7 ms·

Android isn't freedom, because Google is closed

53 points by caberus 13y ago

AndrewDucker 13y ago
It may not be 100% freedom, but they allow me to load apps from wherever I like, unlike Apple or Microsoft, and so I will continue to use them. If there was a popular phone platform that was even more open, while providing the same levels of functionality, I'd be very tempted to give it a go.
- caberus 13y ago
  Google has too much authority over Android Platform itself like Apple and Microsoft : While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform—not a bunch of incompatible versions source : http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance-of-compatibility.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-imp...
  - AndrewDucker 13y ago
    Google offer the Google Platform to people who agree to certain things. But anyone is free to fork Android at any point, if they choose - Amazon have done so, for instance, as well as many Chinese manufacturers.
    - kevinh 13y ago
      They're free to fork the segment of android that google hasn't locked into their own closed-source ecosystem. Many AOSP applications have been abandoned by google in favor of their proprietary applications.
      - fidotron 13y ago
        And the reasoning is most of those apps (for better or worse) depend on Google's cloud services, so it makes no sense for them to be in AOSP. There remains nothing stopping you replacing all the Google stuff on Android, including the very parts that make them money. One of the sadder, non obvious, parts of the way mobile has developed is it is becoming synonymous with trivial front ends to cloud services, and not really smart client apps at all.
    - Ambrosia 13y ago
      Not anyone -- if someone like Samsung decides to fork Android, people using their devices will suddenly find that their Google apps won't work anymore.
      - the_mitsuhiko 13y ago
        That's an argument against Open Source :(
        ddebernardy 13y ago
        Err... Which Google apps are open source? Or maybe I'm just not getting the objection.
        sp332 13y ago
        I think you misunderstand. Google's individual apps (like GMail) are closed-source, and only licensed for use on "official" Android builds.
    - ronnier 13y ago
      Seems like Android really gave Chinese and Korean companies a lifeline in the mobile phone market. Those phones either wouldn't exist or would be running the windows phone software I assume. Chinese and Korean companies benefit from Android. Blackberry and Microsoft are losing as a result.
  - devx 13y ago
    What do you mean too much freedom? From the user's and even developer's perspective, it's better for Android to be more like Windows (pre-Windows 8), than more like Linux (tons of different distros/forks).
  - aviraldg 13y ago
    Replace "full Android ecosystem" with "Google services" to see why your point doesn't make sense. (and that's what they are)
- j_baker 13y ago
  Perhaps Firefox OS in the future? http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/
  - AndrewDucker 13y ago
    I hope so. I'd love it if any web page could be an app, and they had the same power that apps do. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed :->
    - lsaferite 13y ago
      Well, you can sorta already do this in a limited manner with Android. http://goo.gl/NH8Wmt http://goo.gl/NH8Wmt But I guess you mean you want hardware access from the web app itself? http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/geolocation http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/geolocation http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-media-capture-20100928/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-media-capture-20100928/ http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/device/orientation/ http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/device/orientation/ http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/g-app-intents.html http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/g-app-intents.ht... http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/file http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/file While this doesn't cover 100% of possible use cases, JS APIs are getting there.
    - lsaferite 13y ago
      So, I know perhaps this is not the right place to ask this, but I am not sure where else I would ask. I made a comment on this post and now it's dead. What did I do wrong? I mean, I included several links but they were all pertinent to the reply. The first was a link discussing new functionality in Android specifically related to making Web Apps more like normal apps. The rest were links to API documentation for various features that filled in some of the gaps. So, certainly not spam and on target. Why is it dead?
  - melling 13y ago
    Not a chance. My guess is that it'll be DOA. I'm not sure why technical people can't be more aware of how the world works, but until we are, the world is going to continue to be run by MBA's and marketing people. Google is the one of the few bright spot but most companies are run by a different breed.
ZeroGravitas 13y ago
"In the real world, if you want the best customer support, you're not likely to find it in the Android ecosystem. If you're looking for specific productivity apps like OmniFocus, you're not going to find it on Android. If you're looking for the best integration of Microsoft services, you won't find it on Android. So, how exactly is Android the "ultimate freedom"?" Who needs RMS when this guy is on the case.
m458l387 13y ago
http://replicant.us/about/ http://replicant.us/about/ "Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several devices."
- caberus 13y ago
  yes, but as i can see there are no 2013 year's devices listed in supported devices page
  - onosendai 13y ago
    Another option, which isn't 100% free but still manages to avoid the Google Play Services layer, which is what the article focuses on, is running an alternative ROM such as Cyanogenmod, skip flashing the Google apps package, and install an alternate package repository such as f-droid.org which features only FOSS apps. Most alternative ROMs have binary drivers pulled from the official ROMs, but it should be no worse than running a Linux distro with, say, non-free binary firmware images which are loaded on demand for wireless cards, and you strike a better balance between a fairly open system and the latest hardware.
- caberus 13y ago
  and actually, i am looking for jolla, i hope it will be a "open" platform
caberus 13y ago
one thing i like about Apple, despite being closed, old devices get software support, for example iPhone 4 released in 2010 and get the newest version of iOS. i bought my Android device 2.5 years ago it has only get 2.3.5 , initially it was 2.3.3.
- gbin 13y ago
  ... and curiously Google is migrating stuff to Play services for this exact reason : so you can benefit from its upgrades without upgrading the OS itself.
torbit 13y ago
I can change the design and layout my my android phone. Much better than the other competitors.
djillionsmix 13y ago
I don't know how someone types up the 1000th iteration of this article with no acknowledgement of the 999 times people have written it before now or of any of the responses or counterarguments anyone has made in response.
nemothekid 13y ago
Whats the difference between Android/AOSP and RedHat/Linux, or nginx.com/nginx.org, or DataStax/Cassandra? I believe the Android platform itself is free, however the many components that Google provides that run on Google's backend aren't, and understandably so.
- pslam 13y ago
  The "open" variants of those you list can be compiled, installed and used practically without significant compromise - they are genuinely useful. The exception is AOSP. There are very few devices where you can compile and install AOSP and have a genuinely useful result. Compiling alone is fairly useless if the binaries you generate can't be used for any purpose. You may recall the maintainer recently quit because it became an untenable position: https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURorE7g https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...
- Someone 13y ago
  Isn't that just what this argues? nginx.org is free, but nginx.com isn't. What conflates this is the confusing naming. Android, the open source OS is different from Android(TM), Google's brand for devices running Android, and both are different from Android, the combination of the open source OS with Google's services that many users recognize as Android. Yes, the official name of he former is 'Android Open Source Project', but in the mind of many, it's just 'Android'. Android is (about) just as free because AOSP is open source as Mac OS X is free because Darwin is open source.
- Touche 13y ago
  Those other projects are developed in the open, Android is not.
apunic 13y ago
More and more Anti-Android propaganda pops up since iOS' market share is nosediving. If Android is not freedom what is iOS then? No inter app communication, no exchangeable launcher/lock screen/ keyboard, real multitasking came just since this fall, no real resolution independency, no nothing.
- nine_k 13y ago
  Maybe Firefox OS or Tizen fit the bill of a free mobile OS better?
  - fidotron 13y ago
    If anything, less so. Firefox OS could be viewed as an incredibly limited subset of Android, and these things promote ever increasing dependence on computing services not in the devices, which more than likely means closed ecosystems in clouds. This is a worse situation than you have on Android today. The freedom problems with Android are more to do with driver support. Until an app development SDK is self hosting it's a bad sign too, but none of the mobile OS candidates has that right now.
    - oscargrouch 13y ago
      Good point. More dependency from cloud applications; more support for closed source; cause clouds are the new way to help corporations to hide their code away Who cares about the layout of a button and some images in a page (as theres little value in this code) if the real brain in applications will be closed behind the clouds?! We need more devices that can run independently, with open source code and preferably in a distributed and autonomous way.. Clouds are anti-hacker and anti-opensource; if a user platform help this trend to grow(as FirefoxOS do), it helps for more closed- source and hidden secrets.. completely against the hacker spirit of collaboration and openess
    - rquirk 13y ago
      I haven't seen a detailed breakdown of the freedom problems with Firefox OS, but it looks to be more or less the same as Android in the cupcake era - really basic core applications and a phone that works, but not much third party stuff. You have to rely on mobile web sites. The biggest difference is that rather than have dalvik-based applications, they are written in javascript. All the core apps are on your device locally, and you can write code that is also stored locally too. Then it promotes the whole "search" part. That seems to be links to websites mixed in with applications, which does seem confusing and doesn't sit well with having data independence. But that's just the same as using web sites on Android. On the positive side, I'd trust Mozilla to maintain their first-party code as free software. The core phone apps are not likely to go proprietary, as seems to be happening on Android.
linux_devil 13y ago
waiting for firefox OS
laureny 13y ago
> but the idea that Android as we know it is open-source and the ultimate freedom is absurd. Nobody claimed that Android was the ultimate freedom, but it's the most free mobile operating system that is successful in the market place. Free software extremists like the author of that article can simply never be satisfied.
devx 13y ago
Google needs to start treating Android and Google Edition Android like Chromium and Chrome. GE Android is Google's and they do whatever they want with it, and they control and update it just like they do with Chrome, but Android needs to become a little more open than it is (more like Chromium), and they need to actually keep develop it, just like they do with Chromium. I'd actually prefer a more Google-dominated Android ecosystem than a Samsung or some other Android OEM one, and I'd prefer to see more standardization in the Android ecosystem for both hardware and software. My only concern is NSA or the US government starting to demand of Google to spy all Android users through Play Services, or to be able to shut down their phones at will during protests. I just hope Google will not be that stupid to allow them without a fierce fight. But I guess we'll deal with that when the day comes. Until then, yes, I want Google to get more control of Android and fix fragmentation.
alayne 13y ago
It's unlikely that Google will become more open now that they are working on vertical integration with Motorola.
Zash 13y ago
I sure look forward to Sailfish OS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone hitting the wider market.
- cuillevel3 13y ago
  I got a root shell on a Firefox OS phone, just started 'adb' and got 'root@android'. We should call it by it's proper name "Android/FirefoxOS"
flashfabrixx 13y ago
Android isn't the problem, Google is. The problem begins with the installation of every android device when you're asked to register a Google account (same process with the Apple ID in iOS). [Sure enough you can use the phone without a Google account or an iOS account but your excluded from each ecosystem]. For me - as an iOS user - I got a much worse feeling using the Google ecosystem than Apple ones because of one simple fact: Google can get much more value out of the data you're generating than Apple does using it to later 'enhance' your experience for all other Google services (Google Search, Gmail, etc.) showing ads. Knowing everything about my daily behavior ('When is the user active? Was does he do? Where is he? ...') will lead to a perfect profile to sell the right ads. At Apple you at least got the change to opt-out even using the ecosystem of the unique ad identifier. Correct me if this is possible using a Google account on android as well.
- Nerdfest 13y ago
  No, you're not. You can use any android device without any Google involvement at all. Please stop spreading FUD. Look at the Kindle devices.
  - flashfabrixx 13y ago
    Thanks for the correction - updated my answer. But when you're honest: How many users are willing to use the device without connection to the Google ecosystem? It's the same on iOS. My point of criticism remains the same: The data you're (then) generating in the Google ecosystem has a higher value than in any other ecosystem (Apple, Microsoft, etc.) and more likely makes you a product (and not free).
  - audunw 13y ago
    Kindle is a particularly bad example. Kindle forked Android, so are not under control of Google. In principle, other manufacturers could also do this, but in practice it's practically impossible because they'd loose Google Play. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...

53 points by caberus 13y ago

It may not be 100% freedom, but they allow me to load apps from wherever I like, unlike Apple or Microsoft, and so I will continue to use them. If there was a popular phone platform that was even more open, while providing the same levels of functionality, I'd be very tempted to give it a go.

caberus 13y ago
Google has too much authority over Android Platform itself like Apple and Microsoft : While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform—not a bunch of incompatible versions source : http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance-of-compatibility.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-imp...
- AndrewDucker 13y ago
  Google offer the Google Platform to people who agree to certain things. But anyone is free to fork Android at any point, if they choose - Amazon have done so, for instance, as well as many Chinese manufacturers.
  - kevinh 13y ago
    They're free to fork the segment of android that google hasn't locked into their own closed-source ecosystem. Many AOSP applications have been abandoned by google in favor of their proprietary applications.
    - fidotron 13y ago
      And the reasoning is most of those apps (for better or worse) depend on Google's cloud services, so it makes no sense for them to be in AOSP. There remains nothing stopping you replacing all the Google stuff on Android, including the very parts that make them money. One of the sadder, non obvious, parts of the way mobile has developed is it is becoming synonymous with trivial front ends to cloud services, and not really smart client apps at all.
  - Ambrosia 13y ago
    Not anyone -- if someone like Samsung decides to fork Android, people using their devices will suddenly find that their Google apps won't work anymore.
    - the_mitsuhiko 13y ago
      That's an argument against Open Source :(
      - ddebernardy 13y ago
        Err... Which Google apps are open source? Or maybe I'm just not getting the objection.
      - sp332 13y ago
        I think you misunderstand. Google's individual apps (like GMail) are closed-source, and only licensed for use on "official" Android builds.
  - ronnier 13y ago
    Seems like Android really gave Chinese and Korean companies a lifeline in the mobile phone market. Those phones either wouldn't exist or would be running the windows phone software I assume. Chinese and Korean companies benefit from Android. Blackberry and Microsoft are losing as a result.
- devx 13y ago
  What do you mean too much freedom? From the user's and even developer's perspective, it's better for Android to be more like Windows (pre-Windows 8), than more like Linux (tons of different distros/forks).
- aviraldg 13y ago
  Replace "full Android ecosystem" with "Google services" to see why your point doesn't make sense. (and that's what they are)
j_baker 13y ago
Perhaps Firefox OS in the future? http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/ http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/
- AndrewDucker 13y ago
  I hope so. I'd love it if any web page could be an app, and they had the same power that apps do. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed :->
  - lsaferite 13y ago
    Well, you can sorta already do this in a limited manner with Android. http://goo.gl/NH8Wmt http://goo.gl/NH8Wmt But I guess you mean you want hardware access from the web app itself? http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/geolocation http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/geolocation http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-media-capture-20100928/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-media-capture-20100928/ http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/device/orientation/ http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/device/orientation/ http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/g-app-intents.html http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/g-app-intents.ht... http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/file http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/apis/file While this doesn't cover 100% of possible use cases, JS APIs are getting there.
  - lsaferite 13y ago
    So, I know perhaps this is not the right place to ask this, but I am not sure where else I would ask. I made a comment on this post and now it's dead. What did I do wrong? I mean, I included several links but they were all pertinent to the reply. The first was a link discussing new functionality in Android specifically related to making Web Apps more like normal apps. The rest were links to API documentation for various features that filled in some of the gaps. So, certainly not spam and on target. Why is it dead?
- melling 13y ago
  Not a chance. My guess is that it'll be DOA. I'm not sure why technical people can't be more aware of how the world works, but until we are, the world is going to continue to be run by MBA's and marketing people. Google is the one of the few bright spot but most companies are run by a different breed.

ZeroGravitas 13y ago

"In the real world, if you want the best customer support, you're not likely to find it in the Android ecosystem. If you're looking for specific productivity apps like OmniFocus, you're not going to find it on Android. If you're looking for the best integration of Microsoft services, you won't find it on Android. So, how exactly is Android the "ultimate freedom"?" Who needs RMS when this guy is on the case.

m458l387 13y ago

http://replicant.us/about/ http://replicant.us/about/ "Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several devices."

caberus 13y ago
yes, but as i can see there are no 2013 year's devices listed in supported devices page
- onosendai 13y ago
  Another option, which isn't 100% free but still manages to avoid the Google Play Services layer, which is what the article focuses on, is running an alternative ROM such as Cyanogenmod, skip flashing the Google apps package, and install an alternate package repository such as f-droid.org which features only FOSS apps. Most alternative ROMs have binary drivers pulled from the official ROMs, but it should be no worse than running a Linux distro with, say, non-free binary firmware images which are loaded on demand for wireless cards, and you strike a better balance between a fairly open system and the latest hardware.
caberus 13y ago
and actually, i am looking for jolla, i hope it will be a "open" platform

caberus 13y ago

one thing i like about Apple, despite being closed, old devices get software support, for example iPhone 4 released in 2010 and get the newest version of iOS. i bought my Android device 2.5 years ago it has only get 2.3.5 , initially it was 2.3.3.

gbin 13y ago
... and curiously Google is migrating stuff to Play services for this exact reason : so you can benefit from its upgrades without upgrading the OS itself.

torbit 13y ago

I can change the design and layout my my android phone. Much better than the other competitors.

djillionsmix 13y ago

I don't know how someone types up the 1000th iteration of this article with no acknowledgement of the 999 times people have written it before now or of any of the responses or counterarguments anyone has made in response.

nemothekid 13y ago

Whats the difference between Android/AOSP and RedHat/Linux, or nginx.com/nginx.org, or DataStax/Cassandra? I believe the Android platform itself is free, however the many components that Google provides that run on Google's backend aren't, and understandably so.

pslam 13y ago
The "open" variants of those you list can be compiled, installed and used practically without significant compromise - they are genuinely useful. The exception is AOSP. There are very few devices where you can compile and install AOSP and have a genuinely useful result. Compiling alone is fairly useless if the binaries you generate can't be used for any purpose. You may recall the maintainer recently quit because it became an untenable position: https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURorE7g https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...
Someone 13y ago
Isn't that just what this argues? nginx.org is free, but nginx.com isn't. What conflates this is the confusing naming. Android, the open source OS is different from Android(TM), Google's brand for devices running Android, and both are different from Android, the combination of the open source OS with Google's services that many users recognize as Android. Yes, the official name of he former is 'Android Open Source Project', but in the mind of many, it's just 'Android'. Android is (about) just as free because AOSP is open source as Mac OS X is free because Darwin is open source.
Touche 13y ago
Those other projects are developed in the open, Android is not.

apunic 13y ago

More and more Anti-Android propaganda pops up since iOS' market share is nosediving. If Android is not freedom what is iOS then? No inter app communication, no exchangeable launcher/lock screen/ keyboard, real multitasking came just since this fall, no real resolution independency, no nothing.

nine_k 13y ago
Maybe Firefox OS or Tizen fit the bill of a free mobile OS better?
- fidotron 13y ago
  If anything, less so. Firefox OS could be viewed as an incredibly limited subset of Android, and these things promote ever increasing dependence on computing services not in the devices, which more than likely means closed ecosystems in clouds. This is a worse situation than you have on Android today. The freedom problems with Android are more to do with driver support. Until an app development SDK is self hosting it's a bad sign too, but none of the mobile OS candidates has that right now.
  - oscargrouch 13y ago
    Good point. More dependency from cloud applications; more support for closed source; cause clouds are the new way to help corporations to hide their code away Who cares about the layout of a button and some images in a page (as theres little value in this code) if the real brain in applications will be closed behind the clouds?! We need more devices that can run independently, with open source code and preferably in a distributed and autonomous way.. Clouds are anti-hacker and anti-opensource; if a user platform help this trend to grow(as FirefoxOS do), it helps for more closed- source and hidden secrets.. completely against the hacker spirit of collaboration and openess
  - rquirk 13y ago
    I haven't seen a detailed breakdown of the freedom problems with Firefox OS, but it looks to be more or less the same as Android in the cupcake era - really basic core applications and a phone that works, but not much third party stuff. You have to rely on mobile web sites. The biggest difference is that rather than have dalvik-based applications, they are written in javascript. All the core apps are on your device locally, and you can write code that is also stored locally too. Then it promotes the whole "search" part. That seems to be links to websites mixed in with applications, which does seem confusing and doesn't sit well with having data independence. But that's just the same as using web sites on Android. On the positive side, I'd trust Mozilla to maintain their first-party code as free software. The core phone apps are not likely to go proprietary, as seems to be happening on Android.

linux_devil 13y ago

waiting for firefox OS

laureny 13y ago

> but the idea that Android as we know it is open-source and the ultimate freedom is absurd. Nobody claimed that Android was the ultimate freedom, but it's the most free mobile operating system that is successful in the market place. Free software extremists like the author of that article can simply never be satisfied.

devx 13y ago

Google needs to start treating Android and Google Edition Android like Chromium and Chrome. GE Android is Google's and they do whatever they want with it, and they control and update it just like they do with Chrome, but Android needs to become a little more open than it is (more like Chromium), and they need to actually keep develop it, just like they do with Chromium. I'd actually prefer a more Google-dominated Android ecosystem than a Samsung or some other Android OEM one, and I'd prefer to see more standardization in the Android ecosystem for both hardware and software. My only concern is NSA or the US government starting to demand of Google to spy all Android users through Play Services, or to be able to shut down their phones at will during protests. I just hope Google will not be that stupid to allow them without a fierce fight. But I guess we'll deal with that when the day comes. Until then, yes, I want Google to get more control of Android and fix fragmentation.

alayne 13y ago

It's unlikely that Google will become more open now that they are working on vertical integration with Motorola.

Zash 13y ago

I sure look forward to Sailfish OS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone hitting the wider market.

cuillevel3 13y ago
I got a root shell on a Firefox OS phone, just started 'adb' and got 'root@android'. We should call it by it's proper name "Android/FirefoxOS"

flashfabrixx 13y ago

Android isn't the problem, Google is. The problem begins with the installation of every android device when you're asked to register a Google account (same process with the Apple ID in iOS). [Sure enough you can use the phone without a Google account or an iOS account but your excluded from each ecosystem]. For me - as an iOS user - I got a much worse feeling using the Google ecosystem than Apple ones because of one simple fact: Google can get much more value out of the data you're generating than Apple does using it to later 'enhance' your experience for all other Google services (Google Search, Gmail, etc.) showing ads. Knowing everything about my daily behavior ('When is the user active? Was does he do? Where is he? ...') will lead to a perfect profile to sell the right ads. At Apple you at least got the change to opt-out even using the ecosystem of the unique ad identifier. Correct me if this is possible using a Google account on android as well.

Nerdfest 13y ago
No, you're not. You can use any android device without any Google involvement at all. Please stop spreading FUD. Look at the Kindle devices.
- flashfabrixx 13y ago
  Thanks for the correction - updated my answer. But when you're honest: How many users are willing to use the device without connection to the Google ecosystem? It's the same on iOS. My point of criticism remains the same: The data you're (then) generating in the Google ecosystem has a higher value than in any other ecosystem (Apple, Microsoft, etc.) and more likely makes you a product (and not free).
- audunw 13y ago
  Kindle is a particularly bad example. Kindle forked Android, so are not under control of Google. In principle, other manufacturers could also do this, but in practice it's practically impossible because they'd loose Google Play. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...