7 ms·

Isn't this is a general trend with Android/Cyanogenmod hackers? If you go on something like xda-developers then there's a sticky saying "please don't post GPL v

by rquirk 13y ago

Isn't this is a general trend with Android/Cyanogenmod hackers? If you go on something like xda-developers then there's a sticky saying "please don't post GPL violations". Early Cyanogen releases were fast and loose with redistribution of Google proprietary apps, which got the author in a spot of trouble IIRC. Right now the distribution of these ROMS is IMO pretty suspect - they include whole swathes of binary blobs that they really shouldn't be redistributing willy nilly. If you want the proprietary pieces that belong to the manufacturer of your phone, you should have to pull them off yourself. The ROM creators shouldn't be pulling these bits off of their phones and re-distributing them. The fact that so many prebaked ROMs are distributed though megaupload-alikes is a bit of a giveaway as to the general philosophy of that community.

Supermighty 13y ago
Open source is awesome, yay! It's given Google, Samsung and android device manufactures a hugely successful platform that they would have otherwise had to build from the ground up. And how do they repay the community? Binary blobs. While staying true to the letter of the license they circumvent the spirit of it. I don't condone GPL violations. I also don't care about distributing binary blobs. Without them there wouldn't be alternative android distros.
bad_user 13y ago
Cyanogenmod ROMs aren't distributed with Google's apps anymore. If you want Google's Play store and Gmail, one needs to download and install a separate archive (I just did that yesterday :)) Of course, the distribution of that archive is still suspect. The licensing of those apps is the only leverage Google has for controlling the companies that distribute Android, like Samsung. It is meant for the likes of Samsung and HTC, not Cyanogenmod, which is why I think Google lets it be for now. On the other hand if you want to use bare-bones Android, the biggest pain one experiences is the lack of Google Play. I can live without Gmail, I can live without Google Maps, but unfortunately most apps are only on Google Play, which is awkward, given that as a publisher with Android it isn't a big effort to publish apps on your own website, in addition to Google Play.
- rst 13y ago
  Unfortunately, bare-bones Android may get barer and more awkward over time, if they migrate more services from the core OS into "Google Play Services". As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg. (To be fair, their announced reason for this is that it gives them a way to make these APIs available on devices that aren't getting regular manufacturer updates. That said, I'm sure it hasn't escaped their attention that it also adds a point of differentiation between Play-enabled devices and, say, the Kindle Fire...) cite: http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.ht... (Note that step one in using this API is verifying that Play Services is installed.)
  - king_jester 13y ago
    > As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg. The location services framework in Android is deliberately tied to Google APIs for using address and location resolution, while gathering location sensor data is not. Wouldn't it make sense further evolutions of that API also only work with Google APIs?
  - taeric 13y ago
    Meh. Don't know how much this really sucks the usability out of things. On my Android, I confess I'm already so bought in to the Amazon ecosystem that I almost resent the room that Play and the likes are taking up. Is particularly obnoxious when the phone complains that I need to make room, and the only crap I can't move to an SD card is the Google stuff.
    - scott_karana 13y ago
      The real issue there is that Android partitions its internal storage into System and "Internal SD" space. So your 8GB phone will only have 2GB that can hold apps. It's awful. (Apparently this depends on the phone and OS version to a degree. It's true on GT-i9100s running Android 4.0 at least, and true on all 2.x OSes)
aroch 13y ago
>The fact that so many prebaked ROMs are distributed though megaupload-alikes is a bit of a giveaway as to the general philosophy of that community. What? Hosting (relatively) large files, on services that can deliver those around the world at faster than dialup is now some how bad? So I suppose all those companies using CDNs are also horrible and despicable. I mean, how dare they use servers that are well connected!
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Less fly-by-night-ish projects seem to have little trouble finding mirroring that 1) isn't shared by so much warez 2) doesn't make me visit a webpage and make me do a CAPTCHA, 3) doesn't blast me with shady as hell popups and advertising.
  - aroch 13y ago
    The majority of Android ROMs (at least from the likes of XDA) are hosted at one of a few places -- goo.im being (probably) the most prevalent. There is 1) little to no warez (I've never seen any), 2) no CAPTCHA and 3) no pop ups and only text ads on goo.im. Another popular one Dev-host (http://d-h.st/ http://d-h.st/) also features none of the cruft you complain about. CyanogenMOD (http://get.cm/ http://get.cm/) is hosted through several large partners and has no captchas, ads or warez. MIUI's community fileserver (http://files.miuiandroid.com/ http://files.miuiandroid.com/) also has none of this. AdroTransfer (http://androtransfer.com/ http://androtransfer.com/) also has none of this.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      I'm glad to see that things have improved to some degree. I just breifly visited one of those though (androtransfer.com) and it does have the shit I am talking about... "Please wait while we prepare your download! 10 second(s) left"... how about "No." Proper mirroring does not give you this sort of cruft and hassle. I'll admit, the situation is improved because nobody tried to sell me a penis pump when I visited the site. No wake me when the solution to every other minor problem is not "Sort through this 500+ page forum thread, and find the guy who posted a 'fix' without sourcecode that comes in the form of a several rar files from Mega, adding up to 2GB. Oh and by the way, he even included a bunch of pirated gameboy roms for you too!"
girvo 13y ago
The ROM scene has always been a grey (verging on black) area when it comes to IP, however the enthusiast scene for the original WinMo and Android has helped the market in general. There has always been a bit of a gentleman's agreement with the manufacturers that if we went too far, we'd be slapped back, but thankfully this has only happened a couple of times. Indeed, the manufacturers themselves have been known to leak ROMS to the scene on purpose for various reasons. Sony even works directly with the hackers themselves.
- josteink 13y ago
  > The ROM scene has always been a grey (verging on black) area when it comes to IP Speak for yourself. There are two scenes: The binary modder scene, where people retro-fit vendor-created and provided firmware-images with their own modifications. Commonly referred to as "Photoshop ROMs". This scene is clearly grey at best. However, there is another scene: The one based on AOSP source and derivates of it. This scene lives on Github and similar places where open source is shared and reused freely, as intended. This is driven by serious developers and focus is on doing things cleanly, properly and reliably. Most successful and widely deployed ROMs (like Cyanogenmod) are based on this scene, and there is nothing grey or remotely shady about it.
  - fulafel 13y ago
    The open source subset of Android is not practically usable though. There aren't many (any?) devices that work usefully without a lot of proprietary bits.
    - josteink 13y ago
      While true, you don't need to supply the actual copyrighted/licensed binaries across the internet. You can just supply a shell-script to extract them from the device, and its assumed that interested parties wanting to build the code has the device themselves. Feel free to call it a loophole, but I don't have a problem with that and definitely don't see it as something shady.
muyuu 13y ago
They are distributed in megaupload-alikes because that's the most convenient way to distribute big files with many requests. That gives away nothing as to the general philosophy of that community.

by rquirk 13y ago

Supermighty 13y ago

Open source is awesome, yay! It's given Google, Samsung and android device manufactures a hugely successful platform that they would have otherwise had to build from the ground up. And how do they repay the community? Binary blobs. While staying true to the letter of the license they circumvent the spirit of it. I don't condone GPL violations. I also don't care about distributing binary blobs. Without them there wouldn't be alternative android distros.

bad_user 13y ago

Cyanogenmod ROMs aren't distributed with Google's apps anymore. If you want Google's Play store and Gmail, one needs to download and install a separate archive (I just did that yesterday :)) Of course, the distribution of that archive is still suspect. The licensing of those apps is the only leverage Google has for controlling the companies that distribute Android, like Samsung. It is meant for the likes of Samsung and HTC, not Cyanogenmod, which is why I think Google lets it be for now. On the other hand if you want to use bare-bones Android, the biggest pain one experiences is the lack of Google Play. I can live without Gmail, I can live without Google Maps, but unfortunately most apps are only on Google Play, which is awkward, given that as a publisher with Android it isn't a big effort to publish apps on your own website, in addition to Google Play.

rst 13y ago
Unfortunately, bare-bones Android may get barer and more awkward over time, if they migrate more services from the core OS into "Google Play Services". As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg. (To be fair, their announced reason for this is that it gives them a way to make these APIs available on devices that aren't getting regular manufacturer updates. That said, I'm sure it hasn't escaped their attention that it also adds a point of differentiation between Play-enabled devices and, say, the Kindle Fire...) cite: http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.ht... (Note that step one in using this API is verifying that Play Services is installed.)
- king_jester 13y ago
  > As an example, the new geofencing APIs that they announced at the last Google I/O (intended to replace the buggy core "proximity alerts") are part of "Google Play Services", not the core OS --- and therefore not available on devices which aren't part of the Play borg. The location services framework in Android is deliberately tied to Google APIs for using address and location resolution, while gathering location sensor data is not. Wouldn't it make sense further evolutions of that API also only work with Google APIs?
- taeric 13y ago
  Meh. Don't know how much this really sucks the usability out of things. On my Android, I confess I'm already so bought in to the Amazon ecosystem that I almost resent the room that Play and the likes are taking up. Is particularly obnoxious when the phone complains that I need to make room, and the only crap I can't move to an SD card is the Google stuff.
  - scott_karana 13y ago
    The real issue there is that Android partitions its internal storage into System and "Internal SD" space. So your 8GB phone will only have 2GB that can hold apps. It's awful. (Apparently this depends on the phone and OS version to a degree. It's true on GT-i9100s running Android 4.0 at least, and true on all 2.x OSes)

aroch 13y ago

>The fact that so many prebaked ROMs are distributed though megaupload-alikes is a bit of a giveaway as to the general philosophy of that community. What? Hosting (relatively) large files, on services that can deliver those around the world at faster than dialup is now some how bad? So I suppose all those companies using CDNs are also horrible and despicable. I mean, how dare they use servers that are well connected!

jlgreco 13y ago
Less fly-by-night-ish projects seem to have little trouble finding mirroring that 1) isn't shared by so much warez 2) doesn't make me visit a webpage and make me do a CAPTCHA, 3) doesn't blast me with shady as hell popups and advertising.
- aroch 13y ago
  The majority of Android ROMs (at least from the likes of XDA) are hosted at one of a few places -- goo.im being (probably) the most prevalent. There is 1) little to no warez (I've never seen any), 2) no CAPTCHA and 3) no pop ups and only text ads on goo.im. Another popular one Dev-host (http://d-h.st/ http://d-h.st/) also features none of the cruft you complain about. CyanogenMOD (http://get.cm/ http://get.cm/) is hosted through several large partners and has no captchas, ads or warez. MIUI's community fileserver (http://files.miuiandroid.com/ http://files.miuiandroid.com/) also has none of this. AdroTransfer (http://androtransfer.com/ http://androtransfer.com/) also has none of this.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I'm glad to see that things have improved to some degree. I just breifly visited one of those though (androtransfer.com) and it does have the shit I am talking about... "Please wait while we prepare your download! 10 second(s) left"... how about "No." Proper mirroring does not give you this sort of cruft and hassle. I'll admit, the situation is improved because nobody tried to sell me a penis pump when I visited the site. No wake me when the solution to every other minor problem is not "Sort through this 500+ page forum thread, and find the guy who posted a 'fix' without sourcecode that comes in the form of a several rar files from Mega, adding up to 2GB. Oh and by the way, he even included a bunch of pirated gameboy roms for you too!"

girvo 13y ago

The ROM scene has always been a grey (verging on black) area when it comes to IP, however the enthusiast scene for the original WinMo and Android has helped the market in general. There has always been a bit of a gentleman's agreement with the manufacturers that if we went too far, we'd be slapped back, but thankfully this has only happened a couple of times. Indeed, the manufacturers themselves have been known to leak ROMS to the scene on purpose for various reasons. Sony even works directly with the hackers themselves.

josteink 13y ago
> The ROM scene has always been a grey (verging on black) area when it comes to IP Speak for yourself. There are two scenes: The binary modder scene, where people retro-fit vendor-created and provided firmware-images with their own modifications. Commonly referred to as "Photoshop ROMs". This scene is clearly grey at best. However, there is another scene: The one based on AOSP source and derivates of it. This scene lives on Github and similar places where open source is shared and reused freely, as intended. This is driven by serious developers and focus is on doing things cleanly, properly and reliably. Most successful and widely deployed ROMs (like Cyanogenmod) are based on this scene, and there is nothing grey or remotely shady about it.
- fulafel 13y ago
  The open source subset of Android is not practically usable though. There aren't many (any?) devices that work usefully without a lot of proprietary bits.
  - josteink 13y ago
    While true, you don't need to supply the actual copyrighted/licensed binaries across the internet. You can just supply a shell-script to extract them from the device, and its assumed that interested parties wanting to build the code has the device themselves. Feel free to call it a loophole, but I don't have a problem with that and definitely don't see it as something shady.

muyuu 13y ago

They are distributed in megaupload-alikes because that's the most convenient way to distribute big files with many requests. That gives away nothing as to the general philosophy of that community.