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RMS: 'Is Android Really Free Software?'
An anonymous reader points out an article by Richard Stallman in The Guardian which questions whether Android should be described as 'free' or 'open.' Quoting:
"Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple. ... Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled, free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Hackers are working on Replicant, but it's a big job to support a new phone model, and there remains the problem of the firmware. Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom."
Isn't a developer free to license something however they want, within the constraints of the licenses of whatever is being used? If Google suddenly said they weren't ever publishing source again, I'd be pretty peeved, but they had reasonable, non-evil reasons for not releasing 3.x, and have committed to releasing Ice Cream Sandwich. I'd like to see 3.x released, but as long as it's a non-regular occurrence, it doesn't bother me any - but i'm not quite as idealistic as RDS - if that were possible.
Of course it's not. Not only is it not free in the RMS sense of the world, withholding source is not the openness Google always claimed it was promoting. Android exists solely to get people onto Google services for purposes of web advertising. The only reason it got so much support from techies is because it runs on Linux, and Google's PR department convinced them that it represented the usual unrealistic OSS fantasies about free ecosystems. Most users don't even care about such things. Apple is still the #1 smartphone vendor, and iOS the #1 mobile operating system counting iPads, iPhones, and iPods.
Remember, Google's main business is a closed, proprietary product--the search engine. Web traffic is regulated by a closed product run by an advertising megacorp. They are not some benevolent cheerleader of openness. They won't even implement Do Not Track in Chrome because it would interfere with their ad business.
Because Google has been promoting its supposed openness for years now, so it's kind of a big deal when one of the founders of the movement calls them out.
Each tenet of his philosophy?! How can something be open or free at all if the source code isn't even available? That's the fundamental basis of the whole idea.
Then Google can't keep pretending it's an "open platform."
More specifically, I call it "openwashing."
Named after "greenwashing," the act of selling something as eco-friendly when it actually isn't, openwashing is the act of selling something as open when it actually isn't. Like those "open" phones that you can't get the source code for and run locked bootloaders so you can't even jai- uh, "root" the phone.
I'm not against open phones, I want open phones. That's why I don't want anyone to accept an openwashed substitute.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Small correction for you - The world doesn't even care that it's open.
WHY are they less bad? For whom?
Because Android respects at least freedom 0 with respect to user applications: "The freedom to run the program, for any purpose."
What does this mean? Phones running Android are less bad than phones running iOS or Windows Phone 7 for people who use applications distributed as free software because Android has the "Unknown sources" checkbox.* This lets the user obtain free applications from anywhere and hire anybody to improve them without having to seek the OS maker's permission to run them.
*Yes, even AT&T lately; citation available.
You don't really get to submit to Android like you do other open source software programs. There is a NIH (not invented here) attitude. It is "open sauce". Add your favorite sauce on top of it after it is done, but that is truly about it,.
And the writer of the piece (Richard Stallman) published by the Guardian seems to be marketing for free software..
Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, marketing free software?
Have you notified the authorities yet?
Azural - instrumentals
That's only true if you define "world" to be people who want it open.
If you want to define the "world" as every potential user of Android, the vast majority DON'T CARE if it's open. They care that it works, that's all.
People who rigidly cling to the notion that any software which hasn't been provided in a ideologically pure enough way is a Great Evil ... well, those people are as rabid and narrow minded as any other fanatic.
It's sad you got a Troll mod for pointing out that not everyone cares what RMS has to say. Because, an awful lot of us tuned him out years ago. Sure, he's a smart guy who has been an advocate for free software ... but his completely inflexible view that all software must live up to his notion, well, I just can't agree with him.
To me, he's that crazy guy on the corner with a "The End is Nigh" sign. Most of the times when I hear what he has to say, I disagree with him and then tune him out.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But that hasn't equated with success in their respective app stores. The Apple app market made over 17X the revenue of the Android app store last year.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/
Without Stallmanites sticking to their convictions, there would be little or no Open or Free software, THAT'S FUCKING WHY.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Considering that many of the apps in the Google android store are ad-supported or just free instead of paid, I'd say store sales are a lousy way to measure success of the platform.
It's sometimes difficult to not think like then when you're confronted with someone who has a rigid, ideological position, whose starting point in all discussions is that they're right and you're wrong, and there is no room for any give.
RMS and some people who agree with him are sufficiently fixed in their ideology that it's hard not to end up saying "rabid Stallmanites".
You might as well try to convince someone their religion is wrong as try to convince RMS that not all software needs to be open. He and others are pretty inflexible on this position.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It is a sad day, Android is no longer open.
RMS might seem idealistic and harsh, he isn't very diplomatic, but he is right. We know that the NSA has no back doors in a GNU/Linux platform because we have the source for everything. Do you know that about Windows?
If Google doesn't release the source for Android 3.0, then you have to take what is in there on faith. Has it occurred to anyone to question why they are becoming secretive all of a sudden? Maybe because "do no evil" does not apply?
I have a nexus one, it's open, hardware and software, (I suspect that there are proprietary things in there, but it's as open as it gets FTW) I won't be moving to another phone any time soon.
RMS's version of free doesn't mean no cost, it refers to your freedom to do as you please with your software/hardware. You won't be able to do that with an Android 3+ device. FAIL.
No, 65% of Android Market apps are free or ad supported, where only 36% of Apple app store apps are free or ad supported (source Distimo report April 2011). In absolute numbers there are more free apps on the Android Market than there are in the Apple app store.