Android chief Rubin's response to Android critics misses the point

Post by beej71 » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 3:57 PM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #24

beej71 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Google is going to exploit "open source" as a marketing term and claim at Google IO that it's trying to prevent a "draconian future," it shouldn't be withholding its source code from non-privileged partners and making licensees sign non-fragmentation clauses that give Google final approval over source changes. IMHO, for a for-profit company, they're doing a really great job of keeping the source open, especially…

IMHO, for a for-profit company, they're doing a really great job of keeping the source open, especially when compared to their competition. And remember how open they are required to be, which is "not at all". They could stop releasing source tomorrow, and, short of feeling morally superior, there is nothing anyone could do about it. I don't think the issue is whether or not they keep the source open, but whether or…

> whether or not their marketing is dishonest or hypocritical

I'm far too jaded for that one. :-) But I can see how it would irk people.

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Apr 09, 2011, 6:09 PM UTC

mycroftiv wrote: post #29

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post I replied to which said "I, the user" was ambiguous, though I think I caught your meaning so I'll just quote your other post: "However, if I purchase a Xoom with Honeycomb, I have been given a copy of the Android software, and I will not be given a copy of the source code if I request it. That is the issue here [...] you are surely aware that free software is about the user of the software being able to acce…

I know perfectly well that Android is not under the GPL, and nowhere in my posts have I implied that it is, and I have also not implied that Google is under any legal obligations whatsoever. The article which this entire discussion is based on is simply about whether or not Google is actually following through on their previous statements about Android, and about the fact that, as you just admitted, Honeycomb is not…

If the Xoom had been delayed until after Honeycomb was open sourced in say 2 months, would that change the open source status of Honeycomb right now? Obviously no. The timing of the code release is what triggers that change. Honeycomb was exactly as open source the day after the Xoom went on sale as it was the day before.

So why is the timing of the hardware release relevant? I thought you were getting confused with the GPL, in which case it would be relevant. Now that we've cleared up that you know Android isn't GPL I have no idea why you think the timing of the binary release matters. I'd hazard a guess that you think people should act like the GPL applies to their Apache licensed code in order to be considered sufficiently "Open Source" by your definition, which differs from the standard meaning of simply releasing the code under an Open Source licence, which applies to the vast majority of Android code, and will soon apply to the Honeycomb code.

At which point they'll start work on the next version (Jelly?), and presumably you'll once again believe that Android isn't Open Source since having any code in development and not yet released fails your test. Or do they only fail your Open Source test if they ship a Jelly-powered device first? What if they ship a Jelly SDK image to run in a VM? Does your idea of when they have to have released source follow the GPL exactly, or does it differ in any important ways?

Re: Android chief Rubin's response to Android critics misses the point

Re: Android chief Rubin's response to Android critics misses the point