Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 234 posts

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

#151

Post by rsynnott »

parennoob wrote: post #22

When someone like Github does this (make some parts of their code open-source, but others closed-source), journalists don't write critical pieces about them, do they? I mean, Google leaves a bad taste in my mouth since they started shuttering services like it was Christmas at the Google Service Chopping Block, but I don't see them being actively evil here. It's all according to the previously openly aired plan. Googl…

> When someone like Github does this (make some parts of their code open-source, but others closed-source), journalists don't write critical pieces about them, do they?

Github don't constantly go on about how 'open' Github is, though.

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

#152

Post by rsynnott »

devcpp wrote: post #146
afsina wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prove that Android is not open.

He meant free (as in freedom), not open. "Proof" of that is in the submission's article. It's not exactly a formal proof but it has convinced most people here. Unfortunately, this highlights some weaknesses in the GPLv2, which is supposed to guarantee freedom.

Android largely isn't GPLv2.

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

#153

Post by rsynnott »

bookwormAT wrote: post #132
saiyan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. All those videos of Android demo or prototype units clearly showed Android was a Blackberry clone (just look at that tiny touchpad for navigating around Android OS) and changed its design direction after iPhone made its appearance.

nonesense. Android is a software platform that companies can build sofware and devices on. Android is not a device, and it's not an "operating system" in the sense that people use this word today. It is a fundament that you can build an operating system with, and a cross platform that allows applications run on different software, as long as this software is based on Android. If you want to show off what Android can…

Note that the HTC G1 didn't have a software keyboard at first; it was a (non-multi)-touch device, but you were meant to use the physical keyboard for all text entry until Android 1.5

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

#154

Post by rsynnott »

oscargrouch wrote: post #66
Brakenshire wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there is a philosophy (or rather, various different philosophies) that go along with the legal structures, and different projects have different levels of adherence to those ideas. It eventually comes down to perception of value. Part of the original attraction of Android was its openness, if Google is now closing off substantial functionality, to head off competition, then it's not unfair for people to re-eval…

> Part of the original attraction of Android was its openness, if Google is now closing off substantial functionality, to head off competition, then it's not unfair for people to re-evaluate their enthusiasm for the product. Very well put! Its not a legal perception that theres something wrong about what they are doing(and nobody are saying that they cannot do it in the legal aspect).. its a betrayal of some part tha…

> its a betrayal of some part that make people defend android for what it is, a open source project..

As an open-source project, Android was only ever really open in the way that, say, Oracle BDB is open; there are periodic code dumps, but it's very much not operated as an open-source project.

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

#155

Post by stinos »

swetland wrote: post #147
stinos wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the whle point of the article that it's getting harder and harder to get the OS without being tied to Gapps? Which would justify the title?

The Android platform is open source under Apache/BSD/MIT licenses -- it's no harder to get that than it ever has been (not hard at all). Look at products like Kindle Fire for examples of "uses Android without Google Apps".

Yes you can easily just download it. But that's not exactly what the article is about. It's about why OEMs don't just download it and put it on there as such, but instead seem to get tied to Google Apps.

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

#156

Post by Shooti »

rarepostinlurkr wrote: post #58
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.

Almost exactly a year after they bought Android, Schmidt joined the Apple board of directors. The iPhone certainly was in development some time prior to its announcement.

Schmidt joined the Apple board August 29th 2006: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/08/29Google-CEO-Dr-Eric...

Public iPhone announcement was January 9th 2007: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-th...

Even with a conspiracy angle, a three month head start isn't much.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #141
tomkarlo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a mischaracterization of his own comments on why he left. It had to do with open sourcing GPU drivers, which is probably an issue with other vendors, not Google. See: https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...

It was Google's choice to put that hardware into the phone, and it was their choice not to pressure qualcomm into being more open. Your argument itself is also somewhat of a mischaracterization, because at least Google could have wrestled redistribution rights for the binary drivers, thus making AOSP actually usable on the nexus, and they didn't even bother with that. Vendors are a convenient whipping boy when don't…

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by tomkarlo »

zobzu wrote: post #123
tomkarlo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a mischaracterization of his own comments on why he left. It had to do with open sourcing GPU drivers, which is probably an issue with other vendors, not Google. See: https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...

well actually while I get where you're coming from, that's still correct. if AOSP was more open he wouldn't have left. Google doesn't give a damn about openness right now.

"If AOSP were more open he wouldn't have left." Can you substantiate that statement at all? AOSP's "openness" is determined by its licensing, which is a standard Apache 2.0 license. The issue was whether certain vendors would contribute to AOSP under that license, not whether AOSP was open enough.

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

#159

Post by Shooti »

guelo wrote: post #126
grinns wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you hear whatever you want to hear, but the truth is very different: Google's apps and APIs are just cloud endpoints and weaving them into AOSP doesn't make sense and just delays updates, as the same author previously scribbled: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-sl... As for "strong-arm tactics", what is referred to is explained in this post: http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/20…

I think the strongest argument the article makes is the claim about the new Location APIs. Location algorithms are not dependent on Google services and have always been part of the core APIs, but now Google is moving new location algorithms into their closed source app. It's an obvious power grab, they want AOSP to be less and less useful on its own.

If they rolled the improvements out as part of the platform, it would inherit the slow rollout weakness as any other platform API (it would take months/years to become viable and unavailable on existing versions). If they went the static library route, it would balloon the size of of the apps and they wouldn't be able to do the same sort power/efficiency call coalescing as they would by having an always updated client on the device.

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

#160

Post by Zigurd »

Part of my business is about creating Android-based embedded systems. So far, none of what Google has done impinges on using Android as a basis for an operating system for appliance-like devices. The main problem is that current development of Android is not done in the open. But, so far, the advantages of using Android's UI stack and other APIs in "appliance OS" applications outweigh the annoyance of sporadic updates to the AOSP code-base.

If you want to compete with Google, using Android poses a choice: If you make Google-branded Android devices that use Google's proprietary apps, you will have to give that up in order to use Android with other ecosystems.

Thirdly, if you want to use the Google ecosystem in a product, you have to use all of it. You can't substitute someone else's location services, for an example that was litigated.

Google could develop Android in the open and retain the same level of control over OEMs, and I think they should.

Google appears to be inconsistent in enforcing restrictions on OEMs. OPhone OEMs also make Android handsets, despite the fact that OPhone is an Android derived product. Maybe that arrangement pre-dates Google's current policies.

Post reply on HN