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An Android Tablet Victory May Be Problematic For Free Software
An anonymous reader writes "Glyn Moody writes at The H that Google's Nexus 7 tablet seems to be in a good position to shake up the market and pave the way for serious Android competition to the iPad. That said, he's worried about the potential downsides to a market full of mostly 'open' devices: 'Such customised systems are likely to be as locked down as they can be – the last thing either manufacturers or companies want is for users to start fiddling with the settings or installing their own software. As a result, the apps that run on such systems are likely to be closed source, since that's the way vertical markets tend to work. Such systems will also expose a persistent problem with the open source development methodology. While big and general projects find it relatively easy to attract interested developers, smaller, more targeted solutions tend not to thrive as free software.'"
Android phones work just fine with respect to OSS.
QED
Discussion closed.
IIRC, x86 computers were far more expensive as a percentage of income than these new tablets, and yet free software found plenty of room to thrive. You should Google this 'Linus Torvalds' guy. He wrote some big bit of free software one time.
I'm also not sure why free software would have trouble? Isn't GPL v3 software compatible with Google's marketplace? I own solely iOS devices, so I'm not 100% sure. In addition, there is no developer fee. Seems like Free (and free) software should proliferate on the platform.
Locked down platform? Any vendor would have to have a market or app store comparable in many ways to those already in place by Apple and Google. Otherwise, why buy that tablet?
Yeah, I guess I could RTFA, but this summary in no way makes me want to read it. Was this picked by Soulskill or voted up in the firehose?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
There is the openmoko which can run enlightenment.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If someone comes up with a user experience that runs on top of any version of *nix and doesn't suck, maybe. There still isn't one that I've seen yet, and that isn't even taking into account the massive overhaul you need for touch based control.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
With Apple as the vanguard, companies have already done their best to lock down every device that is not a PC as tightly as possible during the past 10 years. They want to retain all control and make it illegal to hack, alter or use a device in the way you want even after you've bought it. Ideally, they'd wish to put the same software on all devices and make you pay to unlock features. Now they want to do the same on the PC by forcing developers to use their distribution channels and locking down the boot process.
Bottomline: The damage is already done. We'd need to have customer protection laws to invalidate all these measures and EULAs, but since the industry lobby is fairly strong, this is not going to happen -- at least not in the US.
Android is problematic, yes, but iOS and Windows are far worse.
You probably missed the news that 4.1 code was released well on schedule, before devices arrived. They have learned from past backlash in this regard.
There is nothing that infuriates me more
[...] a persistent problem with the open source development methodology.
Methodology is the "study of method". The correct word is method
Thanks
What are the alternatives? iOS or Windows Mobile? (Please, dont' mention webOS or bootToGecko... I mean: what are the REAL alternatives?)
I know that android is a strange kind of open source system... unlike "traditional" oss projects (e.g., Linux), here a private company is in charge of the main development, and periodically releases the result with an apache license. So? Where is the problem? The community can still start from what's been open sourced and innovate on top of that. Like cyanogenmod or amazon are doing.
So, please, tell my why the rise of an open source project is dangerous to the FREE software.
But there's MeeGo, Symbian and Blackberry, ... oh wait!
Enlighten me here; which particular Google services are violating which open-source licences? Or are you maintaining that they should release all code they ever write? I believe they're still free to make that choice for themselves (and luckily have chosen to be far more open than their peers).
Google's own Nexus products can be trivially unlocked and rooted, by design. But go ahead and blame them for the decisions of other vendors and carriers.
You may have missed how the Android 4.1 source code was fully opened yesterday, before wide release of the system. Wouldn't call that slow, especially considering they're under no obligation to release the Apache-licenced code at all.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
All devices will tend to use more OSS and be less locked down, because it's a potential well in terms of market competition (less investment, longer duration, better image, ...). The gradient may be smooth now (and has been close to 0 in the past) but in the long term the world will be mainly OSS.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Looking at the version history for android (and a few other sources), they contradict you.
I couldn't be bothered to go back before eclair but I'm pretty sure it follows a similar pattern:
Eclair - Release date: October 26, 2009. Source code release date: Nov 16th 2009 (source)
Froyo - Release date: May 20, 2010. Source code release date: Jun 23rd 2010 (source)
Ice Cream Sandwich - Release date: October 19, 2011. Source code release date: November 14, 2011
Jelly Bean - Release Date: not available on a shipping device yet. Source code release date: July 9, 2012
Now I know they didn't release Honeycomb in a timely fashion but gave reasons in advance for that. As that code forms part of the version history for Ice Cream Sandwhich you still have it available to you. However, I don't think you can say that they are particularly slow in releasing their code. And let's look at the definite positive here: they are releasing the source code!.
Kommander Liz, first posting on Wednesday July 11, @05:08PM. Three anti-Google posts since then.
Prognosis: yet another Buston Marsteller shill from the same stable that brought you Bonch, Sharklaser Tech* etc etc.
I'm sure the success of an Open Source OS in the market would clearly doom us all, Preservinig MSFT's monopoly on the other hand is the path to salvation because well, better the devil you know, right?
I work as developer of specialized Enterprise Android applications. So, we order tablets with pure ICS and we put selection of our apps that we need to have there. Yes, for end-users it is "locked", but it is not locked by Google, it is locked by anyone who wants to create such tablet, and it is locked in way end-user demands. If there is demand for whatever style of tablet, however open, there is company that will provide it, Android is fully open-source, there is no limit to customization. And I am not talking about 'jailbreaking" here, Chinese cheap and fully customizable (including hardware!) tablets are completely legal (minus nonsense on rectangular shape in US, etc.).
839*929
Android has already won.
If you look at the history of the PC vs Apple vs Commodore/Amiga, you will remember the remarkable success that cheap, ubiquitous success the PC (and clones -- this is important) had over the others. As countless discussions on the topic were held in those days, people kept citing the superiority of the others. The famous bouncing, spinning sphere... I miss that thing. It was representative of the future of gaming... fast computers and smooth, realistic graphics. (Just took a break to change my screensaver to "Boing" hehe) We, the engineer-technophile types were oblivious to how populations work and behave or what their needs were. We had toy lust and that was just about the extent of it.
Meanwhile, Apple did everything they could to prevent clones of their products and were quite successful, thus ensuring that no market forces other than lust could influence people to buy Apple products. And while that was going on, lots of other product makers out there made awesome little things out there which were also rather proprietary in nature and just didn't get how important that compatibility was... back then, I didn't get it either. My step-father asked me when I bought my first computer from Radio Shack, "what's it compatible with?!" I cluelessly said "itself!" and asserted that I got this thing for me, not for others. This was at a time before modems and networks and all that... data was shared by floppy disk and sometimes even cassette tape. He got it, back then and I didn't... but then again, he was a business-minded guy... (but after he died and I was digging through some of his stuff, I found Wang and some of the other stuff that was fighting for a place in the business market... stuff superior to the DOS systems of the day... even in business, cheap won over awesome/cool/better.)
And here we are again. Apple is still playing its "exclusivity" game and will lose in the end again. It's insanity. If someone makes something that "EVERYONE Wants!" and then try to control it, you will find that it will be hard to stop everyone from having it. Apple wants to be the sole provider of "cool stuff" and all the other makers out there want to play too. Meanwhile, people are picking up more and more android things, buying fewer Apple things and eventually Apple will not be able to support its legal assault on the world defending what it considers to be its turf. (Here's a clue Apple: It's only your turf as long as you can defend it... and that won't be for much longer. I don't care if you're right or wrong because it doesn't matter. People want what you made, but you made it too hard to get it. So what are people to do?? That's right! They give their money to someone else instead of to you and your lawyers. Death to Apple for being stupid and arrogant enough not to figure that out.)
And here we are again... RIM and HP and Nokia among others were the "other guys" making cool things that were kind of like the thing that people wanted but they were "single vendor only" devices and locked down and that's not what people want. Sure, business WANTS to be the sole supplier of a thing, but that's not the way capitalism works in the long term. (And look at RIM... they have been king of the business phone world for a LONG time in some contexts... unstoppable and untoppable.) It's history repeating itself while no one remembers what happened before.
And here we are again... Google is the new Microsoft. They didn't want to make the devices leaving that to the cheap hardware makers making clones... that was their plan. But the phone carriers kept spoiling the fun with their reluctance to release control of and upgrade the software on the devices they sell. That's a big problem for Google and its plans. So now Google has to show people the way... show them what they should expect from hardware vendors (which include phone carriers) and then they will wake up and say "oh, we are losing business to Google... we need to give people more of what they want instead of trying to control the market." Google will NOT offer devices forever. They are just trying to show the market (which is 99.9% the consumers and 0.1% the manufacturers and carriers) the way.
Yeah, just get one that is also called a convertible touchscreen laptop. :)
http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/xtablet-series/
The reason to run Android instead of a regular linux mostly is that the "tablets" run on the same low powered CPUs as phones, because that gives the best battery life.
It's not only Android from Google that is problematic to open source - the whole company is. They take open source and lock it behind internet services and hardware. Hell, they stretch GPL requirements by releasing source code months later and no one does anything.
That is nonsense, their services all have high quality open APIs, mostly very well documented, and mostly for the benefit of open source integration. They don't give you all their code, duh, but they do go out of their way to allow you to integrate with it. If you can already integrate with it, it can't possibly be "problematic."
You're obviously not even a developer if you're spewing that drivel. Now get off my lawn before I turn the hose on you!
Well, the Nexoc Pad 10 is basically a tablet with Intel Atom. Given that they ever preload it with Windows 7 or Android 2.2 I'd guess that it could also run Fedora. I never bothered to check or contact them about it, as I would be interested in it but I have no need for it.
it's not really about source access even though.
it's about operators like verizon selling devices with locked bootloaders.
in the end it's really pretty much just about operators locking devices currently, while that might change to move to manufacturers who wish to push their own video & etc services. but even then installing 3rd party apk's is pretty easy on every android device still(including kindle fire, but there's some devices that have android but you have to hack quite a bit to get to installing apk's.. but those are quite customized and you're not supposed to even know that they're running android).
if you want to affect the situation do not ever buy device from someone who is also a media sales house, that's a pretty good rule of thumb to this.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
That's pretty much what I go through many times when I install software from packages directly from places like SourceForge instead of getting them from the Software "center" of a Linux distro or using apt-get.
The difference between something like Ubuntu Software Center and something like Apple's App Store is the ability to add a third-party PPA in Edit > Software Sources. I was under the impression that a hobbyist developer didn't have to pay $99 per year to run his own PPA.
The trend in Android has been, up to now, in the right direction.
For example, the Android Open Source Project originally did not have a development platform build target or reference hardware. Now it does. That means you can take the entire Android Open Source Project and built it and run it, instead of having to "root" a commercial device and port Android to that device before you can start playing with Android on real hardware.
It is in Google's interest to make Android progressively easier to port because Google wants faster and more-consistent updates to Android across all the OEMs using Android. A vibrant and useful AOSP is important to that goal.
Moreover, when faced with a competitor using the Android Open Source Project to build a competing platform and support a competing ecosystem, Google did nothing to thwart AOSP, or to make it harder for Amazon to use AOSP.
Android is partly-open because Google uses a suite of applications and services that are not open source to create commercial Android products with the Google Logo, and OEMs and carriers add their own software to products. There may be room in the market for a more-open mobile OS that isn't tied to big e-commerce ecosystems. Tizen might be one such system, and Jolla might bring Meego back. If those systems prove to be more open, and under less pressure to provide exclusivity to their sponsors, they could turn out to provide truly open, hackable communications devices.
Open communications devices, with open hardware and software, are important because they would enable communications privacy, among other qualities.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Not Apple; Nintendo, Sony, Sega, etc. were the pioneers of locking down consumer computers. Before Apple was even a company, people were talking about computation being sold as a utility -- you would only rent access through a terminal to a mainframe.
Palm trees and 8
....if you have more than 100 queries a day. You conveniently left out the part where it is indeed free if you have less than 100 queries per day. Maybe not ideal, but don't try to paint a misleading picture.
I look at the home screens of my Galaxy S2 where I place the icons of the apps I use most. I see some stock Android/Samsung apps plus K-9 Mail (OSS), Cool Reader (OSS), Jota Text Editor (OSS), KeePass (OSS) and other 15 closed source apps. Among them I use regularly Dolphin HD and il Meteo, Chrome sometimes, the others less often. I use the four OSS apps very often but not as much as Dolphin HD.
So based on my limited experience open source is doing well enough on Android, but I remember using only open source programs on Windows years ago, before switching to Linux. Mobile is apparently more closed than desktop but let's give it some time to grow. Windows applications were much more closed in the '90s before people started rewriting them as OSS. Then we got the web, which is basically a frontend to closed sourced backends. Mobile starts from there: most mobile apps are fat clients to remote services and in many cases there is little incentive to open source them.
So I think that there will eventually be more general purpose open source mobile applications but we'll also have many more closed source apps than we have on the desktop.
Hell, they stretch GPL requirements by releasing source code months later and no one does anything.
I didn't like it either, but this is just wrong. They did release the GPL parts - namely, the kernel. They didn't release all the userspace, but that's Apache2 licensed, not GPL.
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Nope. The Nexus 7 has an unlockable bootloader (via fastboot oem unlock), like the Galaxy Nexus, and the Nexus S. Happy Hacking!
We've worked hard to never ship binary blob kernel drivers or any nonsense like that in Nexus devices, but yeah, proprietary userspace libraries are still needed for some peripherals against our best efforts. For wifi/bt it's generally just firmware that's downloaded to the device and not actual code that runs on the Linux side of the world. For the GPU all the vendors we've worked with on Nexus devices have provided GPL'd drivers for the kernel (resource management, etc), but provide closed opengl userspace libraries. Camera stacks vary -- the Nexus S didn't require any proprietary camera library goop in userspace iirc. I think we've been steadily improving the situation, but it's an uphill battle and I don't see a fully-open and also adequately performant GPU/opengl solution on the horizon yet.
On a tablet. I'd be pretty satisfied if something like that were freely available.
There will be plenty of such devices to choose from once Win8 comes out - of course, you'd want the x86 ones. Disable secure boot in UEFI, and install whatever you want on it. I'd specifically look out for Asus Tablet 810 if you want something closer to iPad in size & weight (and battery power, hopefully - though that also depends on OS).