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Google Targets Android Fragmentation With Updated Terms For SDK
SternisheFan writes "Google has expanded its legal agreement with developers working on Android applications to specifically prohibit them from taking any action that could lead to a fragmentation of the operating system. The prohibition was added to the terms and conditions for Google's Android SDK (software development kit), which developers must accept before using the software to build Android apps. The previous version of the terms of service, published in April 2009, didn't address the issue, but the new terms published on Tuesday include this new paragraph: 'You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK.' Google did not respond to several requests for comment. The issue of Android fragmentation has been gaining increased attention, but it's happened largely as a result of actions taken by Google and Android handset makers, not developers. It's a problem because it means that Android applications may not run properly across all Android devices. 'It continues to be a problem, both on smartphones and tablets,' said Avi Greengart, research director at Consumer Devices. 'Google has talked about multiple initiatives for dealing with it, but none of them have successfully addressed it.'"
Of course, the obvious solution to Android fragmentation is an updated EULA! That will fix everything!
Wouldn't that prohibit forking? If so, they can't claim it's open source.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
wouldn't updating all phones to the latest android version be a better solution ?
Since some moron modded my on-topic comment down as "Overrated" when it had the default score of 1, I am posting this comment just so another mod will waste her/his mod point just to mark my comment as -1, off-topic. At least this time, it will be deserved.
Prohibits distributions of software libraries? Possibly. Prohibits custom UIs like Swype? Possibly. Who can really say? Anything that causes one person's "experience" of Android to be different from another person's could be termed "fragmentation". All you can hope is that Google Won't Be Evil, whatever their lawyers are now saying.
That language is so flexible and so abstract that a good lawyer could use it to justify practically any kind of prohibition.
sounds more like it's targeting Acer/Aliyun. Which isn't the kind of fragmentation most people think of but is the kind Google doesn't like.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Well, of course the Android has a problem with all the different flavors. Fragmentation is a problem for Google's baby.
Buuuuuuut, if Android is open, of course people are free to fork it, expand it, trim it, and do whatever they want with it. Any action which restricts our ability to do that is... well... wrong.
If they wanted there to be a clear winner, they should just you know, pick one and publicly say "HERE. THIS ONE. THIS GUY RIGHT HERE. HE'S HAS JUST WON THE INTERNET AND HIS VERSION OF THE ANDROID IS THE ONE TRUE FLAVOR! We're not going to give two shits about anyone else's version and we're throwing our weight behind this one. (or two, or twelve, whatever)". And just kind of hope that everyone picks it and a de-facto standard emerges. But the whole "constructive competition" thing is kind of important for the open source.
We certainly would not want to create any non-standard forks now would we? **Cough** **Java** **cough**
Yes, but the carriers rely on withholding updates to enslave you to the Two Year Contract.
is to set minimum spec's for the devices that are supported by the Google Market. They should have required a minimum discrete GPU if they wanted to guarantee minimum operating performance, but that didn't align with their needs...
All google cares about is maintaining the quality of their advertising platform, Android. Yes, a free phone OS sounds nice, until you realize that they store every action you perform on that device, or everywhere you go with that device. While databases like this have existed before (carriers can easily keep track of where you are via cell towers), what makes google so nefarious, is that they are so good at it.
Imagine every strange search query being saved (including all characters until you finally pressed enter), your exact picture being saved, every email you have ever sent being saved. It's a one stop shop for all the data that is you (well, need to stop by facebook as well). You give one company that power, for what?
The fragmentation problem is because there are so many different versions of Android still out there, with different screen sizes, hardware capabilities, sensor availability, etc.
I don't really see how this is going to change much.
what happened to the write-once, run anywhere concept?
See, if Google made Android as part OS features, part Java API, then you could run an updated app against an old phone and the new features you expect to be present would simply not work - it'd throw an exception at runtime if the user attempted to use the missing API call (assuming the dev didn't look for and hide that option).
Android fragmentation isn't any more of a problem than the existing problem of having lots of phones running different stock Android versions.
Letting carriers have more control of the handsets was one of the "ins" that android had.
People have really short memories, and forget how some carriers were infamous for disabling features so they could sell them back to you nickle-and-dime. Ringtones, wallpaper, hell they even liked to charge a premium to get photos off of your device. Verizon was known as "the phone raper". They'd sell devices that were hollow shells of their non-US counterparts.
Apple turned that model completely upside down, taking control away from the carriers. This pretty much started the smart phone boom (as we know it). Because of apple, you're not forced to buy apps through the Verizon store. The iphone is an APPLE device. Not an At&T one. Not a verizon one. Apple correctly puts the carriers in their place as commodity bit fingers and communication infrastructure maintainers. (Which the carriers hate with the fury of a billion suns)
Google was looking to be more flexible and "open". They were also willing to play ball with carriers (to boost market share and adoption) and let them molest the devices to a greater extent. But not completely. Google has a baseline standard that has to be followed. Play by Google's terms or no Google apps for you. There's been some friction over this, mostly by companies that think they can remove google maps and charge a premium rate for another product.
I thought android was OSS and as such the code was available. What is to keep people from using the old libraries, developing them as they wish, and then just interfacing with what other tools they need?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
will forever reinvent it. Poorly.
Yes, but this is almost certainly just a shot at Amazon (and a preemptive shot at Samsung). It doesn't do anything to address the real fragmentation problem: hardware and other issues causing manufacturers to abandon OS updates a few months after launching phones
Why does fragmentation matter on Android devices? They all use Flash RAM drives, so its not spending time seeking like the old physical hard drives
It limits the use of the SDK in the process of creating non-Android-branded Android-like OS's, which is one aspect of fragmentation.
Google more aggressively pursuing and releasing updates for Google-branded (e.g., Nexus) devices would, for example, be a means of creating pressure on other Android device makers to be better at updating devices and reducing that aspect of fragmentation. (Which is, though, less of a problem for Google than the previously-mentioned kind of fragmentation.)
Fragmentation is multidimensional.
I would have thought that it was targeting OUYA from forking the SDK and bundling it within their console.
A game has objectives and is competitive, anything else is just play
THIS is what this SDK EULA change is about. Google wants to throttle unauthorized Android work-alikes in the cradle. It probably sticks in their craws that legally anyone can build an AOSP-based phone, but there isn't much they can do about that. But completely non-Android systems with Android (Dalvik) runtime capability? Hells, no. You have to use the SDK to develop to that environment, so that's where we'll hit it... no SDK for you!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Haha... maybe that's why Android's market share has increase. People need to by multiple phones for different apps.
Maybe fragmentation isn't so bad after all.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Anyone being able to build AOSP-based devices was kind of one of the original points of the OS. You're right about the rest, though.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I thought the Fire was basically a forked version of Android. So this would seem to say, if you want to publish with Google you could not also publish for Amazon.
Perhaps I am misreading this, but it seems like the only way it could actually have an effect on fragmentation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Uhhh... I have a Defy as well (Defy+ actually but the difference is negligible). It runs Jelly Bean (4.1.2). There is now an early demo of Jelly Bean 4.2, the version just launched with the new Nexus 4 and Nexus 10.
You don't need to replace your Defy. Just root it if you haven't already, and install one of the many available roms on it - everything from Gingerbread through ICS and JB 4.1.2. The Defy is actually a good example of how futile those locked boot loaders and restricted systems really are: the latest Jelly Bean versions run a custom kernel.
--frank[at]unternet.org
Well technically you could develop for the "real" and "hijacked" android OS's at the same time if the hijacked one really did run regular android apps. You wouldn't have to admit (or even care) what phones you're targeting.
... Google failed to appreciate how popular its new terms would be, and sold out in less than an hour, so it will take 3 more weeks until the next shipment of terms arrives.
I pity Amazon, having to wait 3 more weeks for terms.
[No, not bitter at all about being backordered, why do you ask...]
I like android devices. I like to be able to just drag any music or file over from any computer.
I like that it gets a lot of tech before the iPhone
I like that I can switch to a different manufacture and have it largely be the same. Some manufactures may radically change it, but that's rare.
Clearly, not an Android haters.
However there is a problem.
I got the Nexus S at best buy. And I got the replacement warranty.
After a year I dropped my phone and broke it. My fault.
So I take it to best buy for a replacement, and get a new Nexus S.
The problem was, it had 2.3 on it.
So, how do I get it updated?
Tmobile wouldn't update it, Google won't update it, Best Buy won't update it. It's stupid. While I am comfortable manually doing it, not a lot of consumers are.
I have to find the right version for my deice, and manually updated it to 4.0.4
Of course, now I need to manually update it to 4.1.2 This update risks bricking the phone and I have to violate my warranty to do it.
So Google, Fix this problem. It should detect it's out of data, up autoupdate when I boot it up fore the first time.
I have put off buying a tablet becasue of this, and I am seriously considering getting an iPad even though it has fewer features.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How will this affect the replacement images developed by the user community? I've been running community offshoots of Android for years now and I would hate that ecosystem hit by this.
Which I believe is the point. As long as your stuff will work on regular mainstream Android you're fine. This gives an incentive for actors like Amazon, RIM and so on to kep their stuff fully compatible.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
What I think this means: Amazon can create their own SDK, fork everything they want, the SDK is on Android source repositories, emulator, eclipse plugins, etc (I don't know if all of it), Developers can use Amazon SDK if they like, but developers can not use the Google SDK binary if they promote other non compatible forks. So if someone build an independent SDK from the sources, this is solved, until Google add rules like this to Google Play
It's not targeting Acer or Aliyun. Google stopped Acer via its partnership agreement and Aliyun OS doesn't need to use a forked SDK to produce apps for Aliyun OS.
The reality is that in the beginning of November 2012, Virgin Mobile USA was still selling phones that come with Android 2.x, and owners of those phones expect to run applications advertised as compatible with Android.
I'll happily agree that Apple started the smart phone boom as we know it, but it certainly wasn't "they didn't allow carriers to customize/lock-in" that did so.
If anything, while Apple is keeping carriers from locking you into their services (well, mostly. Visual Voicemail was AT&T-only, right? right. Sure that was a collaborative effort, but I'm not sure that doesn't make it worse.) they instead lock you into their services.
Windows Mobile (going a long way back), while letting carriers customize (most didn't - t-mobile in germany, O2 and Orange in UK did but mostly visual tweaks), was easily unlocked if needed and restored to stock, and then tweaked far further than even Android allows now (which can be considered both a good or a bad thing). In addition, there were a plethora of app stores not just from the carriers (with few offerings) but third parties.
It was never a highly popular platform, though - and that's the additional factor that Apple did bring to the table.
Where "openness" is "doing only what Google says you're allowed to do"
You cant call it android unless it is the current version or the previous version. Anything older can NOT be called or branded android in any way.
Suddenly the Lazy bums at HTC and Sony will actually use the latest OS for their phones and push out updates.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The Chrome browser doesn't work on 2.x, and the browser that comes with 2.x can't see SSL sites that use SNI.
To be fair it can be a real pain to get even a small app running. I wrote a little mirror app and I can't get the darn thing to show up as compatible with my phone. You know, the phone I used to developer the thing...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I completely disagree. Carriers are actively customer hostile entities. Everything they touch becomes worse for the end user. The apple phone experience was so good because they didn't let the carriers have their way. It's why Verizon turned down apple for so long. It took Steve Job's massive reality distorting balls to to convince At&t to try it their way. Bam. Smart phone boom.
Just look at Europe, where the GSM standard mandated interoperability. Customers were free to use whatever device they wanted just by slipping in a sim, and they picked devices that weren't carrier crippled. The mobile market there boomed while it stagnated in the US with our carrier-oriented market.
Now we've got devices with a higher degree of consumer control (Yes, apple's walled garden isn't "open" but it's 1000's of times better than anything verizon ever attempted) and the market is huge.
Now all you need to do is follow up on your "swift updates for all devices" promise from 18 months ago and we'll be all set!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Apple has the new two year contract (optionally now), but updates the iPhones for at least a few years for each model.
It doesn't matter who it's targetting, this moves Google firmly out of the "open source" category into "merely visible source". It gives the impression that Google, sensing an opportunity to go far beyond the original goal of just ensuring that the mobile market remains open to advertising by Google, now has its eyes set on exerting monopoly control of the mobile market. With this, it would seem that Google has declared war on open source.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Just HTC and sony? Is there ANYONE that pushes updates in a reasonable manner?
Samsung took quite a while to upgrade to their version ICS. ICS was released in october 2011, it didn't come to the note or skyrocket until July 2012. Which is weird, because they seemed to have done very little aside from changing the graphics. They broke "unauthorized" tethering, maybe that counts as a feature. I guess they figured everyone who would bother upgrading had already installed cyanogenmod.
It doesn't matter who it's targetting, this moves Google firmly out of the "open source" category into "merely visible source". It gives the impression that Google, sensing an opportunity to go far beyond the original goal of just ensuring that the mobile market remains open to advertising by Google, now has its eyes set on exerting monopoly control of the mobile market. With this, it would seem that Google has declared war on open source.
This is nothing new. Their entire business model was based on taking software which other people were developing on a shared basis and using that to provide services to people without actually distributing the software. They basically managed to take the "private/hidden" software that was always allowed by the GPL and extend that so that they could deliver the use of the software to someone without delivering the software. That is something that had been done before (think a private extension to a mail server) but never to the extent of a multi-billion dollar business so it was never enough to really warp software development. Google is and has always been a strong and effective opponent of things like the AGPLv3 which would mean that they would have to contribute their work back to "FOSS". They even seem to be internally opposed to the simple GPL even though GPL software has been the basis of their success.
Please note that whilst this is a little bit evil, it isn't any worse than any proprietary software company and almost exactly matches what Apple does. They contribute some of their software back to projects whist making sure that you never quite get enough to be truly free.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
If anything, while Apple is keeping carriers from locking you into their services (well, mostly. Visual Voicemail was AT&T-only, right? right. Sure that was a collaborative effort, but I'm not sure that doesn't make it worse.) they instead lock you into their services.
You are right and you are missing the point. If the services come from Apple, then that guarantees that the services will be updated to support the latest features of their newest phones. This stopped the carriers messing with the phone interface for short term commercial gain.
N.B. Visual voicemail is an Apple patented feature. It could be available on any network that wants it working. I guess they have to pay or do some integration though? I guess this article about visual voicemail in Britain shows exactly why Apple need their features to be independent of the mobile carriers.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
That's actually part of the Open Handset Alliance agreement, and has been from the get-go. Carriers can change things to an extent, but can't mess with the APIs... all Android devices are supposed to be compatible at the app level. And they largely are -- the fragmentation thing has been blown way out of proportion, mostly by Apple fans as they ran out of other arguments as to why their iOS wasn't better than Android.
There are two problems Google needs to address. One is the initial OS in a device: you have had developers releasing devices on 2.2 even, well after Android 4.0 was out. Google needs to address that.
The second problem is getting the new OS out in the first place. An ordinary development model for an OS will have early releases available to developers long before the new version ships. This gets them an early start on porting and testing, etc. Google's current M.O. is to select one vendor and one device to work on (usually a Nexus device these days), then work intensely with that partner. The new OS version isn't released to other OEMs until that new device ships. This is a big delay in getting the new OS adopted. And it results in far less testing than would otherwise take place. Maybe this is needed for Google's two-release-per-year schedule to be kept, but that, too, is part of the reason new devices don't always have new OSs.
There are a few things Google could do. Ideally, they could re-engineer the basis of Android, and build a hardware abstraction layer under Linux. Android/Linux would have class-drivers (display, touchscreen, keyboard, etc) that hit the vendor-supplies HAL layer. The HAL layer would contain all hardware dependencies, cell phone baseband, etc. This would basically allow any new version of Android to run on any device without the need for the manufacturer or cellular provider (argh!) to be involved. In short, just what PCs do.
-Dave Haynie
i can't say anything about UI improvements on newer HTC devices but i liked the job they did on the HTC desire over the stock. there were lots of small but very useful changes. seems like a long time ago...
I'm pretty sure you're talking out of your ass. If Google was upset about AOSP-based phones, they could simply cut off the oxygen and end AOSP.
I have absolutely no idea what the write-up is about. At a guess, I'd assume they're concerned about "cross platform" crap that isn't, but I'll wait for Google to actually state their intentions. What I can absolutely rule out is the notion that this is about Android being FLOSS (Google could end this at any time), or about sticking it to Amazon (the Fire's OS is OSS Android (ie just Android, not Android+Google proprietary apps) with a custom launcher and a few custom apps, it's not in any way a fork, or any of the other nonsense people here are speculating on.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Is there any evidence that that is happening?
"Is there ANYONE that pushes updates in a reasonable manner?"
Yes, My Nexus HSPA+, my new Nexus 4, and My Nexus 7 get updates instantly.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How exactly? Google is supplying an SDK to develop for Android and attaching terms to it; you can develop for Android in some other way. In any case Google doesn't want you writing apps that make various phones work differently enough that an Android app isn't an Android app anymore.
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OK, true, this is the licensing terms of the SDK, not of the underlying operating system. BUT.... you could still argue that it's against the GPL because of the phrase "including but not limited to". The clause is "you won't fragment the OS, whether or not by using the SDK" -- ie in order to use the SDK you have to forego your rights to modify the OS source code.
Can people sign away that right? Sure -- but by doing so, you're refusing the terms of the GPL... and are no longer allowed to use the GPLed code in Android. But also, by letting you do so/asking you to do so, Google is in breach of the GPL and lose the right to use any GPLed code in the Android system.
Android is now, therefore, rogue software.
Silly Google. They should do the same as dozens of open source projects before them and use trademarks to protect the official version. Keep people in line with the old "you don't want to lose the use of the trademark" whip. Let people fork. Let little Chinese companies make non-Android phones and MP3 players with derivative versions. Who cares? Without the Android brand, it's small-fry.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
no. kindle is 100% android so it runs all android apps (theoretically).
Just because it runs all Android apps does not mean it is not a modified version of Android. It has for example a very revised home screen, and a whole different app store.
What if you wanted to write an Android app that modified the Fire home screen when present? That would seem to be against the new Google TOS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Providers are.
Exactly this... Guess what? If you're a provider, and you use the new SDK, you just agreed not to keep fragmenting Android by preventing upgrades to the newer versions to make new phones more appealing...
That sounds a lot like what Sun thought about Java. Then again, Sun failed to execute on a mobile Java-based platform, so Google might have a better chance of making that line of attack work for them.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Not just the carriers. Phone manufacturers do it too. According to samsung my GS1 based phone which is currently running JB CM10 is incapable of running JB. Last official update for my phone was 2.2. Yet the Nexus S with identical internals got the update. Samsung wants me to buy a GS2 or GS3.
"Pure Google" Nexus devices also get updated for good long while. My partner is running official JB on his Nexus S and that device is a good few years old. (I on the other hand had to root and install CM10 on my GS1 variant to get JB). I do agree Apple is good about updates, though. I have a spare 3GS i use for iOS games and i'm able to upgrade to iOS6 even though the device is several generations behind. Apple and Google seem to support their devices legitimately as long as the hardware will support it (and sometimes even too far, as I don't think the iPad 1, with it's extremely limited ram, should have ever gotten iOS5).
That sounds a lot like what Sun thought about Java...
Sun didn't own an advertising empire.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Yep, I just got an update for my Nexus 7 yesterday.
Also, people didn't think "Sun" when you say "Java" -- Google have successfully tied the Android brand to Google.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'