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Android Honeycomb Will Not Be Open Sourced
At the ongoing Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Google today officially announced the next version of Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich, as well as Android 3.1, an "incremental platform release" of Honeycomb.
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to understand the landscape for developers, Andy Rubin was asked if, since Ice Cream Sandwich would be open, Android 3.0 and/or 3.1 will be granted the same courtesy. Rubin answered definitively in the negative. Honeycomb on its own would not be open, because its phone functionality is very broken. Ice Cream Sandwich will take all of the Honeycomb functionality and open source it alongside code that is much more universally friendly."
Honeycomb is big, ya ya ya
It's not small, no no no
Honeycomb has a big big bite
Big big taste in a big big bite.
Be seeing you...
hide behind your chosen pseudonym some more feeb
you're completely pathetic
I remember a while ago when Google announced Honeycomb would not be open sourced for the time being. A lot of people on Slashdot were unsurprisingly up in arms and, equally unsurprisingly, for all the wrong reasons. From a FOSS standpoint it's a terrible move on their part, but what many didn't understand was the reasoning:
Android has an extremely vast community of amateurs that create custom builds of AOSP. These are people with little to no coding experience, distributing specialized "ROMs" to an even greater amount of curious users who are barely a shade above the average user. So what would happen if Honeycomb were opened? There'd be a very quick uptake by those users and, given the Tablet oriented state of Honeycomb, a really really bad user experience. As pretty as Honeycomb is, that would have reflected badly on Google -- worse than what many jumping the gun on /. thought when Google initially delayed the source release.
With that in mind, I'm glad that they are deferring the code until Ice Cream Sandwich where it seems they will "do it right."
Highlight of the day for me was the ability for an android app to connect to my home appliances termed Android@Home Anything from a light bulb to the sprinkler system outside. Of course the manufacturers of specific household items will have to work closely with android to deliver on the hardware side but as was demonstrated on live stream today, it can and has been done already. Kudos to those companies that are getting on board.
Also to note, a lot of the tools like the movie rentals from the marketplace will be backward compatible in the coming months as well as the developer tools like fragments all the way back to Android 1.6. And unless i missed anything, everything will be open source.
Can they not remove the telephony stuff ? ...
... trust in the crowd
They are worried that people will put together 2.3 source with honeycomb and make a phone out of it
Geeez guys, just let it out
Google open source is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.
These comments seem very much to indicate that the source code issue, as I think most people expected, is less of a "we don't want people using this code for their purposes" and more of a "we think this code is horrible and don't want anyone laughing at it." That really suggests that, rather than be upset about the lack of open sources, people should be concerned as to why Google felt it reasonable to release software they're reluctant to release sources to because they're embarrassed.
Open source also opens organizations to criticism when they try to push out code that isn’t ready, and I think this is very much a problem for Google with Honeycomb.
That's exactly how I'm reading it too. So it's ok to run this pile of garbage code, but not good enough to look at and quite possibly improve. Does that make it official that Google just doesn't 'get it' when it comes to open source?
Google fell prey to a manufacturer. If I read and understood correctly, the current state of honeycomb was put together to get the XOOM tablet out by its launch date.
During the Android Fireside Chat this afternoon, Google’s Dan Morill explained a bit more about the situation. As the bits and pieces that make up Android 3.1 get added into the next version, and the brand new bits that will come together and make this unifying UI get implemented, it will be appropriate to release Android Source. So, quite definitively, Android for tablets will not be open sourced until it’s been fixed to Google’s standards. There’s little information as to whether or not these, in combination with the new fragmentation initiative, will ensure that current Android 3.0 devices will be brought into the open source times or not. More and more it’s beginning to feel like the Android 3.0 concept was little more than a knee-jerk reaction to have something, even if it’s not a great something, to stay within reach of the competition, with Ice Cream Sandwich being the resolving fix to the mistake.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
there's also the possibility of it still not making its way out of the testing gauntlet - they'll have tested it on tablets, and it'll no doubt run on phones, but if a user has a nightmare of a time getting it to work for their phone, Google suffers and more importantly the users suffer.
So basically, no up to date source code for almost an entire year. Yay!
That really suggests that, rather than be upset about the lack of open sources, people should be concerned as to why Google felt it reasonable to release software they're reluctant to release sources to because they're embarrassed.
Like many others in the tablet arena Google rushed something to market in order to stake out some early market share. Seems like we keep hearing similar stories. At least Honeycomb won't make it onto this.
I'm not well-versed in Android, nor a lawyer, but I do know that if you release anything that uses modified GPL code, you have to release the code under the GPL as well. And I find it hard to believe that Android didn't modify any of the GNU/Linux/whatever code they used. Anyone more knowledgeable in the subject care to comment?
Like Apple and MS building a user base, open with was young generations bait.
Now that an average developer is using their systems, this could be a test, just how closed can Google go?
As for quality, this is the efforts of a for profit effort with strong branding and open code connections.
Why the functionality gap? Its their code, they are funded... Did the ipad2 cpu/gpu jump their roadmap? Has Windows suddenly got better in some area?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
At least Honeycomb won't make it onto this.
Shut up before Viewsonic interprets your post as a challenge!
#DeleteChrome
if Google is embarrassed with the code why not open source it so that the community might modify it and make it better ? The strength on an open source system lies in the ability of participants to contribute to the work done. Maybe even Cyanogen might make good modifications to the stock Android 3.0 source to improve on it
Well, remember, Google is bleeding top developers to places like Facebook and other startups since it has grown substantially and most likely doesn't have the startup mentality anymore. Releasing poor code provides as much of a job preview as a resume does for an employer. It doesn't make them look good, especially when Microsoft and Google are going through their largest hiring push ever this year.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
Replying to yourself as AC? Bizarre.
This is not a surprise to anyone, just look at the log during boot up. /etc/gps Location service etc,,
I knew this would never be opened the day it came out
If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick.
Open source also opens organizations to criticism when they try to push out code that isnâ(TM)t ready, and I think this is very much a problem for Google with Honeycomb.
I suspect the code is functional but poorly architected. As they say, "first you write the code, then you understand it, then you re-write it." If there's a major rewrite underway, it's at least good to tell developers to expect that any of their changes would rapidly bitrot, and not to spend too much time trying to augment this version.
At least that's the impression I get from folks who are really happy with their Nook Colors on Gingerbread - if it were buggy they'd likely be complaining.
Still, they Google to release the code so that we can verify that the binaries are not compromised through recompilation. That's the only way to validate a platform as base-level secure these days.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I thought it was a huge, lame excuse when I first heard it, but since then I've been disassembling portions of Honeycomb to see what I can find. Of course you can't tell everything from disassembled binaries, but you can tell the basic organization and function names etc. I give it as my (not so) humble opinion that the Honeycomb codebase may very well be quite scattered and an inexcusable mess.
So now I still think it's a huge lame excuse, but perhaps one with some truth. Android devs in general don't know how to organize their code (though they are good at keeping it bug free).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Now I want an Ice Cream Sandwich.
$CompanyOtherThanGoogle has announced they will not release their source, based heavily on GPL code, until they, and only they decide its "ready".
Replace the Google with Redhat, and Android with "Enterprise Linux 6.1" and see how many people start getting upset, threaten to boycott, etc..
why is it okay when Google does it?
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Before he said any of that, he said you have to understand the nature of git: When they release Ice Cream Sandwich, the Honeycomb source will be in the patch history. What they may not bother to do is to tag the specific commit of Honeycomb.
But once Ice Cream Sandwich is released, I have no idea who the fuck would care about Honeycomb; the only reason would be for a device that had proprietary drivers that never updates to Ice Cream Sandwich, but that could be solved pretty easily by just pinning the kernel release to Honeycomb and taking the rest of ice cream.
All this hand-wringing over Honeycomb is fucking annoying at this point. Get over it.
"The right to do something does not mean doing it is right." William Safire
It makes Google your standard large-scale code factory, producing sub-standard crap and sticking a "proprietary code" stamp on it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And what, Facebook isn't a pile of steaming shit under the hood? Come on, everything is in perpetual beta these days. Hell, Google practically pioneered the never-quite-completed software model. Everyone is writing crap code in the consumer and even in the corporate markets, and in actuality they always have, being able to hide the pure horror of what their code monkeys have produced behind the edifice of IP rights, well, that at and optimized compilers and assemblers, so that all the shit is squashed together so tight that it's sheer awfulness is hidden in machine code.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Still, they Google to release the code so that we can verify that the binaries are not compromised through recompilation. That's the only way to validate a platform as base-level secure these days.
Read "Reflections on Trusting Trust"--Ken Thompson (found at http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html ) to learn how recompiling code does NOT validate security. Then read the earlier Air Force article in the link at the end of Thompson's article. Then consider how BIOS and other firmware, and even CPU microcode patches might contain malicious vulnerabilities. You want certain security? Then don't even think about it, much less record it anywhere. ;)
-- Jeff Woods
Then of course this proves that Google is not creating software that is meant to be used by the community. It is creating software for a specific prorpietary hardware manufacture, and then, if other manufacturers behave, will release the code to them. Like Apple, only the kernal/stack is OSS while all the stuff that makes the phone cool to use requires Google blessing. One can't use competing product like would be possible with true OSS software. One can't rework the product to meet end users needs. The phone exists to serve the interests of Google and the mobile provider, just like any average proprietary phone. Sure the Android can be broken in to just like any other phone, but why should this be necessary for an allegedly open phone. And sure Apps can be downloaded from any site, but if google were fully open to open source why would they not want to hast any software that wasn't malicious?
At the end of the day if Android were in fact open source and in fact freely available, none of the Google equivocating would be necessary..
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I run gingerbread on a hacked Nook Color and it runs great, albeit with some phone crap that is useless since it isn't a phone.
I tried the hacked up version of Honeycomb Preview (not quite the real deal) and saw nothing that was all that compelling; I did have a lot of force closes and crashes though.
Gingerbread is SOLID on the tablet.
Reading this does lead me to think the problems with the hacked release of Honeycomb Preview are not due to the community so much as the screwed up original code. Which is why the source isn't to be released.
While I could wish many things- like having the CyanogenMod team be hired by Google!- I think this decision may actually be the right thing to do. Google says the code is flawed still so they don't want to release it.
I am sure that those more knowledgeable about the legal ramifications will deal with the situation and I hope that whatever accommodations should be made to satisfy the licensing (if any) WILL be made.
I don't expect Google to not be "evil"- they are a big company, so some amount of that is to be expected.
I do hope that they never forget what helped get them into their position and FOSS code was a pretty big part of that.
Do the ad-based stuff you need to, evil though it may be, but honor the code licenses, Google.
Linux computers, watercooled, photography
These comments seem very much to indicate that the source code issue, as I think most people expected, is less of a "we don't want people using this code for their purposes" and more of a "we think this code is horrible and don't want anyone laughing at it."
So it's the Malda excuse?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
http://twitter.com/#!/arubin/status/27808662429
So has his definition changed or have we always been at war with Eastasia?
Timothy would post something titled "Google fails to cure AIDS".
It seems Google is worried Honeycomb being used in phones even though it is created to be used in tablets. Which is not saying closing the source is the right thing to do, though. Would it be too hard to rip out the phone related stuff from Honeycomb and then re-integrate it later when it's finished?
That really suggests that, rather than be upset about the lack of open sources, people should be concerned as to why Google felt it reasonable to release software they're reluctant to release sources to because they're embarrassed.
Would embarrassing source lead to embarrassing object code: either hard to maintain, buggy, or with security holes?
/80sChildhoodNostalgia
Linux has an extremely vast community of amateurs that create custom distros of Linux. These are people with little to no coding experience, distributing specialized "distros" to an even greater amount of curious users who are barely a shade above the average user. So what would happen if Linux were opened? There'd be a very quick uptake by those users and, given the desktop oriented state of Linux, a really really bad user experience. As pretty as Linux is, that would have reflected badly on FOSS -- worse than what many jumping the gun on /. thought when Google initially delayed the source release.
Bummer.. over the years, with all the contributions that Google has given to OSS (and received from it). What happened here? This is silly, they KNOW the benefits of keeping code open. How can anyone argue "we won't open the code because it's "broken"?" If I could name all the great open source projects that had "broken" code when they started and now are incredible I would.. let's just name a few: The Linux Kernel, Apache (a "patchy" web server.. name says it all), snort, and on and on an on.... What better way to foster development and maturity of code than to open it to the community?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
No. Just no. What they can say is that "Google refuses to release embarrassing code to a world of incompetents who could potentially ruin Android's reputation by shoehorning Honeycomb into devices it was never meant to be shoehorned into". Sometimes openness just needs to take a backseat in order to protect reputation.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Down with app stores. Up with app repositories!
Google can not attack with copyrights, because the proprietary parts would be rewritten. Copyright only protects the particular expression of ideas not ideas themselves.
Google cannot attack with patents because Google is a member of OIN, (Open Inventions Network). If Google were to attempt to leave OIN, it would expose itself to attack from the proprietary world!
It's like they're trying to destroy their own products
I think choosing android 3 to be for tablets instead of forking it and
Name it something else is a beginners mistake
These comments seem very much to indicate that the source code issue, as I think most people expected, is less of a "we don't want people using this code for their purposes" and more of a "we think this code is horrible and don't want anyone laughing at it." That really suggests that, rather than be upset about the lack of open sources, people should be concerned as to why Google felt it reasonable to release software they're reluctant to release sources to because they're embarrassed.
Open source also opens organizations to criticism when they try to push out code that isn’t ready, and I think this is very much a problem for Google with Honeycomb.
The reason they chose to release it is because it is targeted at tablets which don't have phone functionality. It's the phone-related portions which are garbage, and as they've already stated we all know the second they release the code the ROM community will try to put out a build for smartphones, and then everybody will bitch about how shitty it is.
This is complete bullshit. If reputation is more important to Google than openness, they shouldn't call themselves an advocate of openness, and neither should their supporters. It's not supposed to matter what other people choose to do with the code. That was supposed to be the "freedom" aspect of open source.
I understand them and appreciate it. If you put some code out which has something fundamental unsettled (e.g. a phone functionality for something which may be used for mobile phones), then you are not only encouraging fragmentation but enforcing it. Because the manufacturers will enter a race to have "the first android 3.0 phones" (while i personally find 2.2/2.3 quite ok for phones), and then the developers will probably even have different APIs for different manufacturers.
Open source does not mean that you publish everything you are doing all the time, but open source means that you publish the steps which make sense as open source. As long as they dont claim that, everybody can decide if he/she likes to buy a closed source product or not.
ofcource.. ONLY GOOGLE hires competent people. NO ONE could POSSIBLY improve on their perfect base or put out a good product based on it. Poor google...
I sincerely hope you're getting paid for this because the alternative is that you are a retard... not that there is any shortage of those on this site.
That's the real problem that I see, but apparently the apologists do not. How can embarrassingly bad code--bad enough to compel them to fight against a potential PR nightmare rather than release it--actually inspire confidence in the robustness of the end product?
If Google say that Honeycomb source is crap, they are saying any product using it is crap. That should serve as a warning to all those early adopters opting for a Xoom or Galaxy Tab 10.1
Spinning this as some sort of personal obsession for perfection ignores the direct correlation between source code and object code, and the fact that this alleged obsession did not prevent them from knowingly releasing an unpolished or unfinished software as a commercial product hoping that nobody notices.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
That may be true (and I agree), but Facebook started after Google. It is Google's Microsoft Moment now. Facebook will get its chance soon enough.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Is Android object-code or byte-code? If the former, how does disassembling the machine code gives you insight into the "basic organization and function names"?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Isn't this exactly why the phrase "technical debt" makes sense? Google has decided to get into technical debt so they can get to market early. They then will presumably re-pay this debt as soon as possible. They just don't want people basing work off this short term nasty stuff.
I imagine we have all worked at places that are always racking up technical debt but I'm not sure this is true of Google.
All this locking down of code, and avoiding the GPLv3, and all based on the Linux kernel?
Let me be the first to say: FUCK GOOGLE.
I don't want "Open" to be a matter of opinion. Seriously. "Do no evil.": Corporate window dressing of a foul and clearly evil leviathan that has now taken over the entire market.
Absolute Power corrupts ABSOLUTELY. Hail the new Apple/Microsoft/Standard Oil!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Right, because embarrassing source code cannot possibly lead to embarrassing object code that is mitigated by mere obscurity.
Of course, since it's Google, this is A Good Thing.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Yeah, right. That's the reason.
These comments seem very much to indicate that the source code issue, as I think most people expected, is less of a "we don't want people using this code for their purposes" and more of a "we think this code is horrible and don't want anyone laughing at it.
But that describes nearly all computer code.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
It makes Google your standard large-scale code factory, producing sub-standard crap and sticking a "proprietary code" stamp on it.
Best comment so far!
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
They say as much:
...More and more it's beginning to feel like the Android 3.0 concept was little more than a knee-jerk reaction to have something, even if it;s not a great something, to stay within reach of the competition, with Ice Cream Sandwich being the resolving fix to the mistake.
Right. Given the buzz that Honeycomb was a rush job I was not expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is, stable too.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
WTF? Why is this summary so far off-base? The short version, FTFA:
"..merge Android 3.1 and Android 2.3 into..."
"..which will be called Ice Cream Sandwich.."
"...open source it alongside code that is much more universally friendly."
3.1 *is* Honeycomb. 3.0 *is* Honeycomb. Google *is* open sourcing it. No, 3.0 will not be released for public consumption.
The Xoom (running 3.0) is slated for an update to 3.1in May sometime. AFAIK, this is the only device running 3.0 out there so 3.0 will basically be deprecated.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Sometimes openness just needs to take a backseat in order to protect reputation.
That argument, often repeated, is right up there with "think of the children".
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Well, duh. Google is a for-profit corporation. Openness is good for them insofar as it's good for their profits. I can't recall anyone claiming that Google was the FSF.
And to think we somehow thought maybe they were better than everybody else...
Well, iPad sales are terrifying everyone else because they don't have anything comparable. Strategies they've tried so far:
1) "In six months we'll have a product that's as good as anything Apple is selling...er...now" (Everyone)
2) "Hey, an iPad's just a big iPhone, right? So if we make a big Android phone..." (Samsung)
3) "I don't care that it's not finished, put the bloody thing in the stores right now" (Moto, RIM, and now Google it seems)
4) "We'll put it out when we're damn well ready to! " (HP)
None of these is working too well for them, they get no comfort from Apple's supply chain problems, and so their panic is increasing. Even though I'm an Apple Fanboi, I'm kinda hoping something works for them soon because I'm scared of what they might try next.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
"We screwed up baaaadly - and we are too embarrassed to show how lame our code was" is pretty much the definition. If they patch it all up so it works and is opensourced, good for them. If not - time to go an' get our pitchforks.
So let me get this straight, last week Honeycomb was the bombdiggity of mobile OSes, an now that it's proprietary, it's an embarrassment? I think maybe, just maybe with that attitude the open source community is the source of embarrassment for Google, rather than the code.
They don't care what you think, so long as you buy the product. Fact is if you could do better, you'd have done so, power of open source and all that jazz.
"Google refuses to release embarrassing code to a world of incompetents who could potentially ruin Android's reputation by shoehorning Honeycomb into devices it was never meant to be shoehorned into". Sometimes openness just needs to take a backseat in order to protect reputation.
Seems like Google doesn't have any problem providing the Motorola's, Samsungs and LG's of the world with this 'embarrassing code' and let them sell half-baked, buggy devides running an OS that nobody can modify or improve with. Apparently 'protecting their reputation' means a lot more to them than user experience for their customers, or being 'open'.
I really don't care the least bit about what Google does with the Honeycomb sourcecode, probably they are right about holding it back because it was a rush job and not pretty to look at. That said, I think we can all safely put the hollow 'Android open, Android free!' nonsense behind us. Android is only open to the manufacturers and carriers, and Google has its priorities with them, not with you who was suckered into buying a tablet running beta software.
I'm still amazed that so many people keep up with this, if I pay $500 for a device that is not explicitly marketed as beta, as a curiosity for the adventurous, I expect it to work as advertised, including the software. If the software is so messy even Google doesn't want you to see it, ffing clean it up and make it better, before selling products based on it.
Bytecode mostly, because it runs in dalvik
Ah, so Google thinks you're smart enough to handle the Android code and make them look good for being "open" until you're too stupid to handle the Honeycomb code? Admit it, Google's idea of open was never one that the FOSS community ever embraced before Android came along.
And nothing of value was lost. Honeycomb is the kludgiest of their creations so far.
And more comments about cereal than anything else. Way to go slashtards.
I don't think anyone would object to that... but it's not what they decided to do.
I don't get it anymore...
How selective people can get with criticism and how utterly unfair and IMO: narrow minded. When Sun had well established a good Java coder base and also allowed you to view the entire source code all this was done with a small limitation: you had to agree to their license that you wouldn't (ab)use the codebase for other commercial purposes (like creating your own Java and selling it).
But no; this wasn't good enough. Java couldn't be added to Linux, it would give major issues adding this to repositories and most of all you heard voices stating time and time again that the whole policy was unfair, that you couldn't look at the code (which was not true) and so couldn't determine if and how safe everything was. Heck; it would even affect Java developers on Linux to no end, the horror!
Bottom line: Sun proclaimed they were into open source yet they didn't opensource their flag product. So they must be lying, evil and hold their own agenda.
And here we have the almost exact opposite at work. A company which heavily shouts and proclaims that they're into open source, that they support open source and they even sell the Android project as such.
Yet when I talk to Android developers I always hear that the project is by far as open as they want to make you believe. That access to the entire code base is a fake; its limited and the code base which is available is incomplete. The SDK's however are available, but that's hardly important wrt something being open source.
Next there's the copyright issue; an Oracle claim that Google copied a lot from Java instead of developing stuff on their own.
Yet despite all those issues you hardly hear anything negative about them. I was almost come to believe that abusing the name "open source" was a major sin one committed. But am I right to conclude that this only goes for certain companies and individuals.
Surely companies who keep on proclaiming to "do no evil" should be excuses from not following the open source licenses and issues to the letter "because" ?
I don't get it anymore. Better yet; I think I do get it, but don't like what I'm seeing.
You seem less angry than normal. Does this mean you finally got that cock which your ass has been craving so badly?
Why would any company release an unfinished product that's clearly not ready for mass adoption. Is this about being "open" or "responsible".
IMHO, Seems like a responsible thing to do unlike this statement " Google is failing to make good on that whole “we’re open” thing."
Las Vegas Foreclosures
So Google is not saying screw you to open source, its saying "This version shouldnt be inflicted on the open source community because it would
do too much damage to our companys reputation." I bet Ubuntu is wishing they had done that with Ubuntu 11.04
Thus we see (yet again) that RMS was right, even though he sounds like an old cook.
Ok, so by that yardstick, why all the fuss about Apple being "late" (by a month) in releasing the Webkit changes? Yesterday everyone was telling me that they shouldn't have shipped running binaries until they were ready to release the code, as the GPL requires. (which in my opinion Apple absolutely needs to get sorted immediately)
Now because it's Android and Google they get a pass on that? If they shipped a working tablet then the source code needs to be out there *right now* - that was the whole point of Android in comparison to iOS, I thought?
Remarkable, but unsurprising doublespeak on /.
If it wasn't ready, they shouldn't have released it on the Xoom, but they realised that the "soon, we will have an iPad killer" was getting into a sort of Duke Nukem Forever situation, with Apple one-upping them with the iPad 2 before Android was anywhere close to ready to take them on properly.
I don't buy it. Google may not be able to knock fortress Facebook off its pedestal, but I see little evidence that Facebook is going to be able to go after Google's core services. Google has a ways to go before it hits its Microsoft moment.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
First of all, are these necessarily the same people? Remember that people discuss stories that interest them. Second, Apple is violating GPL by not releasing the source. Google is NOT violating the Apache 2 license, because it does not require them to release the source. Third, and by far the weakest argument, is that Google and Apple have different motivations for not releasing the code. Honestly, I'm not sure I buy that, but it's possible to argue.
Personally I will avoid any Honeycomb-based tablet (and iOS tablet as well) because they are not open source, but I don't hate Google and am fine with using open source versions of Android.
...or how you get three towers to fall straight down when it is a royal bitch to pull that off even with controlled demolition...
Wait, so, you're saying that because it's extremely difficult to accomplish that using a controlled demolition, it must have been a controlled demolition? Um... what?
Sounds like they did some hard-coding to the XOOM specs and will be making up for it later.
As for the embarrassment factor, Microsoft has been following the same policy for years and the world hasn't exploded yet. Not for lack of effort, mind you. ;)
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
I've always felt that Android's "openness" was merely to garner goodwill from those who support real, community-driven open source projects. As in, it's not really open but it's closer than Apple's closed model so hopefully people will rally behind this. And, if you think about it, it's actually a very savvy marketing technique. By obfuscating the fact that the consumer is the actual product (marketing demographics), Google gives the impression that all of their products are both free and open.
I personally think Google is doing this to prevent people from using Honeycomb as a base in a project since they plan to make Ice Cream Sandwich in Q4 2011, which will be for both phones and tablets. I believe they are doing this to prevent fragmentation and personally as long as they release Ice Cream Sandwich code I am alright with this.
Except this one is not baseless. I said it before, and I will say it again: a company's first allegiance is to its shareholders, and its first priority is to turn a profit. In fact, that is the only thing a company is SUPPOSED to do, no more, no less. Anything else, such as being a freedom fighter for bits, comes at the expense of profit, and is best left to the civil sphere, which may or may not be funded by companies.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
That's why I code at night.
Unfortunately, GPLv3 doesn't give you that kind of leeway. You can't say, "Oh no's! We has bad code. No lookie!" If that were allowed to happen, EVERY vendor would use that same cry to mask their TiVO-ization. If you want to do damage control, admit the reason the code is in awful shape because you are meeting the artificial deadline of a manufacturer and be done with it. At least then the community has the opportunity to start hacking away at some horrendous code and they won't feel like they're getting BOHICA'd.
--If you code for the exceptions, the rules fall into place
I don't think it's so much about embarrassment; it's more about providing a stable target for other developers. Google doesn't want to have to deal with people building software on top of a foundation that they're just going to rip out and replace with a better one in the next version. They don't want to support APIs that aren't solid yet.
--Bruce (who is not speaking for himself, not for Google)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
You must not be a programmer.
I've written a lot of code that I'm perfectly confident in using, that I know works, that I've sold to clients, that I would never want another programmer to see. Stuff that I would like to reorganize and clean up, but haven't done yet given time and money constraints. Things where I know the code would be easier to read and maintain if I refactored my class structures, or used a different/newer API, or used a new trick/feature of the language that I didn't know when I started the project. However, none of those deficiencies imply anything about the code's functionality.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
The parts I was looking at were object code. Any function names, or other names, that are exported for linking are preserved. Unless they use some sort of weird obfuscation, functions are also preserved.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think Google does understand what it really takes to participate in Free and Open Source software projects. However, they sometimes choose not to do so or not do it properly. That was clearly what happened with Honeycomb. I think this announcement confirms that they understood it was a mistake and trying to correct it.
Ok, so by that yardstick, why all the fuss about Apple being "late" (by a month) in releasing the Webkit changes? Yesterday everyone was telling me that they shouldn't have shipped running binaries until they were ready to release the code, as the GPL requires. (which in my opinion Apple absolutely needs to get sorted immediately)
Now because it's Android and Google they get a pass on that?
No, Google doesn't get a pass; Google didn't screw this up. Google released all of GPL'd code for Honeycomb. It's only the Apache-licensed code which wasn't released -- as is allowed by the license. Google didn't violate any licenses, even for a short time.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I remember not having xnu kernel source code was one of the limitations of early 32-bit only releases of Intel Mac OS X 10.4.
Guess it's lucky Android is licensed under the Apache licence and not the GPL, huh? Apart from the kernel of course, the modifications to which they have published.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Pretty and maintainable code != bug free code. There is a correlation after the software is in maintenance mode for at least a year.
And Facebook itself lost a LOT of high profile developers recently. Big companies have that tendency, with Google having a better overall retention.
As a Xoom owner, I dare say that this is extremely likely, judging from my experience.
Don't get me wrong, I love the openness and features, but stability and perf are early beta-ish. I get way more stock app force closes on this thing than I see on my Windows desktop.
Have you tried posting anything on Slashdot from Honeycomb's stock web browser?
For me, even the scrolling is noticeably slow, but as soon as I tap the edit field, the lag is really horrible - it's processing input at one char per second or so. Ditto on XDA forums, only there simple scrolling is even slower.
I have to use Opera Mobile on Xoom for now for anything Slashdot related.
Well, remember, Google is bleeding top developers ... especially when Microsoft ... are going through their largest hiring push ever this year.
Are you serious?
How about "let's make a device with hardware better than in iPad 2, but price it like the old iPad" (Asus)?
Yes, this is selling right now. Or, rather, completely sold out right now because they underestimated the demand.
a company's first allegiance is to its shareholders, and its first priority is to turn a profit. In fact, that is the only thing a company is SUPPOSED to do, no more, no less.
A company that wants to sell to me will have to do a little more than that. Just saying.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
When are they ever going to run out of names for Android?
I am a complete Apple fanboy. Don't argue with me about Apple.
Indeed. When you control the trade marks, you can stop people calling things 'Android' in the same way you can stop people calling a Windows based device 'Android'. If crappy code or hardware is giving your brand a bad reputation, you need to be more proactive about protecting it.
That device looks awesome. I hadn't even seen it before. Maybe I should get out from under my rock more often. Thanks for the link.
"Coffee is for closers."
Yeah, that's why I specified "base-level" secure, not "provably secure".
Security is a process, not an achievement. Yes, if the Android source is compromised and the gcc source is compromised then there could be problems. But your attack surfaces are much smaller than with closed-source software - having millions of eyes and unaffiliated contributors working on the projects is important. They can't all be bought.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
After all, it makes it easier to hide details on the data they collect...
Have you tried posting anything on Slashdot from Honeycomb's stock web browser?
For me, even the scrolling is noticeably slow, but as soon as I tap the edit field, the lag is really horrible - it's processing input at one char per second or so. Ditto on XDA forums, only there simple scrolling is even slower.
I have to use Opera Mobile on Xoom for now for anything Slashdot related.
Confirmed, Chrome browser is a complete fail for posting text to Slashdot. First, the text cursor would not go into the edit box, then when it finally did go in after a couple of minutes of trying different things, the cursor was not active, could not be moved with the cursor keys, and no text could be typed into the edit box. Complete fail. You would think posting to slashdot is something an Android dev would think of testing. Apparently not.
Pretty graphic illustration of why it is completely and utterly stupid for Google to hold Android development so close to its chest.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'm still struggling to figure out how they managed it. I mean, Slashdot works fine on desktop Chrome (well, as fine as Slashdot works in general, which is frankly not so much since the latest updates... but it doesn't lag for sure). Presumably WebKit and JS implementation on Android would be the same as on the desktop version, maybe a few releases beyond at most. So did they botch the renderer? Still doesn't add up, it seems to do reasonably well on various synthetic test.
Looks like a bug that makes DOM parsing or JS go haywire.
This followup comment is with Opera Mobile. Functional, but there are remaining issues. Big one: tab on the bluetooth keyboard does not move between dialog fields, which makes the login needlessly painful. How on earth did that slip through? Another big fail for Google. Google thinking they are the only guys who can code is just pure hubris.
Bottom line is, Opera seems to be survivable, Chrome browser is a big fail.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Also, not fixed in the 3.1 update, that's even harder to understand. It's not like this is a subtle issue.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?