android users from doing anyways). From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as a developer. As a customer, the freedom to "choose from a range of Android powered devices including those not approved by Google" simply means the burden of having to perform a complicated cost-benefits analysis, deciding which specific combination of carrier crap-ware and carrier locked out features, or unsubsidized hardware from little-known Chinese manufacturers is least un-appealing to me. I have to spend an enormous amount of time researching to ensure that the official app store is supported on such-and-such phone, to find out whether tethering works freely or not or whether I can side-load or not on such-and-such carrier. From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as an average consumer. Openness is only a virtue if it has practical benefit. If Google is arguing for openness from a purely dogmatic, non-practical standpoint, then they should be honest about that instead of pretending that Android's openness is some kind of unicorns-and-candyfloss fun ride for app developers and end-users.
        moultano 16y ago
        >As a developer, if my app doesn't make it into the main app store, I'd be throwing good money after bad by trying to run about trying to set up my own payment infrastructure and trying to convince people to buy and side-load my app (which, among other things, Android's openness would keep AT&T Android users from doing anyways). From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as a developer. Or support it with ads? >As a customer, the freedom to "choose from a range of Android powered devices including those not approved by Google" simply means the burden of having to perform a complicated cost-benefits analysis, deciding which specific combination of carrier crap-ware and carrier locked out features, or unsubsidized hardware from little-known Chinese manufacturers is least un-appealing to me. I have to spend an enormous amount of time researching to ensure that the official app store is supported on such-and-such phone, to find out whether tethering works freely or not or whether I can side-load or not on such-and-such carrier. From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as an average consumer. This seems no different to me than any other free market. I buy the argument that Google should simplify your purchasing decision by being more selective with the trademark, but that's an entirely different argument than the one we are having.
  - wtallis 16y ago
    You can't always deploy your altered versions to your devices. Carriers have been experimenting with various techniques for locking down devices that have been rooted in any way, and the only completely unlocked Android phone (Nexus One when sold through Google) was a flop. If your reply to this is that you can always bypass whatever DRM they put in place: well, you can do that on the iPhone too. And if you're willing to count something as "open" when reverse engineering is required to use modified software, then the availability of source code for a reference implementation ceases to be a meaningful difference. Android is no more "open" than iOS under that definition, just easier to work on.
    - biafra 16y ago
      You mean: You can't deploy your altered version to any device Assuming you did not break it while altering. Then you can always deploy your altered version to the ADP-Phones. For example the Nexus One. And this is not a theoretical possibility. I have done it. It works. I use it every day since.
      - wtallis 16y ago
        Open is not the same as "open, if you run it on special developer hardware". The Android platform cannot really be said to be open if none of the consumer products based on it are open.
        biafra 16y ago
        The Nexus One is a consumer product. You do not have to be a developer to buy it nor is it special developer hardware. Those other devices are still closed because people still buy them. Vote with your wallets and you will have freedom.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        16y ago
- shareme 16y ago
  I think you are confusing OEM and Mobile Operator missions with open source..they are not that same..Joe makes the same logical mistake in this debate..
  - ubernostrum 16y ago
    I think you are confusing what actually matters. If I were to walk up to RMS and say I've got a Free Software mobile platform, but that the hardware/firmware is designed to brick itself if you start customizing the OS, and that it comes loaded up with non-Free software that you can't remove without finding a way around the firmware bombs, would he hail it as a grand advance for freedom?
    - davidw 16y ago
      "The hardware". You mean The Android Phone? The only one out there? He'd probably also complain about mobile phones in general for other reasons ("portable surveillance device", etc...) I'm not RMS though, and Android is 'pretty good', if not perfect. If there's something better out there in terms of open source and open development, then let's hear about it.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  Your post is the reason GPLv3 was created if I understand some of its intentions properly.
- biafra 16y ago
  You have all that freedom with Android. You have the control over your device with Android. You don't have it on every device. But how is this Googles fault? Android is so open it can be closed down by anyone. But there are Phones that are not closed down (ADP1, Nexus One) and hopefully there always will be. Just because customers choose to buy phones that are locked down does not mean that Android is less open.
  - wtallis 16y ago
    If Google actually cared about Android being open, they would have used GPLv3, to ensure that it stays open. In reality, they simply couldn't negotiate with carriers as well as Apple, so they've chosen to re-frame their capitulation as "openness".
    - biafra 16y ago
      Thats a philosophical question. Which is more open? GPLv3 or Apache/BSD license? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing#Permissive_versus_Copyleft_opinions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing#Permissiv...
      - calloc 16y ago
        Apache has more restrictions than the BSD license ... why are you grouping the two of them together?
        biafra 16y ago
        Both are permissive.
    - aphexairlines 16y ago
      Likewise, if Linus cared about Linux being open, he would have supported switching the kernel to AGPLv3.... Likewise, if the FSF cared about glibc being open, they would have switched the library to AGPLv3....
- grammaton 16y ago
  Control of your devices falls under the carrier, not Google. Blame the carrier if you can't re-flash your phone to your heart's content. You certainly can modify the base OS, with the exception of a handful of binaries. If the binaries in question (Gmail, YouTube, the market) bother you that much, there is nothing to stop you from writing your own versions.
- Tichy 16y ago
  "But it delivers few of the practical benefits that were meant to stem from the term (control of your devices/computer, the ability to modify the software you use)." Of course it does. A lot of people I know run community mods of Android of their phones, or at least used to do so for a while. Cyanogen seems to be a popular choice: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ That some phone vendors choose to make it difficult to install your own version of Android is not the fault of Android. Maybe Android could have a license that forbids the practice, but it would be debatable if that would be more or less open. Also I'd argue that if you care enough to install your own custom OS, then you are likely able to figure out which phone to buy (ie Nexus One). It seems however that the "only publish source code of releases" poses a problems for vendors considering releasing Android based hardware. It probably gives Google at least a little bit of leverage. Which might be a good thing - most anti-Android people seem to complain that Google is not able to exert enough pressure on manufacturers to maintain quality standards.
edgibson 16y ago
I agree. Joe can be somewhat of a whiner. Every time he's on the news, it's probably because he whines and complains about something (Apple app store policy, the state of web development, Android openness, etc.)

by shib71 16y ago

jamesaguilar 16y ago

I disagree. I agree that Android fulfills the license requirements of open source. But it delivers few of the practical benefits that were meant to stem from the term (control of your devices/computer, the ability to modify the software you use). So in spirit it is nothing like what we would traditionally call "open source" and it is certainly nothing to brag about vis-a-vis iOS. I see no sense of entitlement in his complaints at all. They seem reasonable based on the difference between what I might expect from an open source project and what Google actually delivers. This is rare considering I tend not to like open source software or even the basic principle of it.

shib71 16y ago
We can fork and alter the code, and deploy it to our devices. I'll grant that it is not easy on some devices, but you can't argue against the carriers' right to change the code without compromising your own.
- msbarnett 16y ago
  That's just shifting the goal-posts, though. Google touts the Android platform's openness as a benefit for developers and end-users. And yet: As a developer, I have, if anything, less visibility into upcoming changes to the Android SDK than I do into upcoming changes in iOS 4.2. As an end-user, Android's openness hasn't stopped carriers from foisting unremovable crapware on me, or given me any more control over my Droid X than I have over my iPhone 4. But whenever anyone dares to point out this disconnect between Google's marketing rhetoric and reality vis a vis openness, suddenly "open" means nothing more than "fulfills the letter of the contractual agreements of the GPL version 2 and provides no promises of anything beyond that". It's farcical.
  - moultano 16y ago
    >As a developer As a developer, your customers can run the app even if the app store says no. >As a customer As a customer, you can choose from a range of android powered devices including those not approved by Google. The nook would likely not exist were it not for Android.
    - msbarnett 16y ago
      As a developer, if my app doesn't make it into the main app store, I'd be throwing good money after bad by trying to run about trying to set up my own payment infrastructure and trying to convince people to buy and side-load my app (which, among other things, Android's openness would keep AT&T Android users from doing anyways). From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as a developer. As a customer, the freedom to "choose from a range of Android powered devices including those not approved by Google" simply means the burden of having to perform a complicated cost-benefits analysis, deciding which specific combination of carrier crap-ware and carrier locked out features, or unsubsidized hardware from little-known Chinese manufacturers is least un-appealing to me. I have to spend an enormous amount of time researching to ensure that the official app store is supported on such-and-such phone, to find out whether tethering works freely or not or whether I can side-load or not on such-and-such carrier. From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as an average consumer. Openness is only a virtue if it has practical benefit. If Google is arguing for openness from a purely dogmatic, non-practical standpoint, then they should be honest about that instead of pretending that Android's openness is some kind of unicorns-and-candyfloss fun ride for app developers and end-users.
      - moultano 16y ago
        >As a developer, if my app doesn't make it into the main app store, I'd be throwing good money after bad by trying to run about trying to set up my own payment infrastructure and trying to convince people to buy and side-load my app (which, among other things, Android's openness would keep AT&T Android users from doing anyways). From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as a developer. Or support it with ads? >As a customer, the freedom to "choose from a range of Android powered devices including those not approved by Google" simply means the burden of having to perform a complicated cost-benefits analysis, deciding which specific combination of carrier crap-ware and carrier locked out features, or unsubsidized hardware from little-known Chinese manufacturers is least un-appealing to me. I have to spend an enormous amount of time researching to ensure that the official app store is supported on such-and-such phone, to find out whether tethering works freely or not or whether I can side-load or not on such-and-such carrier. From a pragmatic standpoint, there is no practical benefit to this openness for me, as an average consumer. This seems no different to me than any other free market. I buy the argument that Google should simplify your purchasing decision by being more selective with the trademark, but that's an entirely different argument than the one we are having.
- wtallis 16y ago
  You can't always deploy your altered versions to your devices. Carriers have been experimenting with various techniques for locking down devices that have been rooted in any way, and the only completely unlocked Android phone (Nexus One when sold through Google) was a flop. If your reply to this is that you can always bypass whatever DRM they put in place: well, you can do that on the iPhone too. And if you're willing to count something as "open" when reverse engineering is required to use modified software, then the availability of source code for a reference implementation ceases to be a meaningful difference. Android is no more "open" than iOS under that definition, just easier to work on.
  - biafra 16y ago
    You mean: You can't deploy your altered version to any device Assuming you did not break it while altering. Then you can always deploy your altered version to the ADP-Phones. For example the Nexus One. And this is not a theoretical possibility. I have done it. It works. I use it every day since.
    - wtallis 16y ago
      Open is not the same as "open, if you run it on special developer hardware". The Android platform cannot really be said to be open if none of the consumer products based on it are open.
      - biafra 16y ago
        The Nexus One is a consumer product. You do not have to be a developer to buy it nor is it special developer hardware. Those other devices are still closed because people still buy them. Vote with your wallets and you will have freedom.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        16y ago
shareme 16y ago
I think you are confusing OEM and Mobile Operator missions with open source..they are not that same..Joe makes the same logical mistake in this debate..
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  I think you are confusing what actually matters. If I were to walk up to RMS and say I've got a Free Software mobile platform, but that the hardware/firmware is designed to brick itself if you start customizing the OS, and that it comes loaded up with non-Free software that you can't remove without finding a way around the firmware bombs, would he hail it as a grand advance for freedom?
  - davidw 16y ago
    "The hardware". You mean The Android Phone? The only one out there? He'd probably also complain about mobile phones in general for other reasons ("portable surveillance device", etc...) I'm not RMS though, and Android is 'pretty good', if not perfect. If there's something better out there in terms of open source and open development, then let's hear about it.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
Your post is the reason GPLv3 was created if I understand some of its intentions properly.
biafra 16y ago
You have all that freedom with Android. You have the control over your device with Android. You don't have it on every device. But how is this Googles fault? Android is so open it can be closed down by anyone. But there are Phones that are not closed down (ADP1, Nexus One) and hopefully there always will be. Just because customers choose to buy phones that are locked down does not mean that Android is less open.
- wtallis 16y ago
  If Google actually cared about Android being open, they would have used GPLv3, to ensure that it stays open. In reality, they simply couldn't negotiate with carriers as well as Apple, so they've chosen to re-frame their capitulation as "openness".
  - biafra 16y ago
    Thats a philosophical question. Which is more open? GPLv3 or Apache/BSD license? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing#Permissive_versus_Copyleft_opinions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing#Permissiv...
    - calloc 16y ago
      Apache has more restrictions than the BSD license ... why are you grouping the two of them together?
      - biafra 16y ago
        Both are permissive.
  - aphexairlines 16y ago
    Likewise, if Linus cared about Linux being open, he would have supported switching the kernel to AGPLv3.... Likewise, if the FSF cared about glibc being open, they would have switched the library to AGPLv3....
grammaton 16y ago
Control of your devices falls under the carrier, not Google. Blame the carrier if you can't re-flash your phone to your heart's content. You certainly can modify the base OS, with the exception of a handful of binaries. If the binaries in question (Gmail, YouTube, the market) bother you that much, there is nothing to stop you from writing your own versions.
Tichy 16y ago
"But it delivers few of the practical benefits that were meant to stem from the term (control of your devices/computer, the ability to modify the software you use)." Of course it does. A lot of people I know run community mods of Android of their phones, or at least used to do so for a while. Cyanogen seems to be a popular choice: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ That some phone vendors choose to make it difficult to install your own version of Android is not the fault of Android. Maybe Android could have a license that forbids the practice, but it would be debatable if that would be more or less open. Also I'd argue that if you care enough to install your own custom OS, then you are likely able to figure out which phone to buy (ie Nexus One). It seems however that the "only publish source code of releases" poses a problems for vendors considering releasing Android based hardware. It probably gives Google at least a little bit of leverage. Which might be a good thing - most anti-Android people seem to complain that Google is not able to exert enough pressure on manufacturers to maintain quality standards.

edgibson 16y ago

I agree. Joe can be somewhat of a whiner. Every time he's on the news, it's probably because he whines and complains about something (Apple app store policy, the state of web development, Android openness, etc.)