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Android Gathers Steam Among Open Source Developers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gonna-be-huge-they-figure dept.

svonkie writes "Despite launching on the T-Mobile G1 with little mainstream fanfare, Google Inc.'s Android OS appears to have gained strong interest in the open source development community. According to a survey of Black Duck Software's Knowledge Base, Apple Inc.'s iPhone led the industry with 266 open source project releases during 2008, while Android followed in second place with 191 releases. Black Duck compiled the data after scouring through over 185,000 of open source projects across 4,000 Internet sites."

5 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Google needs more US Providers by Picass0 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    T-Mobile is a joke and all of the new Android phones are heading for service providers outside the US. Is Google serious about it's platform or not? I'd love and Android phone but we don't even have T-Mobile in the US midwest region.

    1. Re:Google needs more US Providers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Except Google failed to properly implement their market. To say it is a cluster fuck is an understatement. They have an brain dead market application and market which fails to properly implement any form of copy protection for their paid/protected applications. Their solution? Prevent all *developers* from downloading "copy protected" applications; free or otherse. Authors can't even download their own application which is an important verification to any software release.

      Their "copy protection" is really installation to a different directory - which is why they specifically prevent developers from downloading applications. It seems the "copy protection" directory is accessible by developers. Soto prevent developers from pirating applications, they simply don't allow developers to download any "copy protected" application. Sadly, the "copy protection" is really a bit set in the market and honored by the market application which simply changes where the application is installed. No real copy protection at all.

      Both Google and T-Mobile should be flogged - repeatedly! It would be hard for them to screw this up worse. Google for royally screwing up the market and failure to provide real copy protection. T-Mobile for failure to release cupcake, which has an endless list of bug fixes, performance fixes, and critical features (video, stereo bluetooth, and many, many significant optimizations and usability enhancements, etc.) which allow Android to surpass the iPhone and leverage the G1's superior hardware.

      Made worse, "copy protected" applications can not be upgraded if they store data on the phone. Or rather, after an upgrade, the upgraded application silently losses access to all of its stored data. This essentially prevents upgrades for non-trivial applications. And authors can't test because they are not allowed to download their own fucking application if "copy protection" is enabled!

      The combination of fuck ups is causing the ignorant masses to vote applications through the floor despite the fact it is 100% Google's fuck up. This is turn is causing lost sales and Google seems content to say, "go fuck off." Google needs to pay significant restitution to make up for pissing all over us.

      And then you have T-Mobile and how they are purposely dragging their feet on a codename Cupcake release because they don't want to release it until the G2 is available as they fear it may hurt G2 sales. In the mean time, its hurting developers and helping iPhone sales while obsoleting the G1. Thanks T-Mobile for pissing on and running off the Android G1 user base.

      Android has lots of potential but between Google and T-Mobile purposely fucking over their developers and users, you can't help but demand a public lynching of idiots from both companies.

  2. No mainstream fanfare because the G1 is not good by bigtrike · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The G1 has received little fanfare because it's not a good product. It's about as good as other smartphones from 5 years ago.

    It's not revolutionary as far as a typical user is concerned. The GUI isn't well polished, the touch interface is similar to last generation palms. The trackball is not great. The included sd card is not big enough to hold a music collection and if you want to use headphones you need to use an adapter.

    The biggest deal breaker is the 7 hour standby battery life, which I'm betting is related to its OS.

    Thankfully, since it's open source, all of the software issues can be fixed and the OS can be placed on better hardware.

  3. Google blocks paid apps for unlocked G1 users by amitabh_mehta · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    In another news, google rewards users with G1 developer phones by blocking paid apps for them. http://www.macworld.com/article/139045/2009/02/google_g1.html

  4. Re:No mainstream fanfare because the G1 is not goo by bigtrike · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The WIFI/GPS is enabled by default. If the phone is incapable of operating with an expected battery life with these enabled, why would be enabled by default? Other smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, etc) seem to be capable of having these features enabled or toggled on as needed without killing the battery.

    Everyone I know with a G1 carries a charger with them.

    My problems with the touch interface have to do with more than just the lack of multi-touch. The touch interface simply isn't polished. Have you ever used the date selector when creating an appointment? You can't see the number when you're tapping the up arrow, it's covered by your finger. Event PalmOS had this figured out years ago. The entire calendar is a little clunky as well.

    The geek in me really wanted to like this phone, but the platform just isn't quite there yet.