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Google Warns Android Might Not Remain Free Because of EU Decision (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The EU's decision to force Google to unbundle its Chrome and search apps from Android may have some implications for the future of Android's free business model. In a blog post defending Google's decision to bundle search and Chrome apps on Android, Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlines the company's response to the EU's $5 billion fine. Pichai highlights the fact a typical Android user will "install around 50 apps themselves" and can easily remove preinstalled apps. But if Google is prevented from bundling its own apps, that will upset the Android ecosystem.
"If phone makers and mobile network operators couldn't include our apps on their wide range of devices, it would upset the balance of the Android ecosystem," explains Pichai, carefully avoiding the fact that phone makers will no longer be forced to bundle these apps but can still choose to do so. Pichai then hints that the free Android business model has relied on this app bundling. "So far, the Android business model has meant that we haven't had to charge phone makers for our technology, or depend on a tightly controlled distribution model," says Pichai. "But we are concerned that today's decision will upset the careful balance that we have struck with Android, and that it sends a troubling signal in favor of proprietary systems over open platforms." While it may be a bluff to court popular opinion, Google is threatening to license Android to phone makers. "[I]f phone makers can bundle their own browsers instead of Chrome and point search queries toward rivals, then that could have implications for Google's mobile ad revenue, which constitutes more than 50 percent of the company's net digital ad revenue," reports The Verge.
"If phone makers and mobile network operators couldn't include our apps on their wide range of devices, it would upset the balance of the Android ecosystem," explains Pichai, carefully avoiding the fact that phone makers will no longer be forced to bundle these apps but can still choose to do so. Pichai then hints that the free Android business model has relied on this app bundling. "So far, the Android business model has meant that we haven't had to charge phone makers for our technology, or depend on a tightly controlled distribution model," says Pichai. "But we are concerned that today's decision will upset the careful balance that we have struck with Android, and that it sends a troubling signal in favor of proprietary systems over open platforms." While it may be a bluff to court popular opinion, Google is threatening to license Android to phone makers. "[I]f phone makers can bundle their own browsers instead of Chrome and point search queries toward rivals, then that could have implications for Google's mobile ad revenue, which constitutes more than 50 percent of the company's net digital ad revenue," reports The Verge.
my carrier locks them to my phone by marking them as system applications. At one point I had an Android phone with a demo of a Puzzle Bobble clone that was marked as a critical system app. Pissed me off because I wanted the 127 mb of space back (which is a hell of a lot for a Puzzle Bobble Clone). To be fair I'm an American though.
Meanwhile I don't think Europeans are going to care if they have to pay $10 bucks for Android, and I don't think Google will be able to charge much more than that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Google will have to start competing on equal footing to other companies! Call the wambulance!
that is not a bad thing at all.
lets see how google business model changes beyond empty threats.
A free version, bundled with Google search and Chrome
A paid version, without them.
Next question, could the paid version be sold for $1000/device? What price would be considered reasonable? $50?
First, Android is not free. You pay for it with your personal information. If it's free as in "open", then Google should license it as such instead of fucking around.
Second, if Android is worth anything, people will pay for it with money.
Third (bonus), I do not want my operating system to be an "ecosystem". I want it to be an operating system and get the fuck out of my way.
You are welcome on my lawn.
From TFA: "can easily remove preinstalled apps"
Wait, what? I can easily remove *updates* to preinstalled apps, (which Google Play then nags me to update every time it runs) but barring rooting my phone and reinstalling the OS (assuming I can find a clean copy somewhere) how is this done? Or is this an unusual definition of "easily"?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How about this. Sundar Pichai to give me 100 dollars for each app which comes preinstalled on my phone and I can't uninstall?
I'll be a rich man in no time.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
So is Google suggesting that Android is "Free" or "free"?
I think it is neither one. Google moved all the good stuff into the Google play services and out of plain jane open source Android.
Plus the arm twisting agreements where an OEM cannot make a Google Services Android phone and also make an open source or alternate firmware Android phone. Geee, that reminds me of Microsoft not allowing OEMs to sell their PCs with any other OS on them in the 1980's even if there was market demand at that time.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Like cheese for mice, right? Called bait, I believe.
"If phone makers and mobile network operators couldn't include our apps on their wide range of devices, it would upset the balance of the Android ecosystem," explains Pichai,
Utter fucking bullshit. No user WANTS this junk on their phone. The "ecosystem" he's talking about is the kickbacks they get for dumping a load of garbage onto people's phones. It's anti-competitive and removes power from the people. Fuck your business deals. Let people choose what they want to run.
is a load of bull. i've had and have a phone with twitter and a couple other apps that i cannot uninstall. it will not get ride of them.
They're just crying cause they have to play fair, and the exec bonus payments will be smaller this year.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There is a better solution by using a PUBLIC standard for Android without the google's monopolistic control over it and with REAL competition driving REAL innovation at every level and in every part of the Android platform, not just the low-margin commodity hardware. The only problem is that it would reduce the google's profit.
Whoops. I forgot that would be a religious violation. "There is no gawd but profit, and the EVIL google must become gawd's #1 prophet!"
Actually, it isn't clear if the google is the most evil of the inhuman corporate cancers that are destroying our lives for the greater glory of profit maximization. However it is absolutely clear that the problem of profit maximization is a FAKE problem because there is NO possible solution. There is always a bigger number for a more maximum profit.
Here's my simpleminded solution: A progressive tax on corporate profits based on market share. The data is already there for public corporations that are required to open their books. As a company's taxes increase, it would eventually become MORE profitable to reproduce by fission.
ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
It's not about preventing anyone from installing anything. Google is in trouble because it requires that its apps are bundled if the manufacturer wants to install the Play Store, which is arguably necessary if one wants users to buy the devices. The demand from people (like me) who don't want the Play Store and the associated services is a niche market. It's this all-or-nothing deal that violates the antitrust rules. You cannot use your monopoly on something to gain an advantage in another field. Microsoft did it with Windows and Internet Explorer and now Google does it with Android and Chrome. "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
Okay I think we should all be frank in that Google charging a fee for Android isn't some massive surprise here. The "open" nature of Android was sketch in rose color light and non-existent if you want to be honest. Google via Android has been pretty hostile to forks and fragmentation. Google has wanted to keep a firm thumb on their baby and they've done an incredibly good job at it.
When Google began moving a lot of the OS level functionality out of the OS and into the Google Play Services, that was a clear sign that Google was done being "open". Pretty much you have a Linux kernel and a Google supplied display environment and not much more when you remove Google Play Services and Play Services is closed sourced and kept under insanely strict "can and cannot" rules for its use. Of course that hasn't stopped anyone from freely pushing around the APK for it. But for legit or widely distributed variants of Android, if you don't agree to Google's demands, you can't use Play Services legally and this pretty much has ended every actual open-source implementation of Android and pretty much rendered AOSP dead in all but name. Play Services is the leash to which Google retains control over Android vendors.
I for one would just like it for Google to just stop pretending that it's OS is somehow different from closed source projects. Yes, it has a Linux kernel, but that's pretty much it and the kernel is really paired down for the hardware it runs on. Outside that, everything else in Android, pretty much the other 90% of the OS is closed sourced. I'm seriously shocked that they haven't put more steam behind Fuchsia and the replacement for the Linux Kernel. It's no surprise that no one in Google really likes working with the Kernel devs anymore. They're cantankerous and capricious on their best days and devs at Google would like to think that they've got better things to do than to argue why their patch should go mainline.
Google propped itself up on actual "open" but now that they are where they are, they're more than happy to spit liquor into the eyes of open source and move on. I'm just tired of them pretending to give a damn, I'd actually have a bit more respect for them if they'd just be frank about it and pull the plug on being "open" or "friendly" to developers. They are neither at this point and they have so much money they don't give a damn about it anymore.
Android is Free, but Google has woefully neglected it for years. Or rather, they meticulously worked on pulling all functionality into Play Services, while blinding the public into thinking that they are so great in doing open-source.
If they take Android non-free (what does this even mean?), it won't actually make much of a difference to the status quo. I'd hope for the EU to not take any of this, and simply double the fine if they do.
Fuck you, Google.
echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
Doesn't sound that bad to me if it includes security updates.
Statement from Google pretty much confirms the EU is correct in that Google is forcing its services to lock out the market and make money. Personally I have no problems if Android doesn't remain free and it means a couple of dollars more on the cost of my devices, would happily trade that for a more open environment.
It just has only drivers enabled for the hardware it is run on, which seems normal to me. It's optimization more than anything.
You are correct, Google's mainline is a tree shake of the kernel.org tree for only the target platforms they support. However, that makes it really difficult because that "pair down" process isn't just a simple "diff /some/file > out.patch" between kernel.org and AOSP, some of the directory layout has been altered and some of the build process isn't as clear cut. Hell even the AOSP site still has the Jack build instructions up and Jack died with Android 6.0.
So you really have to be careful if you want to wade out into waters that are uncharted. Say you have your own board with an SoC that's not blessed Google hardware, say like a custom RISC-V you're testing out. Your time to build is going to be somewhat nightmarish. It's not impossible, but you can really see that Google just don't give a damn over on AOSP, since the instructions there wouldn't successfully build anything on a newer tool chain and a recent Java VM.
As for kernel numbers, if you ever look at the kernels they use and the kernels that get their patch waves accepted in mass, you'll see the correlation. They can submit to mainline but that doesn't mean their patches get merged in 1-to-1 fashion with mainline on every LTS. Google uses kernels they know that's got a lot of their honey in the source. That don't always mean it's the LTS one.
"WebKit" and "WebKit derived" are very, very different things. You begin to notice this once a web application displays an incompatibility error message instead of loading because Apple WebKit fails to implement a particular web platform API, unlike the Blink engine that was originally forked from Apple WebKit. Or can every single feature missing from Apple WebKit be efficiently polyfilled?
There is a better solution by using a PUBLIC standard for Android without the google's monopolistic control over it and with REAL competition driving REAL innovation at every level and in every part of the Android platform, not just the low-margin commodity hardware. The only problem is that it would reduce the google's profit.
And I even came up with a name for it! What about AOSP?
Android core without any Google tie-ins, free to use for manufacturers.
bickerdyke
How about a compromise whereby Google puts their own apps in a clearly-labeled group/box/folder of applications, but still include the generic ones in the usual spot.
If there will be data association conflicts, then the service should default to the generic apps, but if one clicks on a Google app, it would say something like, "Foo data/service is currently associated with Generic App X, to change the data handling to this app, go to the..."
Table-ized A.I.
Glad to see you got the insightful mod you deserved, even though your writing is kind of sloppy. In terms of improving your presentation, perhaps you should focus on your Subject: line? That one was not helpful, and less so since your strongest point was your third one, which you apparently added at the end...
Minor disagreement with your first point, because I think we also pay with money, if less directly. If the companies (AKA corporate cancers) were failing to extract our money, then they would not be paying the google for the advertising. Yes, there is individual variation and some of us are bigger suckers than others, but I insist that all of us are paying to some degree.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You know it's always a lie -taxes, fines, whatever - the pols always say we're going to punish/tax that other guy to get the stuff to give you, all fair like - but in reality, there is no "other guy" - it's we who pay, every single time. So if Google loses revenue and has to charge for android to make up for it, who pays? Only the EU citizens? Don't make me laugh...So many people have zero clue how the world works in reality. As it said in the hitchiker's guide (to paraphrase): The government is only there to distract attention away from the real power...and get a slice of the action along the way. How come these guys always stay in office forever and always retire rich on otherwise-crap pay? Work it out, people. This is not partisan...
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Sure fire way light fires necessary to get more alternatives to Google play's malware developed.
As for charging for Android... this is without a doubt the most hilarious idea I've heard all day.
Two basic interpretations seem possible for your so-called reply:
(1) You misunderstood or could not understand what I wrote. In these and related cases, the appropriate response is to ask for clarification. I acknowledge that I often write densely, even tersely.
(2) You deliberately misinterpreted what I wrote. Various possible motivations and tactics might apply, but why would I care? In this case you've already negated your credibility even without a better form of EPR than Slashdot offers. I dismiss you thusly, even without checking your karma.
If I were in a more polite mood, I'd suggest you try again based on what I actually wrote. However as things stand, I think it more reasonable to regard this "discussion" as terminated.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
In my option the bundling of Google apps is less of an issue than Google's blocking of installing apps. When I was working for Garmin I developed an Android vehicle head unit but I could not preinstall Google Play Store because we installed our own navigation app that was customised to suit the on road limitations of the target vehicle. I would have liked to give end users an easy ability to install apps on the system but because we installed a nav app that could do things that Google nav app can not we were block by Google from offering customers the normally expected Android experience.
Are there any GPL issues preventing them from charging for Android?
No:
Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.
Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software”, we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of “free speech”, not “free beer”.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, study and change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.
Note that this is specifically about distribution of binaries. Source code does have to be distributed with only minimal genuine costs of distribution.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should all believe exactly what Google is telling us about Android because they're good people and always tell the truth, right?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
What do I need an utterly dumb "AI" assistant for? Or has the younger generation become so infantile that they need this?
Incidentally, I use search engines all the time. They are not obsolete and will not be for a long, long time.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Exactly this. Doesn't Apple bundle Safari with every single phone they sell? As far as I understand it (I don't own an Apple device) you not only can't remove Safari but you also cannot set any other browser as the default browser. You can still install chrome but iOS will refuse to use it for anything unless you manually open it and type in URLs. How is this not anticompetitive? How is this any different from what Google is doing? Does apple get away with it because they can claim their entire phone would stop working completely without their pre-bundled apps? This just seems unfair to me.
Sounds like an open and shut case to me.
How is this any different from what Google is doing?
Two reasons. The first difference is in the position they both hold in the market. Android has a sufficient chunk of the market to be classified as a monopoly, meaning that Google must obey additional monopoly laws intended to prevent some of the problems and abuse that this position can cause. What they then fall foul of is the second reason, which is leveraging this monopoly to benefit another of their markets, namely Google Search. Apple don't do this, and don't hold a monopoly. I don't know if the browser alone as a component would be sufficient to require them to unbundle it should their market share increase.
I want what you are smoking.
Misunderstanding the point. People don't buy Android phones for Android. People buy Android phones for the ecosystem that is "Android". Android itself is irrelevant as you wouldn't buy a smartphone without the ability to use the Google Play Store and limited to manufacturer's shitty apps in their shitty app store.
However the problem is that the Play Store does not come at no cost to the vendors, they have to comply with a range of conditions, some of which are anti-competitive. Which is why you stopped seeing phones shipped with Bing as the default search engine despite MS paying good money for that privilage to a couple of vendors.
I think you are expressing some degree of agreement or trying to clarify some of the legal points that I accepted from the original story. On those bases, I guess this is just an ACK, though it would be nice if you clarified your intention.
I would note that I also think many Android users just accept the apparently lower price tag. That part is easy to see as part of the anti-competitive practices.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Where do you draw the line on this? I'd say they're complaining because the maker of the OS included relevant in-house software with their OS.
Are we going to chew out Microsoft for including Solitaire? Are we going to shit on Apple for spotlight?
This is just getting stupid.
I am expression confusion now.
Define "Android" and what it is you meant by public standard. The way you wrote I thought you were talking about the base OS. What I was saying is that the base OS is irrelevant as what people are solely interested in is the services on it.
Are you proposing that Google provide their Play Services as an open standard? Or are you proposing the conditions of adding the Play Services should be made public (IIRC they pretty much are, or at least were since I saw them a few years back, which is how they got into this legal issue in the first place).
Tried googling solutions - results EU misguided.
Sundar Pichai is full of shit. That is all.
I don't see where Google has the authority to dictate domestic commercial law to the EU (or anyone else).
If Google doesn't like the business environment it should leave - but then (a) they'd lose the use of their low tax havens in Ireland and Luxembourg and (b) risk someone else grabbing a section of the market bigger than the US.
Personally, I'd shed no tears to see the back of this tax evading, privacy hostile behemoth.
What the EU seems to be objecting to is not the inclusion of Google apps but the inability to remove them. Google could adopt an intermediate position that both sides might consider acceptable: continue to require that the apps be included by device makers, but stop packaging them as part of the system build so the user could uninstall them if desired. Users could be allowed to uninstall Chrome, Maps, Gmail, Camera, Contacts, and so forth; few would do that so the loss to Google would be minimal. Google Play Services is the notable exception; Google might need to block that from being uninstalled because removing it would break a lot of other apps, including apps that do not come from Google. (Some of the APIs that many apps depend on actually come from Google Play Services rather than from the core of Android.)
I think it needs to be a truly open standard that is actually subject to multiple influences and various stakeholders. My interpretation of the core of this lawsuit (but of many related problems) is that Android is effectively under the google's thumb, and all of the tough calls are made in favor of increasing the google's profits.
As regards Google Play itself, I think the single most helpful approach to a "solution" would be to make the financial models visible. Usually I word this in terms of making the financial motivations of the developers visible to help the users recognize and avoid dodgy and even criminal apps. However, in the context of this story, it would extend to the google itself being more explicit about how apps are related to the google's own profits.
The implementation that seems most plausible to me would involve a two-part financial model section for each app. The first part would be what the application developer is willing to say about the app's financial model for the consideration of possible users of the app. The second part would be out of the developer's control, but would be something like an audit report of the evidence. In the case of a non-google app, the natural auditor would be the google, and the google is often in a good place to confirm the developer's assertions with such statements as "The developer is receiving significant advertising revenue via this app, so the claim of advertising seems justified" or "The developer is receiving registration income from the professional version of this app" or even "The developer has shared corporate records and personal financial data that strongly support his claim of being independently wealthy and supporting this app as a charity."
The case for a google app is more complicated. Maybe the statement should be provided by the external auditors with a link to the auditors' website?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Others do OK in numbers sold, but because Apple has monopolized the high end and over half of an iPhone's price is profit, Apple's profits for their portion of phone sales dominate the overall profits. They have a profit monopoly with 87% of all industry profits.
I've owned android phones, tablet. Every fricking one of them they update once, maybe twice and that's it. So sorry, no more updates for you! We also want to make it impossible for you to unlock it. Even if you unlock it have fun getting the drivers you need. So you walk around with a vulnerable phone.
One of my droids was hit by stagefright. They never did put out an update for it. I had to get a new one, which was also vulnerable to stagefright. They eventually updated it. Now Verizon couldn't care less about it. Pay $600 or so for a phone and they don't care. Pay all outdoors for service.
Not like the good old days. Had a phone and it worked for decades, in fact it would still work if I had a POTS connection. My old phone company doesn't even offer it anymore. Phone service was like $13 a month or something. Not all that long ago.
If someone stepped in, had a new OS for a phone that is maintainable, works as well as a droid or iphone, man they'd clean up. Let's all say no to Java based phones.
Important distinction.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Source code does have to be distributed with only minimal genuine costs of distribution to anyone who has received the binaries from you .
Important distinction.
And an incorrect one. Only if you distribute source code together with the binaries to every user who obtains your product can you restrict the distribution to only those users. If you provide source code separately via an offer to provide it, then you must provide it to any third party on request.
Getting certified to bundle the google stuff is not free, including appstore. so installing a googlefied android is not free today - you're paying for it. and 1% of license fee for that stuff on top of what is already being paid(and agreed in backroom licensing deals!!).
it's not like you can just download android and start selling your device with google apps included without paying in one way or another. you are already paying in the phone price for that.
that wouldn't really change if they(device manufacturers, operators) wanted to keep any of the google packages installed, even if they wanted to bundle something else as default apps.. if they think someone would buy their device without googles appstore, then sure, they can just unbundle all of the google stuff right now today.
you think samsung is using android for free? fuck no, no. it's not free in the way google is implying here on making it not-free.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Good clarification.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco