Slashdot Mirror
Android Gathers Steam Among Open Source Developers
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."
Of all the open source projects I've worked on or had interaction with the Google Android and Chrome teams have been by far the best. Most friendly, most competent, etc.
Not perfect of course, but an absolute pleasure. I can certainly see why Android would be popular with the rise of smartphones and the netbook and smaller category of devices.
It's such a shame that Sean Moss-Pultz is so full of sh-t, Android is what OpenMoko could've been if they'd pulled their fingers out. What's going to happen to it now? Will OpenMoko continue to develop and will it ultimately still bring out hardware?
ilovegeorgebush
I would think an android that gathered methane from would have more of a job to do, especially in the open source community.
This guy's the limit!
Sorry to interrupt a good rant; but Android is Apache v2.
That is funny. I'm in the Midwest and I use T-Mobile. There service works for me wherever I go in the Midwest. There service is as good or better than AT&T or Verizon in my experience. Although cellular companies much like cable companies and telcoms all seem to suffer from group mediocrity.
Honestly, I thought T-mobile was a plus. They seem to be a little less prone to some of the anti-consumer schemes common among providers. They'll even unlock your phone after 90 days if your account remains in good standing. The G1 data plan cost was about what I otherwise saved switching over all my lines from Verizon. They also don't try to hit you with per-MB fees if you go over some cap and you don't need some expensive plan to do this.
As reported this week on Slashdot, some hackers have got X desktops (Gnome, KDE, LXDE, IceWM), "All Working On Android".
If I can have an Android "phone" and seamlessly use "Android" apps alongside Linux apps (and use a Debian-style APT for installation/maintenance), I've got the first real 21st Century platform.
If someone hooks up Android with X features that let me "grab" my session from a desktop (or other PC with a big display), keep using it (but scaled/arranged for Android) as I leave with my "phone", then pop it over to a nearby PC (scaled back up) intact, I've finally got "mobile computing". If my VoIP phonecalls remain intact throughout the transfer, the "computer" will eventually disappear unnoticed, with only me and my "computing" session really mattering. We're going to have to come up with new words for these things, once they're just our constant virtualized telecoms companion.
--
make install -not war
There has been so much focus on iPhone, Android and Windows application development in the media the last few years. And yet no one as far as I can remember has ever mentioned that Nokia has a great open source development platform for their phones which runs on newer Symbian 60 called PyS60(Python for Symbian 60) http://wiki.opensource.nokia.com/projects/Installing_PyS60
With PyS60you have access to about every feature in the phone. Everything from SMS, to the accelerometer. Not to mention that programming in Python is fun, and if speed is an issue, you still have access to several Python C++ Extensions http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/C%2B%2B_Python_Extensions and there is support for developing your own c++ extensions. On the Nokia wiki there are several small easy to read examples of how to use all the technology in their phones http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Category:Python
Yet I don't understand why developers and media ignore this development platform. Isn't powerful applications that can be coded in less than hundred lines pure joy for a developer? There is a lot of people with Symbian 60 phones out there, more than Android and iPhone together(not sure about Windows though).
Sprint has Android phones on the way. http://phandroid.com/2009/02/20/sprint-android-coming-ceo-reassures/
"Despite launching on the T-Mobile G1 with little mainstream fanfare..."
Waddyamean little mainstream fanfare? Big coverage by the BBC on TV and Radio news (and news website) on it's launch as the 'iPhone killer'
There still seems to be a serious lack of Blackberry love from Android.
Android hasn't gotten its emotion chip yet.
Now, why it would need an old CPU from a Playstation 2 to understand love is beyond me, but I guess that's just how it works...
Bow-ties are cool.
Thats great, but when? Im very hesistant to switch to t-mobile. Years ago I had the original sidekick and found their coverage to be lacking, at least here in Chicago. I also have a minute/data deal with Sprint that no other carrier can come close to. Its incredible what AT&T and TMobile want for data nowadays.
Im probably just going to wait it out and get the G2 on Sprint, but its a real shame the industry has moved so slowly on android. I understand that the product was released prematurely. Hopefully the G2 will be full featured and stable.
I don't think there is anything wrong with those ideas above. The problem seems to me is a lack of focus. The only thing that stopped me from buying one is from reading the forums and seeing how unstable it was. I don't care about 99% of features, the only important thing is that it can make calls. Unfortunately this appears to be its main failing, with the handset falling over regularly and failing to lock onto carrier cells. I quote the following from the CEO:
"We tried to refocus the company around these ideas. This led to an application called Diversity. The basic idea is the following:
Neos talk to other Neos using a self-creating, self-healing, global free (WiFi) network. The software system, code named Diversity, consists of many clients (Neos) talking to servers and, at a later time, self-connecting, using mesh-like interactions."
http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html#nabble-td2103754|a2103754
It seems to me their priorities aren't really in order.
Philip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
You're right about Windows, but that's not what this article is about.
The Android devel kit will run on whatever hardware you already have. They don't force you to buy anything new.
The G1 was released in October of 2008, yet they still had 70% of the number of project releases that the iPhone had in 2008. 70% as many OSS projects in a quarter the number of months.
(Granted, the SDK was available for longer, but still very few people, developers included, actually had a phone; they were excited enough about it to develop apps solely on the emulator, without being able to actually use them until October.)
The G1 isn't much of an open platform.
Android itself, sure, and I have it on my freerunner. But I really doubt that they'd get many of the networks on board if they couldn't SIM-lock it.
Too bad you never touched one.
I know many people with that phone that go days between charging it.
everything you speak of means you never even touched one. the ONLY thing I cant stand about the G1 is that it feels like a toy. It really needs to be built of metal instead of plastic. It's actually a remarkable phone, you should actually touch and use one.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I owned the iPhone for a year and now the G1 for a couple of months, the G1 is comparable to the iPhone as far as being "good".
The battery life is worse, but the battery life doesn't drain in 7 hours of standby either.
The GUI is fine. Very intuitive, doesn't crash. I like the visual front phone LED that flashes on notifications as well as the notification top bar in the GUI interface. Works very well.
PF Voicemail is a great visual voicemail app.
The Marketplace lets you return apps within 24 hours for a full refund if you don't like them.
Google Apps integration is heads above what's available on the iPhone. I update my calendar and contacts on the web, it pushes to my phone. I never need to sync with a desktop.
The SD card is upgradeable. 16 gig ones cost, what, 50 bucks?
And the mini-USB slot looks like is going to be the standard on phones now for everything.
That doesn't mean the phone doesn't need some polish. I really think the new ones coming out will be more to be excited about. But the G1 is a solid product.
True. I'm stuck on EDGE as well (but I'm only a few miles from 3G land so I'm hoping that will change soon enough).
In any case, they certainly aren't exclusive to T-mobile by design. T-mobile is just the only company who has picked them up so far. Sprint is apparently working on an android-based phone (granted Sprint isn't really any better than T-mobile). I think the other companies just don't quite know how to handle a phone that isn't 100% locked into selling add-on services.
The open platform will have an impact soon enough. I can't see how companies will avoid it - a real opportunity for application standardization across providers and hardware. No royalties and politics to use the OS.
It really depends on how you use it. If you use it to make occassional phone calls, and to check your email once in a while, then you'll easily get a full day or more out of the battery.
If you sit down and use it like a laptop, browing the web, playing games, etc - well, then it will be dead in two hours.
I had a lot of trouble with mine when it was new - but that was because I'd just tinker with it all day on a weekend. Once I settled down to real life use I haven't had any problems with it.
Sure, I'd like more battery life. It is still weaker than I'd like it to be. However, it isn't a reason not to get the phone.
That the US carriers often seem to cripple the phones. Nokia have phones that are available in Europe and elsewhere but when they come to the US, the carriers have made them remove/disable features (front facing cameras for video calls since the US carriers seem to hate video calls for some reason, GPS functionality because US carriers want to charge thru the nose for navigation, WiFi etc) either because the carriers dont like those features or possibly (as in the case of removing actual hardware) because removing the feature lowers the cost of the phone.
In short: if the code is BSD-licensed, the and you GPL it, you're saying "I will share these changes with my own community, not with the community who I got the code from in the first place". Which is just a bit of an asshole thing to do.
The most important difference between the BSD license and the GPL is that the BSD license doesn't require you to share your changes with anybody. If you've got a problem with someone not giving back to the community, then you shouldn't be using the BSD license in the first place.
Support SETI@home