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Android's Success a Threat To Free Software?

Posted by Soulskill on from the unintended-consequences dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Two years after its launch, Google's Linux-based Android platform is finally making its presence felt in the world of smartphones. Around 20,000 apps have been written for it. Although well behind the iPhone's tally, that's significantly more than just a few months ago. But there's a problem: few of these Android apps are free software. Instead, we seem to be witnessing the birth of a new hybrid stack — open source underneath, and proprietary on top. If, as many believe, mobile phones will become the main computing platform for most of the world, that could be a big problem for the health of the free software ecosystem. So what, if anything, should the community be doing about it?"

7 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. Maemo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Vote with your wallets. Maemo, the most open internet-tablet/smartphone platform currently on the market (assuming OpenMoko is dead). Not perfectly open, but a lot better than the Android.

    From the 770 in 2005, to the N800 and N810 in 2007 to the latest release of the N900 this year.

    There's even third-party clone which the platform needs to become truely mainstream.

    1. Re:Maemo by Eunuchswear · · Score: 4, Informative

      According to wikipedia, Maemo is largely open source with some mandatory proprietary components. How is this different from Android?

      ~ $ sudo gainroot
      Root shell enabled
       
      Busybox v1.10.2 (Debian 3:1.10.2.legal-1osso26+05m) built-in shell (ash)
      Enter 'help' for a list of built in commands.
       
      /home/user # apt-get install whatever-i-want

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
  2. Re:Not New: Apple's stack is hybrid too by rpp3po · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple does not just exploit open source, they also contribute bleeding-edge, high-quality code for GCC (LLVM), although they would legally not be required to do so by the BSD license.

  3. Re:Okay, I'll be the one to say it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Or support the N900 instead of the Android. It's not a totally open stack, but it's much more so than Android, and the apps also tend to be direct ports of Linux OSS. And the whole thing is less locked down to begin with.

  4. Re:Okay, I'll be the one to say it... by StayFrosty · · Score: 3, Informative

    This isn't exactly true. While the network operators may be able to put pressure on the official Android Market to keep certain apps out, you don't have to root your phone or anything to install .apk's from alternative markets or downloaded from the web.

    --
    "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
  5. Re:Okay, I'll be the one to say it... by the+ReviveR · · Score: 4, Informative
    The N900 is NOT very expensive (well not cheap either), it's about the same as any other top of the line smartphone. The reason it may seem like that is because in US you cannot get it subsidized.

    Here is a copy paste of an earlier post I made....

    Here are some prices from one of the cheaper web stores in Finland. Please note that these have taxes included and probably the "europeans are idiots" bonus (1 dollar = 1 euro)

    • iPhone 3GS 32GB - 528 euro (+ 12 month contract with "normal" prices)
    • iPhone 3G 8GB - 396 euro (+12 month contract with "normal" prices)
    • HTC Hero - 489.90 euro (no contract)
    • Motorola Milestone - 549.90 euro (no contract + 50 euro more for localized keyboard)
    • Nokia N900 - 569.00 euro (no contract)
    • Samsung Galaxy i7500 - 489.90 euro( no contract)
    • Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Android - 749.90 euro (no contract)

    Based on these it would seem that most top of the line phones actually cost around 500 - 600 euro (that is probably 500$-600$ in US) and even correlates pretty nicely with release schedule. Don't get the price on the Sony Ericsson, though it isn't actually out yet I think.

    BTW: People were able to get it as cheap as $442 from Dell a while back. Don't know what is the cheapest now (nor would I buy anything from Dell :)

  6. Re:Okay, I'll be the one to say it... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    But, just like the desktop computing environment before, the commercial developers will be followed by OSS developers who just have an itch to scratch that no existing app handles...

    Don't you mean that the commercial developers will follow the OSS developers? Because that's how it actually happened. Software was generally free of charge and often passed around until some companies decided to start making money from it, going all the way back to ancient versions of Unix and other hackish OSes like ITS, in the 1960s.

    I'd tell you who to go talk to to verify such things, but they'd probably just tell you to get off their lawn...

    --
    My blog