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Amazon Releases Kindle Source Code
MackieChan writes with a piece of news that slipped past earlier this month: "Barnes & Noble receives a lot of credit from the Slashdot community for standing up to Microsoft and for allowing the Nook to be so easy to root, but perhaps Amazon releasing the source code to the Kindle will help it gain back supporters it lost after remotely removing ebooks."
Not just the source to the recent Kindle Fire, but code for all of them back to the original. Nice move.
I wonder if they held any bits back?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Is the sourcecode sufficient to disable Amazon's ability to remotely remove ebooks?
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The new Nook tablet comes with a locked bootloader, unike the Nook touch.
I downloaded the source for Kindle_src_3.3_611680021.tar.gz (randomly picked).
The contents of their tarball is the below list of files. Which of these sub-tarballs contains the Amazon reader and interface software? Or are they just releasing the bare minimum required by the GPL and keeping their stuff proprietary? Can Kindle owners blank their devices and use the published tarball to restore all functionality?
Put another way: is there a contribution here, or are they just doing what's necessary to avoid getting sued?
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The remote book removal was 2 years ago, and helped shape Amazon (and much of the mobile tech industry) to be extremely weary of using kill switches. Frankly, I'm glad it happened. It immediately stopped the usual slow creep of increased user control.
I don't think this helps "gain back supporters", but I do think it reinforces Amazon as a company moving in their new direction since then. I like the Amazon model which tries to take the best of Google and the best of Apple, and throw out the worst parts. Tight product integration, but if you want to hack it, why bother stopping you.
I8-D
On the bright side, there seems to be enough stuff in there to port any Linux (including Android) system into the Kindle (or, saying that in another way, all the drivers seem to be there).
On the bad side, no the reader is not there, and you won't be able to remove their capacity of remotely excluding your books (except if you remove the reader). It is also not more than they are required by the (L)GPL, and there is nothing telling if the boot loader will accept a user supplied system, or if you'll need to root it like any other tablet.
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"are they just doing what's necessary to avoid getting sued"
why should they do more if it isn't required?
Doing more than required is usually what it takes to "gain back supporters" like the summary suggests.
Personally I think they should fix the slow page-turns and other problems pointed out by reviewers.
Fulfilling a GPL requirement is fine; releasing extra code is great, but that's not going to help it sell anymore devices, except perhaps to a small segment of customers.
It's just a minimal GPL drop. No application level source. Unlike (for example) Netgear or Linksys, they don't even provide the object code and build tools to let you build your own usable device ROM image from a combination of proprietary and OSS components.
You can get the full Kobo/Touch source code if you e-mail their support staff and wait two to four weeks.
And then you can't really do jack-squat with it.
Which is infuriating because the features most people want to steal from the Kindle are amazingly easy to implement in the Qt environment the Kobo uses.
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but perhaps Amazon releasing the source code to the Kindle will help it gain back supporters it lost after remotely removing ebooks.
You are talking about one of the hottest products on the market.
"Winning back" the geek is not all that important.
I thought you could convert ePub to mobi with Calbre? I haven't tried it myself though.
Why, no, I haven't meta-moderated lately. Thanks for asking!
If I have lost the argument
You did. Every point you made was countered, and I provided direct quotations from the license that refuted your arguments.
then the strategy described in my silly tactic would be a way for you to make a lot of money.
I'm not going to make a "lot of money" by claiming rights to a patch, nor am I doing to do "homework" for you. I'm done with this discussion.