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Google is defragging Android

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google is defragging Android

#131

Post by Oletros »

ajross wrote: post #98
Zigurd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Location Services is a special API, in that Google bears some costs to enable it for geocoding, for example. It is possible to have access to basic location data from a built-in GPS receiver in AOSP, so the system is not completely dependent on Google Play Services.

Exactly. "GPS" data is certainly available and part of the standard open source framework: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/pack... But access to e.g. Google's giant wifi-to-location database isn't part of that API. And it's a good service, and something that is hard to replicate and thus a competetive advantage. But to speak to the upthread parent: it has nothing to do with "drivers". The HAL…

> Horribly anti-competetive

Did the lawsuit finish?

Re: Google is defragging Android

#132

Post by ZeroGravitas »

fleitz wrote: post #129
andrewfong wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real keys are that your Android device is locked down, fixing it voids your warranty As it should. There's nothing in open source that requires a warranty. Here's a snippet from the MIT license, generally considered open: "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINF…

Perhaps you shouldn't have to modify a firmware to install your own OS on an 'open' platform. IBM somehow figured out how to do it on an IBM 5150 back in the early 80s and my Raspberry Pi supports it on ARM systems. I'm happy to use my iPhone which doesn't allow firmware mods under warranty, however, I've never heard Apple talk about the iPhone being an open platform. Google's stance on the openness of Android strike…

Apple talking point # 3124: we never claimed our platform was open so we can be more hardline than RMS when critiquing Android.

Yeah, that one never gets boring.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#133

Post by turing »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #122
turing wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

downvotes don't change the truth of the observation. Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions. The problem is that your observation isn't true. Here are some of the under-the-hood changes in just the most recent releases of Android: -OpenGL ES 3.0 -Bluetooth low energy/Bluetooth AVRCP -restricted profiles -VP8 encoder -new DRM framework -SELinux -various other optimizatio…

Although "meaningful" is very subjective, one can use Google's rhetoric under which Android was initiated as a touchstone: http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html Of course when you do that, the current level of openness is not just "no longer meaningful", it's bordering on parody.

Could you explain? Looking at the document you cited, I'm not sure what you mean. For example, the document says that Android would give "mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products" and that "Handset manufacturers and wireless operators will be free to customize Android in order to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost." Both of those things seem to hold true, even with the changes being made to Google Play Services. Am I missing something?

Re: Google is defragging Android

#134

Post by TheZenPsycho »

corresation wrote: post #71
woah wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not an expert in this area, so I won't comment on the accuracy of your claims, but your comment is full of ad hominem vitriol. please keep it civil, whether you agree or not. HN is better than this.

Ad hominem? I am specifically criticizing the comment , so yet another showing of some ignorantly misplaced Latin isn't worthwhile.

You're right, it's not ad hominem, but your post is chock full of overly emotive (read, manipulative) language. To illustrate, I'll remove the emotive language and you can see the difference:

>Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions.

This is wrong, and things I think are wrong don't belong on HN. I suspect you weren't voted down because of the (logically fallacious) appeal to consequences.

Just to be clear, Google has always had closed source, proprietary Google bits (gmail, maps, etc. Originally they even built these as a big binary blob in the platform image, and it was "fixing fragmentation" when they moved them to separate apps), and the open source Android bits. Everything you heard about Android 4.3 is in the open source bits.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#135

Post by kybernetikos »

corresation wrote: post #71
woah wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not an expert in this area, so I won't comment on the accuracy of your claims, but your comment is full of ad hominem vitriol. please keep it civil, whether you agree or not. HN is better than this.

Ad hominem? I am specifically criticizing the comment , so yet another showing of some ignorantly misplaced Latin isn't worthwhile.

Yes, you're criticising the comment, but your criticisms constitute mainly of strong attacks on its tone (ultra-polarized, hysterical, noisy, prattle) and perceived effect (manipulative, obnoxious), plus some extremely strong contradictions without supporting evidence of matching strength (utterly and complete wrong, does not belong on HN).

I do think that you're probably correct with the meat of what you're saying, but there's no question that at best half of your comment is relevant to the actual discussion and the other half describes itself at least as well as it describes the comment it purports to.

My suggestion: your vitriol should be proportional to the strength of the evidence you present rather than to the strength of your feeling.

While technically your comment isn't an ad hominem since you attribute all these terrible things to the comment rather than the person, I can completely see why it rang a lot of the same bells as an ad hominem argument would for some people.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#136

Post by ZeroGravitas »

fleitz wrote: post #130
esolyt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real keys are that your Android device is locked down, fixing it voids your warranty That's not an issue about Android though, it's an issue with manufacturers.You are free to release an Android device that is not locked down.

You mean manufactures like Google themselves? It seems to be an issue with 'Android' as no one, including Google, makes an Android phone on which you can install a modified version of Android without voiding the warranty.

Geeksphone (the same folk that do a Mozilla phone) do.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#137

Post by kalleboo »

newman314 wrote: post #119

I'm sorry but this makes it sound like Google has come up with this magic way of beating fragmentation. It shouldn't have happened in the first place. Contrast this with iOS upgrade path or what webOS had been doing. Seamless (for the most part) and a great UX. Google is able to do this; see Chrome. What is strange is why they did not adopt the same strategy for Android as for Chrome.

Easier said than done. Microsoft tried to beat fragmentation in Windows Phone by mandating a specific hardware spec, and even they have had huge issues getting manufacturers to clear updates in time, and they won't even let you update to the new major version.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#138

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

wtracy wrote: post #85
laureny wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. You can certainly argue that "less" of Android is being open sourced than a few years ago, but it's still orders of magnitude more open than any of the other mobile OS available on the market. Especially OS X and iOS, which are both 0% open source. Open source fanatics are impossible to satisfy, they will always find a reason why the flavor of open source that a company or an organization picked is not the…

> it's still orders of magnitude more open than any of > the other mobile OS available on the market. Symbian? OpenMoko? The upcoming SailfishOS, Tizen, Firefox OS, and Ubuntu phone? Oh, you meant in the U.S., I guess. (Yes, I know that all the above have either already largely failed or have sketchy futures. That's an entirely different kettle of fish.) > Open source fanatics are impossible to satisfy All I want is…

> Firefox OS

Considering the closed source bits of Android have no equivalent in Firefox OS I would say it's equally open source as Firefox OS.

Re: Google is defragging Android

#139

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ghshephard wrote: post #68
laureny wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. You can certainly argue that "less" of Android is being open sourced than a few years ago, but it's still orders of magnitude more open than any of the other mobile OS available on the market. Especially OS X and iOS, which are both 0% open source. Open source fanatics are impossible to satisfy, they will always find a reason why the flavor of open source that a company or an organization picked is not the…

While I'm not suggesting that OS X is as open as, say, Android, I don't think the parent is speaking Nonsense. OS X does have and open source element, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system) , so claiming iOS and OS X are "0% open source" is somewhat incorrect. I think the parent is correct in that Google is now moving the value added components of their Operating System (as opposed to the more "core"…

Unless something has changed, there is no darwin for iOS and never has been.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29

"Darwin is now only available as source code,[5] except for the ARM variant, which has not been released in any form separately from iOS."

Re: Google is defragging Android

#140

Post by fleitz »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #132
fleitz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you shouldn't have to modify a firmware to install your own OS on an 'open' platform. IBM somehow figured out how to do it on an IBM 5150 back in the early 80s and my Raspberry Pi supports it on ARM systems. I'm happy to use my iPhone which doesn't allow firmware mods under warranty, however, I've never heard Apple talk about the iPhone being an open platform. Google's stance on the openness of Android strike…

Apple talking point # 3124: we never claimed our platform was open so we can be more hardline than RMS when critiquing Android. Yeah, that one never gets boring.

Apple requested Google call it GNU/Android? Must have missed that one.
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