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>Google has open sourced a fully featured mobile operating system, Its interesting how Google forces handset makers to ship Google's proprietary software if th

by 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.

DCKing 12y ago
Android was originally developed with the intent that it could make the access of web services better on mobile phones. The intent was to create a market, not to take one. AOSP is still open source for that reason, presumably. Although the Android you find on devices branded as such is most definitely Google's flavour, they still develop Android for everyone to use. I find it somewhat of a cognitive dissonnance. People complain about Google's increasing grasp on common Android whereas the most compelling parts of the system are fully available for free unlimited use by everyone. Plug in your cloud provider of choice, or none at all, and you're ready to go. Yet people don't complain about the full propietary lock-in on other platforms. Also, please stop the tiresome meme that "Google/FB/MS/Cloud company X sells your data". These companies sell personalized advertisements, they do not sell your data.
- ksk 12y ago
  > AOSP is still open source for that reason, presumably. Yeah..AOSP "works".. if you happen to have the driver binary blobs (which are not open source), which only work for some android builds on a handful of devices which are blessed by google. Open source indeed. Oh and those binary blobs.. those are LICENSED. You are not allowed to make an android build and distribute it, if it contains those blobs. And without those blobs the ROMS are useless because you need drivers for basic things like your camera, phone radio, etc. Google have taken the Open Source ideology and bastardized it to fit their commercial needs. And look, I have no problems with companies making money, but then you don't get to also say how "open source friendly" you are, when clearly you're just using open source as a marketing ploy. >These companies sell personalized advertisements, they do not sell your data. Feel free to explain this clause in Google's privacy policy. http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ >We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – like publishers, advertisers or connected sites.
  - DCKing 12y ago
    > Google have taken the Open Source ideology and bastardized it to fit their commercial needs. Ah you're one of the people that thinks open source also comes with a mandatory ideology. That it's not good enough if source is released for everyone unless there are also other strings attached. We can leave this in disagreement then. > Feel free to explain this clause in Google's privacy policy. You have to redefine a lot of words if "sharing aggregated non-personally identifiable information" (e.g. statistics of "how many people aged 18-25 are seeing my ad?") is to mean the same as "selling your data". https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ > We don’t sell users’ personal information.
    - ksk 12y ago
      >Ah you're one of the people that thinks open source also comes with a mandatory ideology. Now, who is redefining words? >That it's not good enough if source is released for everyone unless there are also other strings attached. Where can I find the source for those binary blobs? >You have to redefine a lot of words if "sharing aggregated non-personally identifiable information" is to mean the same as "selling your data" Thankfully, no redefinition is needed. That information is MY DATA. Sharing DOES NOT exclude monetary transactions. My general experience has been that companies do not share anything of value for free. >(e.g. statistics of "how many people aged 18-25 are seeing my ad?") e.g. aggregated statistics of people aged 20-21 living in the zipcode XXXXX who have lung cancer. Oops.. turns out, its just one person. >We don’t sell users’ personal information. Tell that to Google. They're contradicting themselves.
    - sp332 12y ago
      It's not an ideological problem, it's a practical one. If most of the Android software running out there depends on proprietary blobs, then I lose many of the benefits of open-source software including running it on my own hardware.
ufmace 12y ago
I think, at this point, a big part of it is just maintaining control of the platform. It seems like a selfish goal, but if they didn't, then some other company just might take it over by forking it, making their own proprietary version, and making that version more popular. It arguably came close to happening already with Samsung's market dominance, and Amazon's non-google Kindle Android. With so much money wrapped up in it, somebody is going to be in control of it. Would you rather it be Google, Amazon, Samsung, Microsoft? For all of their faults, at least Google is still maintaining a usable open-source OS.
- scholia 12y ago
  The problem with Google controlling it is that it already has a monopoly market share of web advertising and web search, and much the biggest web-based tracking system. Add email, maps, cloud-hosting and other services and it has unprecedented power. As well as a monopoly market share of smartphones, it's now expanding into other areas such as cars, TVs (again), robots, internet delivery and so on. Monopoly market shares are fairly common in technology, but it becomes dangerous when any single company gets to control too many of them....

by ksk 12y ago

DCKing 12y ago

Android was originally developed with the intent that it could make the access of web services better on mobile phones. The intent was to create a market, not to take one. AOSP is still open source for that reason, presumably. Although the Android you find on devices branded as such is most definitely Google's flavour, they still develop Android for everyone to use. I find it somewhat of a cognitive dissonnance. People complain about Google's increasing grasp on common Android whereas the most compelling parts of the system are fully available for free unlimited use by everyone. Plug in your cloud provider of choice, or none at all, and you're ready to go. Yet people don't complain about the full propietary lock-in on other platforms. Also, please stop the tiresome meme that "Google/FB/MS/Cloud company X sells your data". These companies sell personalized advertisements, they do not sell your data.

ksk 12y ago
> AOSP is still open source for that reason, presumably. Yeah..AOSP "works".. if you happen to have the driver binary blobs (which are not open source), which only work for some android builds on a handful of devices which are blessed by google. Open source indeed. Oh and those binary blobs.. those are LICENSED. You are not allowed to make an android build and distribute it, if it contains those blobs. And without those blobs the ROMS are useless because you need drivers for basic things like your camera, phone radio, etc. Google have taken the Open Source ideology and bastardized it to fit their commercial needs. And look, I have no problems with companies making money, but then you don't get to also say how "open source friendly" you are, when clearly you're just using open source as a marketing ploy. >These companies sell personalized advertisements, they do not sell your data. Feel free to explain this clause in Google's privacy policy. http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ >We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – like publishers, advertisers or connected sites.
- DCKing 12y ago
  > Google have taken the Open Source ideology and bastardized it to fit their commercial needs. Ah you're one of the people that thinks open source also comes with a mandatory ideology. That it's not good enough if source is released for everyone unless there are also other strings attached. We can leave this in disagreement then. > Feel free to explain this clause in Google's privacy policy. You have to redefine a lot of words if "sharing aggregated non-personally identifiable information" (e.g. statistics of "how many people aged 18-25 are seeing my ad?") is to mean the same as "selling your data". https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ https://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ > We don’t sell users’ personal information.
  - ksk 12y ago
    >Ah you're one of the people that thinks open source also comes with a mandatory ideology. Now, who is redefining words? >That it's not good enough if source is released for everyone unless there are also other strings attached. Where can I find the source for those binary blobs? >You have to redefine a lot of words if "sharing aggregated non-personally identifiable information" is to mean the same as "selling your data" Thankfully, no redefinition is needed. That information is MY DATA. Sharing DOES NOT exclude monetary transactions. My general experience has been that companies do not share anything of value for free. >(e.g. statistics of "how many people aged 18-25 are seeing my ad?") e.g. aggregated statistics of people aged 20-21 living in the zipcode XXXXX who have lung cancer. Oops.. turns out, its just one person. >We don’t sell users’ personal information. Tell that to Google. They're contradicting themselves.
  - sp332 12y ago
    It's not an ideological problem, it's a practical one. If most of the Android software running out there depends on proprietary blobs, then I lose many of the benefits of open-source software including running it on my own hardware.

ufmace 12y ago

I think, at this point, a big part of it is just maintaining control of the platform. It seems like a selfish goal, but if they didn't, then some other company just might take it over by forking it, making their own proprietary version, and making that version more popular. It arguably came close to happening already with Samsung's market dominance, and Amazon's non-google Kindle Android. With so much money wrapped up in it, somebody is going to be in control of it. Would you rather it be Google, Amazon, Samsung, Microsoft? For all of their faults, at least Google is still maintaining a usable open-source OS.

scholia 12y ago
The problem with Google controlling it is that it already has a monopoly market share of web advertising and web search, and much the biggest web-based tracking system. Add email, maps, cloud-hosting and other services and it has unprecedented power. As well as a monopoly market share of smartphones, it's now expanding into other areas such as cars, TVs (again), robots, internet delivery and so on. Monopoly market shares are fairly common in technology, but it becomes dangerous when any single company gets to control too many of them....