7 ms·

Android is a lost cause, all the man power being donated to the project is just going to line google's pockets and lock us further into closed hardware and bare

Android is a lost cause, all the man power being donated to the project is just going to line google's pockets and lock us further into closed hardware and barely opensource phones. The only future is a real linux phone, debian or ubuntu mobile, where one day there will be effortless desktop/tablet/mobile unified development. Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java?

euank 12y ago
Why no mention of FirefoxOS? The Mozilla foundation has our best interests at heart much more than Google and while it's not C++, html5/javascript is certainly an open enough platform which basically everything has started to target anyways. Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome.
- unabridged 12y ago
  FirefoxOS is definitely a step forward and I'd love to see it overtake Android, but its only a half measure. The problem is a phone does not need to be an operating system, it would be fine as just a program/desktop environment running on linux. A phone is not a special case, there are plenty of mission critical applications that run on top of linux without having to resort to building a whole new OS.
  - diafygi 12y ago
    Ummm, that's exactly what Firefox OS is. It's the Firefox engine (gecko) sitting on top of the linux kernel.
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      What unabriged means is that you don't need an entire reimplementation of the underlying OS to make calls, all you need is an Linux app that makes calls. The purpose of reimplementation is generally to screw consumers. There's nothing special about a phone that requires you to put everything into a VM. I don't know why firefox is doing it. I did order a development phone, though, because if it takes off, I want a share:)
      - glogla 12y ago
        > I don't know why firefox is doing it. To make it more accessible. Way more people can make web page than make QT or GTK GUI. Way more people can do Javascript than can program in C or C++. That means, that everyone is stuck with html and js, but I think it's worth it.
      - sp332 12y ago
        It's really frustrating to try to take a photo from a web app. Before Firefox OS, Android didn't even let web pages interact with the phone's dialer, which is like the #1 feature of a phone. Firefox OS is a platform for developing web APIs that can interact with all the phone parts. After standardization, these APIs could be implemented by any phone's web browser, like Chrome on Android or even IE on Windows Phone.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome. Linux phones are real. I've been using one exclusively for the past 5 years.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Nokia?
CmonDev 12y ago
"Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java" Yes, using something like C# and Mono would be a huge win.
- grey-area 12y ago
  What would be really nice would be seeing a language-agnostic device. Based on linux, with the same APIs available to everyone, so that as on desktop linux, a thousand languages can bloom, and everyone can use the development language of their choice (including yet to be invented languages). GUI bindings would be the issue here of course, but it is not insurmountable. It's a shame that the software landscape is so dominated by large corporations, who demand a tithe of our data every time we want to use a device.
  - mike_hearn 12y ago
    Great idea! It would make sense to define a high level yet minimalist type system, a large standard library, and a CPU independent bytecode format that many languages and compilers could target. They could then add to that basic type system as they wished whilst still retaining interoperability. We could call the infrastructure that makes this possible ... a virtual machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages
    - grey-area 12y ago
      The JVM is neither independent of a predatory corporation (see recent Sun/Google lawsuit), nor is it easy to interact with an API like the Android one from other languages in an idiomatic way, nor is it great for mobile devices which are really resource constrained (energy and memory).
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      You're saying that we could implement a general purpose operating system inside of our general purpose operating system?
    - 12y ago
chaz 12y ago
Only if apps don't matter to that target user base. Most people will probably not want to go without Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pandora, Netflix, etc., and devs won't build for a small user base (just ask Microsoft or Blackberry). A Google-stripped Android phone would at least be able to run Android apps.
- makomk 12y ago
  How many of those apps actually run without Google integration, though, and how many will continue to in the future? Google's moving more and more core functionality into their proprietary components.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Google is moving more and more core functionality into their proprietary services. A different more open operating system is quite irrelevant if google services are needed for the phone to be...you know...useful.
    - DCKing 12y ago
      The 240000+ applications in the Amazon App Store that work without Play Services show that this is not a problem. Both Microsoft's Nokia X line and Amazon's Fire Phone are useful phones running Android without Play Services. Those are just examples in the west - many devices sold in China run Android without any Google stuff on them.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        Right, but is Bing really better than google? And I really wish windows phone had a better google maps client. Services matter more than apps, especially of their aren't any good app replacements.
      - dublinben 12y ago
        Amazon, Nokia, and the rest have largely had to build replacements for Google's services in order for their devices to work. As much as we might wish it weren't the case, pure AOSP without someone's proprietary baggage just doesn't work.
DCKing 12y ago
I have to call bullshit on this one. Google has open sourced a fully featured mobile operating system, with an already free kernel, an optimized and secure app runtime for mobile applications that they keep on improving, a completely functional and usually well-liked user interface, open development tools and even a set of open source core applications needed for basic smartphone functionality. As this article demonstrates, Android is perfectly usable if you can get over the first world problem of no direct access to Google's services. People have been absolutely free to do whatever they want with this complete OS what they want for years, and Android comes with no obligation whatsoever to lock down phones. There is absolutely no reason why any alternative to Android, including Ubuntu and FirefoxOS, would be any different at all if or when they gain enough popularity. Phone vendors and carriers will continue to lock down the hardware they sell and be reluctant to share code. There is just nothing different about these alternatives compared to Android. The problems of locking down and shitty attitude towards open source is a problem with the market, not with Android. > all the man power being donated to the project is just going to line google's pockets and lock us further into closed hardware and barely opensource phones. Nobody except Google (and some minor contributions from phone vendors) contributes to core Android. It's an example of an extreme cathedral model[1], where only members of the Open Handset Alliance[2] have access during development. There are many open source forks/derivatives that only help you in increasing the freedom with what you can do with your phone. > Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java? Because there are considerable advantages to running in Android's runtime when it comes to resource management, security, and because one consistent application framework is better than many competing libraries creating an inconsistent mess on desktop Linux. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance
- ksk 12y ago
  >Google has open sourced a fully featured mobile operating system, Its interesting how Google forces handset makers to ship Google's proprietary software if they wish to use the Android "brand". However, they don't care if handset makers ship device driver code thus crippling the ability of anyone wishing to create a fully working AOSP ROM. I suppose in Googles eyes, Android = more data for Google to mine/sell/profit-from. Not surprising or disappointing. The Advertising business is not pretty.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 12y ago
This article was really interesting to me because my N900 is old, and eventually I won't be able to find a new one. Android without the mothership is a pretty crappy replacement for a Linux phone, but it's probably an improvement on a dumbphone for me. Right now, my only three hopes are Jolla, people attempting to port Freemantle to GTA04, and the people just trying to bring the Hildon UI to jessie which also runs on GTA04. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93251 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93251 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308 I probably should mention UbuntuOS as another hope, but I simply don't trust Ubuntu to deliver something that resembles traditional Linux. If they do, I'm in. My hopes for Tizen were bashed to hell by this: https://www.tizen.org/irclogs/%23tizen.2013-01-20.log.html https://www.tizen.org/irclogs/%23tizen.2013-01-20.log.html ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasterman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasterman - well known for http://www.enlightenment.org/ http://www.enlightenment.org/ ) Phone manufacturers aren't interested in being servants, only masters.
jmhain 12y ago
I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but I also greatly desire a "real" Linux phone, particularly built on the GNOME platform. I have dozens of reasons why I think it could be groundbreaking, but I'm well aware that developing such a platform has an almost-zero chance of succeeding. Nevertheless, if I can get enough people to agree and get involved, I would dedicate myself to this task.

euank 12y ago

Why no mention of FirefoxOS? The Mozilla foundation has our best interests at heart much more than Google and while it's not C++, html5/javascript is certainly an open enough platform which basically everything has started to target anyways. Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome.

unabridged 12y ago
FirefoxOS is definitely a step forward and I'd love to see it overtake Android, but its only a half measure. The problem is a phone does not need to be an operating system, it would be fine as just a program/desktop environment running on linux. A phone is not a special case, there are plenty of mission critical applications that run on top of linux without having to resort to building a whole new OS.
- diafygi 12y ago
  Ummm, that's exactly what Firefox OS is. It's the Firefox engine (gecko) sitting on top of the linux kernel.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    What unabriged means is that you don't need an entire reimplementation of the underlying OS to make calls, all you need is an Linux app that makes calls. The purpose of reimplementation is generally to screw consumers. There's nothing special about a phone that requires you to put everything into a VM. I don't know why firefox is doing it. I did order a development phone, though, because if it takes off, I want a share:)
    - glogla 12y ago
      > I don't know why firefox is doing it. To make it more accessible. Way more people can make web page than make QT or GTK GUI. Way more people can do Javascript than can program in C or C++. That means, that everyone is stuck with html and js, but I think it's worth it.
    - sp332 12y ago
      It's really frustrating to try to take a photo from a web app. Before Firefox OS, Android didn't even let web pages interact with the phone's dialer, which is like the #1 feature of a phone. Firefox OS is a platform for developing web APIs that can interact with all the phone parts. After standardization, these APIs could be implemented by any phone's web browser, like Chrome on Android or even IE on Windows Phone.
pessimizer 12y ago
>Sure, a pure linux phone would be cool in some ways, but FirefoxOS seems much closer, realer, and every bit as awesome. Linux phones are real. I've been using one exclusively for the past 5 years.
- sp332 12y ago
  Nokia?

CmonDev 12y ago

"Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java" Yes, using something like C# and Mono would be a huge win.

grey-area 12y ago
What would be really nice would be seeing a language-agnostic device. Based on linux, with the same APIs available to everyone, so that as on desktop linux, a thousand languages can bloom, and everyone can use the development language of their choice (including yet to be invented languages). GUI bindings would be the issue here of course, but it is not insurmountable. It's a shame that the software landscape is so dominated by large corporations, who demand a tithe of our data every time we want to use a device.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  Great idea! It would make sense to define a high level yet minimalist type system, a large standard library, and a CPU independent bytecode format that many languages and compilers could target. They could then add to that basic type system as they wished whilst still retaining interoperability. We could call the infrastructure that makes this possible ... a virtual machine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages
  - grey-area 12y ago
    The JVM is neither independent of a predatory corporation (see recent Sun/Google lawsuit), nor is it easy to interact with an API like the Android one from other languages in an idiomatic way, nor is it great for mobile devices which are really resource constrained (energy and memory).
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    You're saying that we could implement a general purpose operating system inside of our general purpose operating system?
  - 12y ago

chaz 12y ago

Only if apps don't matter to that target user base. Most people will probably not want to go without Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pandora, Netflix, etc., and devs won't build for a small user base (just ask Microsoft or Blackberry). A Google-stripped Android phone would at least be able to run Android apps.

makomk 12y ago
How many of those apps actually run without Google integration, though, and how many will continue to in the future? Google's moving more and more core functionality into their proprietary components.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Google is moving more and more core functionality into their proprietary services. A different more open operating system is quite irrelevant if google services are needed for the phone to be...you know...useful.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    The 240000+ applications in the Amazon App Store that work without Play Services show that this is not a problem. Both Microsoft's Nokia X line and Amazon's Fire Phone are useful phones running Android without Play Services. Those are just examples in the west - many devices sold in China run Android without any Google stuff on them.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Right, but is Bing really better than google? And I really wish windows phone had a better google maps client. Services matter more than apps, especially of their aren't any good app replacements.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      Amazon, Nokia, and the rest have largely had to build replacements for Google's services in order for their devices to work. As much as we might wish it weren't the case, pure AOSP without someone's proprietary baggage just doesn't work.

DCKing 12y ago

I have to call bullshit on this one. Google has open sourced a fully featured mobile operating system, with an already free kernel, an optimized and secure app runtime for mobile applications that they keep on improving, a completely functional and usually well-liked user interface, open development tools and even a set of open source core applications needed for basic smartphone functionality. As this article demonstrates, Android is perfectly usable if you can get over the first world problem of no direct access to Google's services. People have been absolutely free to do whatever they want with this complete OS what they want for years, and Android comes with no obligation whatsoever to lock down phones. There is absolutely no reason why any alternative to Android, including Ubuntu and FirefoxOS, would be any different at all if or when they gain enough popularity. Phone vendors and carriers will continue to lock down the hardware they sell and be reluctant to share code. There is just nothing different about these alternatives compared to Android. The problems of locking down and shitty attitude towards open source is a problem with the market, not with Android. > all the man power being donated to the project is just going to line google's pockets and lock us further into closed hardware and barely opensource phones. Nobody except Google (and some minor contributions from phone vendors) contributes to core Android. It's an example of an extreme cathedral model[1], where only members of the Open Handset Alliance[2] have access during development. There are many open source forks/derivatives that only help you in increasing the freedom with what you can do with your phone. > Why push for developers to waste time porting between c++ and java? Because there are considerable advantages to running in Android's runtime when it comes to resource management, security, and because one consistent application framework is better than many competing libraries creating an inconsistent mess on desktop Linux. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance

ksk 12y ago
>Google has open sourced a fully featured mobile operating system, Its interesting how Google forces handset makers to ship Google's proprietary software if they wish to use the Android "brand". However, they don't care if handset makers ship device driver code thus crippling the ability of anyone wishing to create a fully working AOSP ROM. I suppose in Googles eyes, Android = more data for Google to mine/sell/profit-from. Not surprising or disappointing. The Advertising business is not pretty.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 12y ago

This article was really interesting to me because my N900 is old, and eventually I won't be able to find a new one. Android without the mothership is a pretty crappy replacement for a Linux phone, but it's probably an improvement on a dumbphone for me. Right now, my only three hopes are Jolla, people attempting to port Freemantle to GTA04, and the people just trying to bring the Hildon UI to jessie which also runs on GTA04. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93251 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93251 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308 http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308 I probably should mention UbuntuOS as another hope, but I simply don't trust Ubuntu to deliver something that resembles traditional Linux. If they do, I'm in. My hopes for Tizen were bashed to hell by this: https://www.tizen.org/irclogs/%23tizen.2013-01-20.log.html https://www.tizen.org/irclogs/%23tizen.2013-01-20.log.html ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasterman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasterman - well known for http://www.enlightenment.org/ http://www.enlightenment.org/ ) Phone manufacturers aren't interested in being servants, only masters.

jmhain 12y ago

I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but I also greatly desire a "real" Linux phone, particularly built on the GNOME platform. I have dozens of reasons why I think it could be groundbreaking, but I'm well aware that developing such a platform has an almost-zero chance of succeeding. Nevertheless, if I can get enough people to agree and get involved, I would dedicate myself to this task.