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Chris Dibona On Free Software and Google
dkd903 wrote in with an interview with Chris Dibona in Der Standard. Within, he declares Android as "... the dream come true. It's your Linux desktop, it's the ultimate success story of Linux that I've been working on personally since 1995." There's lots of other good stuff on Google's internal use of GNU/Linux: "If you'd look at laptops it's maybe 70 percent Mac OS X and most of the rest is Linux, we are a huge customer of Apple. Engineering Desktops are overwhelmingly running on Linux. We have our own Ubuntu derivative called 'Goobuntu' internally for that, integrating with our network — we run all our the home directories from a file server — and with some extra tools already built-in for developers."
Good summary, but who's this Chris?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Why the focus on Ubuntu from Google? Is it purely marketshare driven? Calling Android a linux desktop is also a stretch. It makes for a fine portable device OS but it is nowhere near a desktop OS. It's barely usable on tablets so far.
It's a great success story for Google, I suppose. But Linux has already had massive, if quiet, successes. And it's not a huge success story for end users, who are left with devices whose drivers rot outside the kernel mainline, dependent on closed source binary blobs for hardware support that never get rebuilt as systems move on.
It's also not a huge success for GNU/Linux (or Free Software) in general, due to the almost total break from it that Google has spearheaded. Instead of a platform that exists regardless of one corporation, you have one whose existence is defined by that corporation. Difficult to fork, hard to steer in ways other than what they want and, until further notice, closed source.
Better can be done.
If you define success fairly narrowly then Android is a Linux success. But I think that most people who hoped for a successful Linux desktop in the 1990s were thinking more along the lines of expanded personal freedom in computing as the goal of "success", more than the simple number of processors running some variant of the Linux kernel. While Android is more open than the alternatives, it's doesn't really (and can't really) ever fulfill the goals of an open and free computing environment that Linux as a Free Software PC/Workstation Desktop Operating System can.
Yes, it's Linux and yet can't run almost any Linux apps.
Yes, because, if it did, it would fail. Linux has been tried and tried and tried and has never worked for consumers. The last thing FOSS/Linux advocates need is yet another iteration of Gnome/Xorg. Not to mention the fact that with a minimal amount of work, a real techie can run Linux apps on Android. I have an Ubuntu chroot on both my Xoom and my OG Droid with any Linux application just an apt-get away. It's great for command line favorites like vim, elinks, sshfs, rtorrent, etc. And since the applications are compiled for ARM, and are running on the bare metal just with a different root directory, they run at full speed. With my set-up and a few judicious bind mounts, Ubuntu is a 95 percent integrated peer with the rest of the system.
I could run graphical applications like Firefox, OpenOffice, gedit, etc. with the VNC viewer and I do from time to time when I'm bored but when I do, I see why Android is not just another Linux distro. Desktop apps don't work on a touchscreen device. Period. That's why MS has been a dismal failure in tablets for a decade and the iPad has just steamrolled them. So, why would Goog want to repeat that mistake?
Also, what good is it that you guys use Linux and Goobuntu internally when you horde most of your changes?
If they don't ship the code, they don't have to ship the changes. Read the GPL. Now, for the open licensed code they do ship, if you read the article, you will see they have released something like 20+ million lines of source. That is not hording changes.
Sounds like a company who leverages FOSS yet only sends back a few breadcrumbs to placate the masses.
Sounds like you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
... or at least, not very hard. The profit they'd lose if roughly 21,000 Google employees got pissed off and switched to Linux is no small amount of money, even for Apple. Not to mention the PR nightmare. It totally makes sense now.
I know some people hate the GNU/Linux remarks of Stallman but he is correct. If you are talking about Linux being more then just a kernel then you got to take GNU into account and all that comes with it. Ubuntu is what it is because it comes with a CD or even DVD full of FREE utilities most of them more then adequate to replace expensive and not so expensive windows applications. I have seen many people compare the cost of windows (comes "free" with the OS) with the cost of Linux, free to download. But they forget the countless tools you are expected to pay for on the Windows platform. No, using free opensource application on Windows does not count, if you want to argue opensource vs closed source costs you cannot lower closed source costs by using opensource.
So, how does this relate to Android? Simple, CHECK the market place vs Ubuntu package manager and see just how much installing applications costs you. Remember that story about the Apple app store netting developers 2.5 billion and Apple itself 1 billion? Where do you think that money came from? That's right, you. Add a billion or so for the credit card companies and that is a lot of money. And for what? Apps that are available on Linux for free and INFINITELY more powerful.
But it is only a few dollars... yes... it is... only a few dollars per app that you don't own and can't modify.
And android is much the same.
So Android is linux because it runs the kernel? Odd that, I can download the source of the kernel from Ubuntu, download the compiler needed from Ubuntu, download the editor from Ubuntu and download the instructions and hints to make it all into a new kernel modified by me. For that matter, I can take Ubuntu and turn it into my own distro (see Mint) or anyone can take all the components and make something else altogether (Gentoo). Do the same with android, I dare you!
Prove me wrong about the price or openess. Download a mplayer equivelant for Android. A media player that plays virtually any codec out there for free. It doesn't exist and the few players that a tiny bit capable, all cost money despite offering less functionality then a free application.
I suppose that for some lucky people, spending a few dollars here, a few dollars there is trivial. It must be or else things like Farmville would never survive. But some of us either are opposed to being nickle and dimed to death or just can't afford it.
Be honest, how many of you got a fully decked out with pay for use software Windows machine? Winzip, payed media player etc etc etc?
I have long considered replacing my netbook with a tablet but when I see the prices charged for apps vs what is available for free on my linux install... it just doesn't make sense. Currently I am just waiting for a decent hardware tablet that I can install linux on myself. Am I a cheap bastard in not wanting to pay developers for their time and effort? Yes, yes I am. Because while I have not contributed code to the opensource effort myself I do test and do bug reports and followups. It may not be much but I prefer to be part of the open effort then the closed sourced android and especially iOS culture of squeeze them for every penny.
But I can develop my own free and opensource apps you say? Indeed I can, except I am web developer so even easier is for me to work on web apps that work on any capable browser (sorry MS) and maybe do something interesting there. Which is what I am doing... when it is finished, it will be free. Why? Because I already got a day job. I am doing okay *breaks into sultans of swing and does NOT pay royalties for it*
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
O.K., Chris. You prolly don't remember the chat we had at LinuxWorld 2000. You used to be an advocate and supporter in the community. It's too bad you've been captured by the corporate machine of Google. You know this is what they are, right? Despite the image they present as just a big, happy dev-lab with a $450 stock price.
The DREAM that I think we shared for 20 years was of open, free systems, freely available and modifiable. NOT that of a corporation building a successful, billion-dollar division on the promise of such a system. This is SUBVERSION - not SUCCESS.
DiBona FAIL - Google FAIL.
Give me Posix or give me nothing at all. It is demostrably true that the apps that proliferate on the Android platform form a festering cess-pit of useless apps, or borderline trojan-ware.
Now, when do we get to hear Doc Searls cheerlead for Facebook?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you read the interview, you'll see that he did address those issues, albeit cursorily. Android is the way it is primarily because of the hyper competitive market of smart phones and mobile devices. Contrast this with ChromeOS which has a much more open development policy. So, when you get all irate about Honeycomb, remember ChromeOS and the other millions and millions of lines of code Google contributes to the world.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
To proclaim to be such a friend of open source yet not open source most of your proprietary changes to internal forks of FOSS projects makes their statements ring especially hollow.
Almost every single piece of software that actually makes them money is either proprietary or if it's open source it's usually under a BSD license so that they can avoid copyleft. Either that or please enlighten me to see where the source code to their search engine algorithms are, or where I can download the source code for AdWords and Adsense, Google Earth, Picasa and the list goes on.
You entitlement minded little snit. It's people like you that give real FOSS advocates a bad name and give rise to pejoratives like "freetard". You do not have any right to code internally used by anyone else no matter who they are or how much you think you deserve to be given their hard work on a platter. If they release a binary, they release the source. That's how it works. If you don't like it, take it up with Linux Torvalds and RMS.
I am indifferent towards open source and "free" software. I admire the cause, but I tend to pick something that works and works well for my needs. I dream of the day I could have OSX, Windows and Linux all booting from the same computer of my choice (legally) so I can pick the best programs for my needs.
* Android is running Linux, technically, but it doesn't support Linux software easily. It might as well not be Linux as an end user. With the Google clamp down it, limiting what is in the market, etc. it seems less an open software like I keep hearing Linux is and more of a standard operating system that is widely used because smart phone hardware companies are using it because it is relatively cheap compared to the alternatives from other companies or developing their own OS.
*"If you'd look at laptops it's maybe 70 percent Mac OS X and most of the rest is Linux, we are a huge customer of Apple.", and Apple in my eyes is even worse than Microsoft in being open. This is coming across to me as more "We hate Microsoft" or "We are a company that wants to look cool" than "We are choosing the most open software".
It looks like Linux and open source is heading for a Pyrrhic victory at this rate. This is a company that trying to become the champion of Open Source. It paved the way for not invading privacy en masse, but turning it into a main stream industry.
It props brags that "at least we aren't using Windows/M$" by stating the chief alternative is a company that is even more closed than Microsoft, requires you to use an OS that is legally only usable on their overpriced hardware if you want to code for their gated garden platforms. A company that is trying to block out any competing products (in the U.S.) by resorting to nearly forgotten and century old rules and laws (http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/07/12/0144237/Apple-Wants-To-Block-Some-HTC-Products-From-US-Under-Tariff-Act-of-1930).
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Heh. And support Google. Right.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Screw Ubuntu, now I want Goobuntu!
I8-D
FTA:
If you want to start a new project this kicks of our timeclock where my office, patents and trademarks all have three days to approve it or to say why they can't. If they don' act the project gets automatically approved and you can do the release. Usually we finish all the paper work and all the bureaucracy before the developers are done with the process of engineering for release.
For larger projects - like Android and Chrome - we engage with them years ahead of time. We were talking with the Android guys probably three years before the G1 came out, helping them with their license compliance, selection and strategy.
So you know DAMN good and well Google poured over phone patents, like Microsoft's, and deemed it safe... and had already engaged the lawyers "years ahead of time".
With this knowledge, shouldn't Google rise up and be power flaming MS over suing Motorola and others who use Android? You know every effort was made to avoid a losing legal situation. Having your ducks in a row years ahead of time should scare even a large corporation like MS who probably reacted at even the smallest chance of winning.
I8-D
FFS don't bring this argument up again. You're talking about apps and marketplace. I'll say it slowly... nobody... cares. You can install from totally free 3rd party markets, including GetJar and Amazon and you can download totally open sourced apps.
The same is true of Ubuntu and the Multiverse. You can CHOOSE to run pay software, the same as Android. I can run a commercial server daemon on pure, fully open Linux. Does that cease to be Linux? No.
Why doesn't anyone get the point that it's about choice. I'd go line by line, but honestly, it's a worn out argument with flamebait about credit card processing and other stuff that borderlines on conspiracy theory topics. All I really have to say is, get off your soapbox. Like every other discussion about opensource, I default to "If you don't like it, do better or GTFO." You say you can't. *shrug* Other's do, and I hear them bitching less and coding more.
I don't mean to sound offensive, but I'm REALLY flipping tired of hearing "Andoird is not Linux". That's pure flaimbait and all you talked about was apps and that has NOTHING! NOTHING! to do with the OS.
TL:DR
I8-D
Or, rather, it wouldn't have much special stuff that would do you any good unless you were on their network. Goobuntu (like the Red Hat-based "grhat" before it) is very close to the regular publicly-available distribution. It looks and feels just like Ubuntu (aside from a Google-ish splash screen and desktop wallpaper). But they've added on tools so that devs can check code in/out, compile apps in the same environment one finds on the linux-based workstations, has some encryption for sensitive stuff, etc.
You'd do just as well with regular old Ubuntu.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.