9 ms·

I think the wins of the open camp are real and tangible and they powerfully shape the industry. Android is free precisely because an open kernel is available th

by yholio 7y ago

I think the wins of the open camp are real and tangible and they powerfully shape the industry. Android is free precisely because an open kernel is available that could empower a competitor. Google is absolutely paranoid about this possibility, and is severly limited in the Microsoft-esque moves they can make. I think what precludes the final victory of open source is that the world itself changed for the better. The mobile and web revolution brought easy to use software into the hands of billions. These are people who wouldn't have been able to touch a PC twenty years ago, let alone understand or care about what source code is. They have vastly different expectations than the professional software users that created the free source movement in the image of the hackers of the 70s and 80s. Just look at the number of rooted phones sold. It's an appliance model of computing. In this new consumer environment, the free source development model is less adequate and cannot compete with commercial software that can directly monetize the apps and invest in further development. What is required, I think, is to update the free software philosophy to the 21st century, and relax some of the ideological goals to facilitate development and reach the more substantial goals, like privacy and security. The walled gardens of Google and Apple can be replicated. What is lacking is a free software business model that can gather the $1 billion or so required.

draw_down 7y ago
What does it mean to say that “Android is free”?
nailer 7y ago
> I think the wins of the open camp are real and tangible and they powerfully shape the industry. Outside mobile: Linux (the OS not the kernel) won the web. Way back in the 'Linux on the desktop' days, KDE needed something like gtkhtml so KDE made KHTML and Konqueror. Apple needed a web browser and couldn't make one from scratch, so webkit was forked from KHTML. Chrome needed to fork webkit so made blink. Edge adopted blink too. KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING. On the one hand yes, on the other Apple tried as hard as it could without technically violating the license that KHTML would get as little back from webkit as legally possible.
- snazz 7y ago
  While I agree with you, it’s also sad that what was formerly community-controlled got more and more taken over by corporations until now Google has practically complete control over Blink. It’s open source, but the community hasn’t made it.
  - justizin 7y ago
    Google open-source projects have a strong tendency toward not building outside of an internal Google build environment and they'll pretty much just be like, "Whups! Nobody works on this who doesn't work at Google, so we very commonly break the build." ChromiumOS suffers from this a lot and it's like, unclear that they are even really adhering to the licenses for the upstream FOSS they include and depend on, but who even has the time to challenge them? Reminds me of the 90s when RedHat's source CD wouldn't actually build their binary distro, but since almost noone ever tries, almost noone cares.
    - nailer 7y ago
      That's definitely been a problem, however UnGoogled Chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium and Edge https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/ https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/ have fixed a lot of it.
- Crinus 7y ago
  > KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING. Amazing for whom? How much control does KDE have over the code they originally wrote? Last time i checked KHTML and Konqueror were abandoned.
wwright 7y ago
There is a lot of speculation that Google is developing Fuschia because they want to move _away_ from their mobile OS being so thoroughly FOSS.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  That would leave plenty of room for someone else to take on the android ecosystem...
  - wwwhizz 7y ago
    I don't think they will drop Android until it is not (very) profitable anymore.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      They don't need to drop Android, just Linux kernel. ART is being ported to run on top of Fucshia.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Sure, because the Android clones without Google services have been such a tremendous market success.
    - scoot_718 7y ago
      It's not like the google services get much use.
      - JoBrad 7y ago
        Except for Maps, Gmail, Messages, Photos, Search, and (due to the servicing model) Play. I could be forgetting a few.
        Izkata 7y ago
        Maps, at least, I've completely replaced with Citymapper. Due to its goal it doesn't work everywhere, but in a supported area I've found it to be completely superior to Google Maps. So there is competition.
pjmlp 7y ago
The Linux kernel is the only GPL piece still used on Android, and who knows for how long, given how little userspace is actually aware of it.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Why else would Google be building Fuchsia? Apple has been removing all GPL apps slowly from their platform. From a RMS perspective, the FOSS community is worse than it was in the 90s. There is little end-user, self-hostable FOSS stuff out there. It's all middleware, released by the giants, to integrate with their big social media system. I wrote about this a few years back: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-in-community-and-enterprise-software/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source...
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  Isn't this what gpl advocates want? Or did they expect every tech company to open source their entire stack?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    On the other hand, MIT/Apache/BSD advocates will have a bright future ahead of them.
  - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
    No they want fully free OS's with free applications. That doesn't have to come from big corps.
TelmoMenezes 7y ago
> I think what precludes the final victory of open source is that the world itself changed for the better. Maybe we don't live in the same world??? > The mobile and web revolution brought easy to use software into the hands of billions. Yes, but this software is not empowering the users, it is controlling them, isolating them, radicalizing them and making them feel more depressed.
- tux1968 7y ago
  > Yes, but this software is not empowering the users, it is controlling them, isolating them, radicalizing them and making them feel more depressed. That's a horribly lopsided analysis. That's not to say that there are no examples or truth to the issues you raise, but it's far from the whole story. People do extract massive value from the communication, education, and entertainment features offered by the software in question.
- _jal 7y ago
  "We put a chicken in every pot! Nevermind that they're rotting, salmonella-filled carcasses, we still did it!" And: >In this new consumer environment, the free source development model is less adequate and cannot compete with commercial software that can directly monetize the apps and invest in further development. What, exactly, is supposed to be new here? I see nothing distinguishing the economics of this "new consumer environment" from 1995, except maybe that Redhat doesn't sell CDs anymore. What has changed since the 90s is increasingly onerous intellectual property law, anti-reverse-engineering laws, and the continued creep of the belief that ideas should be owned. And this is precisely backwards: > What is required, I think, is to update the free software philosophy to the 21st century, and relax some of the ideological goals to facilitate development and reach the more substantial goals, like privacy and security. If everybody's crazy uncle RMS had been more accommodating, more willing to compromise on ideology, things never would have changed in the 90s. One slightly cynical way of looking at it is that he was could play Bad Cop to ESR and others' more corporate-friendly, accommodationist "Open Source" promotion, somewhat similar (for much lower stakes) to how Huey Newton played bad-cop to MLK's nonviolence. If you drop the principle of always putting the user first, you'll eventually compromise on everything else.
deltron3030 7y ago
>It's an appliance model of computing. That's the real strength of Linux, creating appliances from commonly available hardware. The biggest mistake is therefore to copy Apple and MS and their general purpose approach, it will never work because the community isn't united like a company, every Linux camp seeks to make the best thing for their own purpose, and constantly clashes with other camps that want to do the same for themselves. A general purpose Linux OS is an anti pattern.
- Recurecur 7y ago
  Complete and utter nonsense. You might as well rant about "general purpose" sheets of paper. There is a need for general purpose computing, and Linux is one of the very few options there. That won't change. One major beauty of Linux is its flexibility, so it can also provide niche/embedded products.
  - deltron3030 7y ago
    My perspective is the user and application level, not the distribution maker and developer level.
jeena 7y ago
Interesting that you mention $1 billion, GitLab is a $1 billion company apparently: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/07/21/he-built-a-1-billion-business-where-all-700-employees-work-remotely/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/07/21/he...

by yholio 7y ago

draw_down 7y ago

What does it mean to say that “Android is free”?

nailer 7y ago

> I think the wins of the open camp are real and tangible and they powerfully shape the industry. Outside mobile: Linux (the OS not the kernel) won the web. Way back in the 'Linux on the desktop' days, KDE needed something like gtkhtml so KDE made KHTML and Konqueror. Apple needed a web browser and couldn't make one from scratch, so webkit was forked from KHTML. Chrome needed to fork webkit so made blink. Edge adopted blink too. KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING.

blattimwind 7y ago
> KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING. On the one hand yes, on the other Apple tried as hard as it could without technically violating the license that KHTML would get as little back from webkit as legally possible.
snazz 7y ago
While I agree with you, it’s also sad that what was formerly community-controlled got more and more taken over by corporations until now Google has practically complete control over Blink. It’s open source, but the community hasn’t made it.
- justizin 7y ago
  Google open-source projects have a strong tendency toward not building outside of an internal Google build environment and they'll pretty much just be like, "Whups! Nobody works on this who doesn't work at Google, so we very commonly break the build." ChromiumOS suffers from this a lot and it's like, unclear that they are even really adhering to the licenses for the upstream FOSS they include and depend on, but who even has the time to challenge them? Reminds me of the 90s when RedHat's source CD wouldn't actually build their binary distro, but since almost noone ever tries, almost noone cares.
  - nailer 7y ago
    That's definitely been a problem, however UnGoogled Chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium and Edge https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/ https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/ have fixed a lot of it.
Crinus 7y ago
> KDE's code is now in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only major web browser not containing it is Firefox (which is also OSS). That's AMAZING. Amazing for whom? How much control does KDE have over the code they originally wrote? Last time i checked KHTML and Konqueror were abandoned.

wwright 7y ago

There is a lot of speculation that Google is developing Fuschia because they want to move _away_ from their mobile OS being so thoroughly FOSS.

nicoburns 7y ago
That would leave plenty of room for someone else to take on the android ecosystem...
- wwwhizz 7y ago
  I don't think they will drop Android until it is not (very) profitable anymore.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    They don't need to drop Android, just Linux kernel. ART is being ported to run on top of Fucshia.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Sure, because the Android clones without Google services have been such a tremendous market success.
  - scoot_718 7y ago
    It's not like the google services get much use.
    - JoBrad 7y ago
      Except for Maps, Gmail, Messages, Photos, Search, and (due to the servicing model) Play. I could be forgetting a few.
      - Izkata 7y ago
        Maps, at least, I've completely replaced with Citymapper. Due to its goal it doesn't work everywhere, but in a supported area I've found it to be completely superior to Google Maps. So there is competition.

pjmlp 7y ago

The Linux kernel is the only GPL piece still used on Android, and who knows for how long, given how little userspace is actually aware of it.

djsumdog 7y ago
Why else would Google be building Fuchsia? Apple has been removing all GPL apps slowly from their platform. From a RMS perspective, the FOSS community is worse than it was in the 90s. There is little end-user, self-hostable FOSS stuff out there. It's all middleware, released by the giants, to integrate with their big social media system. I wrote about this a few years back: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source-in-community-and-enterprise-software/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-philosophy-of-open-source...
UncleMeat 7y ago
Isn't this what gpl advocates want? Or did they expect every tech company to open source their entire stack?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  On the other hand, MIT/Apache/BSD advocates will have a bright future ahead of them.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  No they want fully free OS's with free applications. That doesn't have to come from big corps.

TelmoMenezes 7y ago

> I think what precludes the final victory of open source is that the world itself changed for the better. Maybe we don't live in the same world??? > The mobile and web revolution brought easy to use software into the hands of billions. Yes, but this software is not empowering the users, it is controlling them, isolating them, radicalizing them and making them feel more depressed.

tux1968 7y ago
> Yes, but this software is not empowering the users, it is controlling them, isolating them, radicalizing them and making them feel more depressed. That's a horribly lopsided analysis. That's not to say that there are no examples or truth to the issues you raise, but it's far from the whole story. People do extract massive value from the communication, education, and entertainment features offered by the software in question.
_jal 7y ago
"We put a chicken in every pot! Nevermind that they're rotting, salmonella-filled carcasses, we still did it!" And: >In this new consumer environment, the free source development model is less adequate and cannot compete with commercial software that can directly monetize the apps and invest in further development. What, exactly, is supposed to be new here? I see nothing distinguishing the economics of this "new consumer environment" from 1995, except maybe that Redhat doesn't sell CDs anymore. What has changed since the 90s is increasingly onerous intellectual property law, anti-reverse-engineering laws, and the continued creep of the belief that ideas should be owned. And this is precisely backwards: > What is required, I think, is to update the free software philosophy to the 21st century, and relax some of the ideological goals to facilitate development and reach the more substantial goals, like privacy and security. If everybody's crazy uncle RMS had been more accommodating, more willing to compromise on ideology, things never would have changed in the 90s. One slightly cynical way of looking at it is that he was could play Bad Cop to ESR and others' more corporate-friendly, accommodationist "Open Source" promotion, somewhat similar (for much lower stakes) to how Huey Newton played bad-cop to MLK's nonviolence. If you drop the principle of always putting the user first, you'll eventually compromise on everything else.

deltron3030 7y ago

>It's an appliance model of computing. That's the real strength of Linux, creating appliances from commonly available hardware. The biggest mistake is therefore to copy Apple and MS and their general purpose approach, it will never work because the community isn't united like a company, every Linux camp seeks to make the best thing for their own purpose, and constantly clashes with other camps that want to do the same for themselves. A general purpose Linux OS is an anti pattern.

Recurecur 7y ago
Complete and utter nonsense. You might as well rant about "general purpose" sheets of paper. There is a need for general purpose computing, and Linux is one of the very few options there. That won't change. One major beauty of Linux is its flexibility, so it can also provide niche/embedded products.
- deltron3030 7y ago
  My perspective is the user and application level, not the distribution maker and developer level.

jeena 7y ago

Interesting that you mention $1 billion, GitLab is a $1 billion company apparently: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/07/21/he-built-a-1-billion-business-where-all-700-employees-work-remotely/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/07/21/he...