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What does the ability to remove built in apps have to do with openness? Seriously, this is a piss poor reason to try to attack Android's openness. This is just

What does the ability to remove built in apps have to do with openness? Seriously, this is a piss poor reason to try to attack Android's openness. This is just a design choice on the part of people who ship phones. Be upset that manufacturers put their apps into /system/app and not /data/app, so that they would be removable. (Though most of the time, the space available to the ROM and user installable apps are partitioned and not shared). Open or not, removing data from the read only /system partition requires root. It's not a matter of "openness". Heck, the comments there do a plenty good job of describing what I've just detailed. Besides, rooting and custom firmwares are not illegal and most of the time will not stand up in court as warranty violations (at least surely not outside of the United States).

MattBearman 15y ago
In the thread he says he's got a Nexus One. Unless I'm mistaken, Google Nexus phones come with a raw version of Android installed, with none of the bloatware that the manufacturers of carriers like to bake in. This means that Android itself is not allowing him to remove Facebook (or Twitter), and I'm inclined to agree that it goes against the 'open' label that Google like to put on android. Having said that, I completely agree that if you want a truly open phone, you can't expect a warranty as well, that would be having your cake and eating it.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Right, but this is just a symptom of how the platform was designed. If you want "Facebook" and "Twitter" to come with the phone, it has to go in /system/app... and by virtue of again, Android's design, APKs are not removable from /system/app. If they were removable, bad things would be able to happen with low ability to recover without requiring a user download a 100MB file, name it specially and reboot their phone holding certain buttons down. I have no problem with addressing this as a design flaw, but it seems beyond unreasonable to use this as a way to attack Android's openness. The point remains, he can fork CM's repo right now, make /system/app user read/write-able and go on his marry way deleating whatever he likes. It's like attacking Ubuntu as being not open, because Gnome-screensaver doesn't let you tweak the screensaver settings (it was among the other dozen features simply removed in the last 3+ years)
- bodski 15y ago
  The OP states further down that the issue they have is with the carrier: "I have to agree that my carrier is more to blame than Google or Android. After all, the facebook app isn't in the android source tree. It was introduced and locked in by my carrier. My grippe is more about Android being touted left and right as a the first Open mobile platform while when it reaches the end user it's been locked by the carrier. But indeed, my diatribe should have been more targeted to my carrier."
  - huxley 15y ago
    I'm pretty sure the OP is wrong, Nexus One is built to Google's spec and if the carrier added an undeleteable Facebook app it is because Google gave it the go-ahead. If not, what is the point of buying the Nexus phones? It's Google's flagship stock Android, isn't it?
  - MattBearman 15y ago
    Fair enough, didn't realise you could get Nexus phones from a carrier, I though Google only sold them direct.
- yardie 15y ago
  Having said that, I completely agree that if you want a truly open phone, you can't expect a warranty as well, that would be having your cake and eating it. Why not? I can order a server from Dell/HP/Lenovo with or without an OS and it's fully warrantied. The TSR won't say, "you installed OpenBSD and now one of your RAM chips is defective? Tough luck!" Exactly what is in the software that a wipe and restore won't be able to rule out a software problem?
dredmorbius 15y ago
Well, we could, say, look at the FSF's definition of free software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html - The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. It's arguable that the ability to install/uninstall a program isn't direction mentioned among these freedoms, but the ability, say, to run the software deletion program for any purpose would fall under that cateogory, and Android fails in this regard. The Android platform as a whole is most certainly NOT FSF Free Software. There's some free software at the core. I consider my Android phone to be a proprietary product, and one I trust little with my privacy, confidentiality, and/or data integrity. Unfortunately, it's best-of-breed and "most free" of generally available smartphone software presently, though Meego (or whatever it's being called today) and the Nokia 900 series might be a superior option (I've got my eye on both).

MattBearman 15y ago

In the thread he says he's got a Nexus One. Unless I'm mistaken, Google Nexus phones come with a raw version of Android installed, with none of the bloatware that the manufacturers of carriers like to bake in. This means that Android itself is not allowing him to remove Facebook (or Twitter), and I'm inclined to agree that it goes against the 'open' label that Google like to put on android. Having said that, I completely agree that if you want a truly open phone, you can't expect a warranty as well, that would be having your cake and eating it.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Right, but this is just a symptom of how the platform was designed. If you want "Facebook" and "Twitter" to come with the phone, it has to go in /system/app... and by virtue of again, Android's design, APKs are not removable from /system/app. If they were removable, bad things would be able to happen with low ability to recover without requiring a user download a 100MB file, name it specially and reboot their phone holding certain buttons down. I have no problem with addressing this as a design flaw, but it seems beyond unreasonable to use this as a way to attack Android's openness. The point remains, he can fork CM's repo right now, make /system/app user read/write-able and go on his marry way deleating whatever he likes. It's like attacking Ubuntu as being not open, because Gnome-screensaver doesn't let you tweak the screensaver settings (it was among the other dozen features simply removed in the last 3+ years)
bodski 15y ago
The OP states further down that the issue they have is with the carrier: "I have to agree that my carrier is more to blame than Google or Android. After all, the facebook app isn't in the android source tree. It was introduced and locked in by my carrier. My grippe is more about Android being touted left and right as a the first Open mobile platform while when it reaches the end user it's been locked by the carrier. But indeed, my diatribe should have been more targeted to my carrier."
- huxley 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure the OP is wrong, Nexus One is built to Google's spec and if the carrier added an undeleteable Facebook app it is because Google gave it the go-ahead. If not, what is the point of buying the Nexus phones? It's Google's flagship stock Android, isn't it?
- MattBearman 15y ago
  Fair enough, didn't realise you could get Nexus phones from a carrier, I though Google only sold them direct.
yardie 15y ago
Having said that, I completely agree that if you want a truly open phone, you can't expect a warranty as well, that would be having your cake and eating it. Why not? I can order a server from Dell/HP/Lenovo with or without an OS and it's fully warrantied. The TSR won't say, "you installed OpenBSD and now one of your RAM chips is defective? Tough luck!" Exactly what is in the software that a wipe and restore won't be able to rule out a software problem?

dredmorbius 15y ago

Well, we could, say, look at the FSF's definition of free software: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html - The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. It's arguable that the ability to install/uninstall a program isn't direction mentioned among these freedoms, but the ability, say, to run the software deletion program for any purpose would fall under that cateogory, and Android fails in this regard. The Android platform as a whole is most certainly NOT FSF Free Software. There's some free software at the core. I consider my Android phone to be a proprietary product, and one I trust little with my privacy, confidentiality, and/or data integrity. Unfortunately, it's best-of-breed and "most free" of generally available smartphone software presently, though Meego (or whatever it's being called today) and the Nokia 900 series might be a superior option (I've got my eye on both).