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Google Delays General Release of Honeycomb Source
iluvcapra writes "BusinessWeek reports that Google will not be releasing the source code for Android Honeycomb 'for the foreseeable future.' Android lead Andy Rubin is quoted, stating that if Google were to release the source for Honeycomb, Google would be unable to prevent it from being installed on mobile phones and 'creating a really bad user experience.'"
So Android 3.0 isn't exactly 'open source' for the foreseeable future?
I'll ask what everyone has got to be thinking;
How is this not a GPL violation?
I can see two reasons for Google being leery of a source release:
1: The patent drama going on in the cellphone world, with almost everyone suing each other. It is like watching The Departed, except with lawyers.
2: iOS. Google is nervous about the June iPhone release, so is hedging bets to see which way to go after the iPhone 5 comes out.
mkdir android
cd android
repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git
repo sync
make
This is very much in violation of the spirit of Open Source, on which Google relies for its entire existence.
Actually, even holding back the development repository and just doing periodic code drops is a violation of community spirit at the very least, and probably harmful to the pace of ongoing development as well. It is clear that Google still does not "get" open source.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Educate me, please. I'm not in the loop on this.
How much of Android is GPL-licensed? Does Google have a choice? I'm pretty sure they have no choice on the kernel itself and anything GNU-derived. What portions of Android are not subject to GPL disclosures?
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Over the past few weeks, Google has notified device makers of its change in plans with Honeycomb. Android executives have also been telling companies that Google will likely wait to make another open-source distribution of Android software until it completes the next version, called Ice Cream.
So unlike what the summary suggests, and more in line with the title, it really is a delay, not an indefinite cutoff.
They say: if Google were to release the source for Honeycomb, Google would be unable to prevent it from being installed on mobile phones and "and creating a really bad user experience."
Who are they trying to protect from this bad user experience? Do they think a phone manufacturer is going to ship a honeycomb based phone that gives a really bad user experience? Would any manufacturer really do that when it's easier to use a version of Android that's already designed to run on phones??
Or are they worried that some hobbyist is going to port Honeycomb to his phone and end up with a bad user experience? If that's the case, why does Google care if someone wants to screw up his own phone? If I want to put diesel in my car because I think it would be really cool to run a gasoline powered car on diesel, the car manufacturer won't stop me even though they are certain that it will give me a very poor user experience. Sure they may void my warranty and they don't make it easy since the gas tank filler tube won't let a diesel nozzle fit in my tank, but they don't ban diesel to prevent me from having a bad user experience.
Isn't Google just delaying the source release until the release after Honeycomb which will combine the tablet version with the handset version? What's the big deal? If people are paranoid about running Honeycomb without seeing the source then they can wait until the next release.
Linking to page 1 of the article would probably be nice. Better yet, the print version.
I'm just a satisfied user of the N900, who has used Maemo, Meego, and Android (Nitdroid).
It's that Android seems to be a bit overly friendly to carriers these days.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
http://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429
What is the definition of "open" today, Google...?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Parts of HoneyComb (Linux Kernel) is GPL'ed and is already available. Other bits that are not, they're free to do what they please.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
How difficult would it be for Google to put in some code to check the hardware. If it's a tablet, let it install. If not, don't. And if someone wants to remove it from the code and install it anyways, let them. It's not like they can complain about the results.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Well, I want give them some benefit of doubt for now that they still mean right with Android and that they will continue to keep it open enough (although the mentioned reason smells pretty fishy to me).
But I think this is just more strong evidence that Google was caught off-guard with the success of the iPad and rushed Honeycomb to an early release in order to have something to counter Apple.
In my mind, I think Google still was internally trying to limit Android to smaller smartphone-type devices and was still betting on ChromeOS to put on bigger-screen hardware like tablets. So I think Android was never meant to be put on tablets and Google did not want to expand Android to deal with the larger screen estate in a similar way as Apple did.
However, after seeing Apple having such success with the iPad and the carefully expanded iOS for the bigger-screen device, I think they scrambled and rushed Honeycomb together as fast as they could so they could expand Android in a somewhat similar fashion.
Right now, Honeycomb still seems to be buggy and somewhat unfinished, at least from what I gather from the Xoom reviews around the net. Other manufacturers have been slow to roll-out their Android tablets as well and the SDK was released just a few weeks before the Xoom launch, so tablet development for Android has some serious catching-up to do. Those are all good indications about the rushed state of Honeycomb to me
Now delaying the open-source release of Honeycomb in my mind indicates that the source is still a mess right now because it was so rushed and Google wants to delay it in order to stabilize everything and frankly, to remove a lot of embarrassing dirty hacks they put into their code just to get it to a sorta-shipping state.
In summary, I still think that this also shows once more that the simple "Android=Open" and "iOS=Closed" view is nowhere as black and white as some people might think. But right now, I also think this does not signal a strategic shift away from Android being open, but is more of an admission that Honeycomb was rushed to release and Google needs more time to fix its mess.
The problem google has is they don't want crap devices running honeycomb and giving it a bad name. So why not release the code, but copyright the name "honeycomb" and "android". Sell those only to platforms meeting google specs. rename the actual code base "cheap dogpoo". So some maker of crap-tablets can't dillute the honeycomb brand appeal.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
'creating a really bad user experience.'
So far the android modding community (which is fucking awesome i might add) has done alot to improve that over stock.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I think the rationale is the same as apple's How do you force people to use your blessed API rather than calling kernel routines directly? Windows sucked for ages because people would try to get more performance by calling undocumented handles. Remember all the "terminate and stay resident" apps that would intercept the keyboard hooks as a way to multi-task themselves in a non-multi-tasking environment? Not only did the added hooks conflict but every new release of windows broke half your apps and you got pissed an Bill gates not the app maker. So you want people to use your defined process as apple enforces and google is now backdooring by this move.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Your comments do pretty much sum it up. There is nothing wrong with a corporation looking out for their best interests. But when they enjoy bashing their competitors over the head with "open" frequently, they better back those insults up with actions on their side. Keeping Honeycomb closed well over a month after the first tier tablets shipped with it isn't "open".
WebOS is also "open", and 2.1.0 was released on March 14th. The source code is also available, not sure when it's posted, but already thats sooner then people have their hands on shipping Honeycomb code.
It's almost comical seeing the conspiracy theories in some of these comments.
While on one hand they are totally stretching their good will with the open source community which they benefit from, the most obvious reason is detailed in the submitters comments. Occam's razor, etc etc etc.
As someone who spends much time hanging out on the XDA developer forums I can promise that the second that source gets released within hours every popular Android handset out there will have a ROM ready for flashing...There are rips from different model/brand/language/era/device type/etc available for deconstruction and flashing for nearly every Android device out there. Being the curious geek that I am I try nearly all of them (before going back to CM every time)...and most of them have just as wonky a user experience as can be expected.
Seeing as how Honeycomb is intended primarily (or even exclusively) for tablets I'd imagine it's UI elements (among other things) are absolutely not going to be the best implementation available for 3-4" screens.
While this is clearly not the best sign of good will towards the open source community, I'm sure the source will be out once something newer is out for the modders and developers to play with...Having the absolutely latest version (no matter how many points are in the version number) is like crack to some of these people. They forget all about Honeycomb with Ice Cream available...
Seems more like a whole lot of people at Google never considered this until it was too late...hopefully this lights a fire under their asses to get Ice Cream out quicker to unify the platform.
A lot of android is not under the GPL or LGPL. But some parts are. I have contributed code to android which has been accepted and included in their main branch. Never have I assigned my copyright to google. They need to make the source for the GPL/LGPL parts available and they haven't.
The way I took this, they have a bastard mobile OS that is feature complete for tablets but not for smartphones.
It sounds like they're waiting to tighten those features up. I, personally, prefer that to them released something they feel is incomplete.
No sig for you!!
Their business model is built around image as much search algorithms. There are plenty of search engines, do no evil and open source support is a big part of why people use google vs all the other evil monsters.
The 'no evil' image of google is largely (entirely?) built upon a structure of open platforms, codecs, technologies, etc. Locking up Honeycomb to give proprietary vendors a headstart in the market and burning everyone who bought 2.2 tablets capable of running 3.0 in anticipation of this release is evil with a capital "E".
Their business model is built around image as much search algorithms. There are plenty of search engines, do no evil and open source support is a big part of why people use google vs all the other evil monsters.
How so? Their biggest products like Google Search, Gmail, Google Docs, SketchUp aren't open source. Their image isn't built around open source at all.
They must be SO embarrassed!
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
products != image
Their products are yet another search engine, yet another webmail app, yet another office clone, yet another instant messaging app. Google has decent products but their reputation isn't built on having the best of the best solutions it is built on being an ethical company that builds a strong hacker friendly community around products that are decent and funded in a way that makes them available to the masses.
This effectively closes the android for tablets platform entirely. It violates ethics by burning people who bought 3.0 ready hardware in good faith. No source, no hacker friendly environment, no community involvement. Without their community there is no Google.
They certainly don't have anything I can't live without. I have a brand new android tablet, myself, my wife, and the kids all have top end android based phones. Frankly I find the blackberry provides better compatibility with my work applications and the iPhone provides a better app experience including Netflix streaming. I bought this stuff because the android system WAS an open hacker friendly platform built and backed by a company that has a long standing history of supporting open technologies.
products != image
I didn't say it was, you said that open source support is a big part of why people use google, yet - as i showed you - google's major projects aren't open source.
Google very often supports open specs, open standards and visible APIs, but those aren't of any bias to OSS or proprietary software.
The reason is simple: Google doesn't want a tide of cheap Android 3.0 tablets coming from low-cost Chinese manufacturers. You can already buy WiFi-only Android 2.x tablets for less than $150, and many of them are pretty reasonable devices.
They want to give HTC and Motorola a little time to make some money. And, frankly, I don't blame them: Android tablets really need a lot of brand recognition, advertising and marketing in order to compete with the iPad 2. A tide of cheap, mediocre Chinese tablets would kill the platform before it catches on.
products != image
I didn't say it was, you said that open source support is a big part of why people use google, yet - as i showed you - google's major projects aren't open source. Google very often supports open specs, open standards and visible APIs, but those aren't of any bias to OSS or proprietary software.
Nobody is asking Google to open source Pagerank. However, a number of us are reminding Google of its symbiotic dependency on the free and open developer community. Should Google elect to turn its back, that is the time to dump your stock and move on to another company less likely to make a mess in its own bed.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Modbombing the truth here doesn't make things any better.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You mean like how Apple makes decisions based on protecting the user experience? Funny how that worked out, isn't it. Actually predictable though, Google has had the photocopiers on for quite a while now, might as well copy one more thing.
Then sue them. Enjoy playing with their lawyers :)
In order to make their deadlines I feel they basically used some very sloppy and undocumented code. As a result they are now going through and polishing up the code, fixing bugs and improving it to work without all sorts of crazy hacks. Why do I feel this is the real reason? Well look at all the stability issues reported for Android on the Xoom. Many people claimed to experience multiple lockups per day with the initial 3.0 release of Honeycomb. Now 3.0.1 is out and while said to be better is still lacking a lot of polish and as some reviews put it "We feel like we are using a pre-production device". If I had to guess? I'd say by the time 3.1 comes out we will see the source code hit AOSP. While I do disagree with Google on their decision to delay the source code release, I am hoping it isn't a long delay.
You're nitpicking his words instead of dealing with his actual point. Being a major open source participant is a large part of Google's image, and that image is a large part of why people use them. I'm sure that you yourself have likely made posts about how Android is better than iOS due to openness vs closedness.
Even early on, Google was lauded for using BSD and Linux for their servers. And now Chrome, Android, and WebM get talked up for being open source. This is somewhat ironic given how closed most of those things actually are.
Read the GPL again. They have to make the source code available to those who they distributed the software to, which in this case is the manufacturers. It is the manufacturers responsibility to distribute the source code for the open source projects that require it to people who purchase the software.
So far Motorola has not put the xoom kernel and packages on their opensource site, but it'll happen eventually. There is usually a little delay.
This news about Google is simply saying they will not release the entire Android source on the AOSP, which is not required (they don't even have to release the GPL bits to the AOSP). I do think this may negatively impact future contributions.
Nice post, except: "BSD and Linux for their servers"... you can cross out BSD there.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
You're nitpicking his words instead of dealing with his actual point. Being a major open source participant is a large part of Google's image, and that image is a large part of why people use them.
Like who? most of their customers - people who use their search product - likely have no idea nor care what open source is.
I'm sure that you yourself have likely made posts about how Android is better than iOS due to openness vs closedness.
Why would i do that? just because something is open doesn't make it any better.