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Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

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Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#181

Post by PeterisP »

cromwellian wrote: post #116
apetrovic wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most of the examples of Google closed apps that are not part of the AOSP release are in fact apps that are based off of Google data-center services. Would it really help Samsung if the source to the Gmail app was open? Since Google controls the server side, and the client-server protocol, it limits the amount of innovation they can do. I don't think Google's development of their own services is issue here. The issue…

I think there is some legitimacy to this line of criticism, but as Amazon has shown, large organizations can produce their own forks. I can imagine too that selective replacement of chunks of the 'Google Experience' might make consumers get a negative impression of the Google brand if the replacement has issues. Like if you replace the location with Skyhook or Nokia, and the new Maps app is just called "Maps", and if…

I'm already disappointed by my inability to remove the (rather poor) Samsung apps from my phone, as I'd like to only use the 'proper' Google apps (for me, gmail/google calendar app is 50+% of phone usage). It's not enough for companies to be able to produce their own forks - the forks still need to be competitive or better than Google versions, and that's not so easy to do.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#182

Post by gibwell »

hahainternet wrote: post #111
gibwell wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying 'iOS is more closed' doesn't make Android meaningfully open.

The fact that I can download and build Android is what makes it meaningfully open.

You can't download and build what consumers think of as Android.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#183

Post by fooqux »

r0h1n wrote: post #178
fooqux wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three points: 1) Newer custom ROMs can deny permissions on a per-app basis. I understand this isn't for everyone, but I enjoy having this option very much on my own device. (I also agree with you that it should be baked into the vanilla Android, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to confuse users with that option.) 2) Some apps will give you a choice in their own settings (if you trust that). 3) You always h…

I've been running CM since the Nexus One. I don't think it supports per-app system privileges. Unless it is hidden somewhere deep within (though I could swear I've recursively been through their entire settings tree). May I ask which ROMs you are referring to?

I myself use AOKP, although I believe the permission management feature was cherry-picked from Cyanogen, and Google searches seem to verify the functionality exists.

On AOKP, you have to enable it by going into System Settings -> Permissions, which will then let you manage your apps.

Cyanogen uses a similar system[1], you'll need to navigate to CyanogenMod Settings, then Permissions, and finally Enable Management. After that, permissions can be enabled or disabled through the Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications menu.

[1]Those instructions were pulled from a Google search, as I don't run Cyanogen myself currently. They may be old/incorrect/etc. Good luck.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#184

Post by eco »

fooqux wrote: post #166
bad_user wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because currently it isn't optional, which is a flaw in Android's permissions system that sucks.

Three points: 1) Newer custom ROMs can deny permissions on a per-app basis. I understand this isn't for everyone, but I enjoy having this option very much on my own device. (I also agree with you that it should be baked into the vanilla Android, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to confuse users with that option.) 2) Some apps will give you a choice in their own settings (if you trust that). 3) You always h…

> I also agree with you that it should be baked into the vanilla Android

They appear to be working on that: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/07/25/app-ops-android-4-3s...

I used it to block Facebook from accessing GPS. Worked well.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#185

Post by sbuk »

throwawaykf wrote: post #163
sbuk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. > "and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over…

To be fair, Microsoft also created a browser that, for its time, is pretty widely accepted (even around here!) as being much better than the Netscape counterpart. So while they did throw their weight around, it's not clear that their browser dominance was purely because of their OS monopoly. There were many other ways that Microsoft was leveraging its monopoly which deserved antitrust scrutiny, but I think bundling a…

I agree totally that IE 4 was a browser ahead of it's time, however Microsoft were shown to have needlesly integrated it into their OS and then told OEMs that their Windows licenses would be revoked if they sold PC with Navigator pre-installed. I'd say they were lucky not to be broken up!

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#186

Post by Zigurd »

millstone wrote: post #56

> Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, it was decided that Google would buy Android. And Android would be open source. This is blatantly false. Google bought Android in 2005, two years before the iPhone was announced.

In fact, Google was concerned about Microsoft more-strongly binding Windows Mobile (Windows Phone came later) to their Web ecosystem. Microsoft was working on Windows Live Search, which would later be replaced by Bing.

At the time, Windows Mobile was the epitome of a modern mobile OS. It had a real(ish) browser and a VM-based app runtime for a modern (C#) language (albeit optional and not nearly as tightly integrated with OS middleware as in Android). Google saw that an ecosystem such as Windows Live is much more critical to a mobile device than it is to a desktop PC. The nature of Android more closely reflects the threat from Microsoft than from iPhone.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#187

Post by lmm »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #73
hackula1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% does not a monopoly make. Microsoft was in an entirely different position at the time.

How can anything other that 99% market share even be considered a monopoly? If it's 80% or 90% then there is obviously choice and thus no monopoly. Anti trust is such bunk...

I once saw an economics paper finding that if the top four players in a given market have more than 60% marketshare between them, they'll naturally act as a cartel. Ergo preserving an effective free market for consumers requires preventing that circumstance.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#188

Post by cptskippy »

studentrob wrote: post #167
bad_user wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're partly right, but in regards to the Gmail app, what I don't like about Android is that it doesn't come with a good email client that's not GMail. Android's GMail client is very polished and there's not much in it that's specific to Gmail, it could be a generic email client that works with POP3/IMAP/SMTP and other standards as well. The experience of users that aren't into Android's own services do suffer. But…

Is GMail subject to the same task killer that 3rd party apps are? I suspect it isn't. If that's true then Google has given itself a good monopoly for email on its own OS, much like Microsoft did for Internet Explorer.

Are you referring to how Android will reclaim memory from inactive processes? Android handles memory differently than you expect, it tries to keep thinks in memory and only kills apps if it needs their memory back for a more demanding process.

Google consolidating most APIs into Play Services would ensure it's constantly active and never purged from memory, but the same isn't true of Gmail or other Google Apps. They can and are purged from memory as other apps demand more memory. That being said, I've encountered very few situations where any app gets purged from memory. About the only time this happens is if I play a game like Galaxy On Fire or decide to open 100 tabs in Chrome.

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#189

Post by unsignedint »

tluyben2 wrote: post #124
dmethvin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is stuck behind a rock and a hard place. If they don't try to create incentives for a unified experience, they get bashed for encouraging fragmentation, if they do assert a level of control, they get bashed for not being completely open. This is exactly the position Microsoft was in during the mid-1990s, even before they went after Netscape. The article is saying that Google is even applying some of the same…

Android is open enough to replace all Google apps with your own (Samsung) and open your own appstore (Amazon). Also companies are completely free to not pick Android (Tizen / Firefox OS / ?) and they are free not to license the Google apps and put their own or (other) open source ones. It would be hard to make Google out to be a monopolist via that route. MS was different; there weren't much alternatives and the alte…

> This being the same bubble world as the chromebook thread on HN yesterday; tech people think non tech people actually notice what they are running; they generally don't. If they can play the games their friends are playing and if they can use 'the software' they are used to they are happy. What brand it is is not important.

At the same time, those people are first to complain about a single button located somewhere different from what remember. Unless all they are doing is the bare minimum that any of interface elements doesn't matter, they would continue caring about what operating system they would be running on. I guess problems are people between complete novices and experts -- they know more than some basics (to recognize what they are running) but not quite up there to mitigate the difference themselves. (And somewhat, this could be said true so far as there haven't been so much of UI functional changes happened up to 7 from the Windows 95 era. People around me haven't really exposed to themselves to Windows 8.x would do to them when they finally hit them...)

Re: Google’s iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary

#190

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

sbuk wrote: post #150
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti trust is the legislation policing monopolies, at least in the US, and it is such legislation which I consider bunk.

Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. > "and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over…

>Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market?

Absolutely not!

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