I'm pretty sure every single Google service (including search) is 100% voluntary.
And people love to throw around the term 'monopoly' as if its somehow bad. Nope - a monopoly isn't illegal on its own, and all you're doing is giving Google credit for becoming one - its not an easy feat, unless your market is tiny.
If Google are big because people want to do business with them, how is that bad?
oh wait, that's right - Google are going to fry us all and the whole world will become slaves to Google while the few really smart people who have basically not gone outside for the past 15 years will stand over us saying "told you so".
Sorry, but I dont buy it. Google are just an advertising company - they find out what we're interested in so they can sell things to us. how sinister...
I wonder if its intentional or just that they are incompetant. I'm betting that the people in charge of releasing the source are not the same people who worked on it, and are probably not sure what they are even doing.
Android is Google's product, and no one else's, and Google does comply with the GPL. Therefore the headline is incorrect. Android doesn't violate the GPL. Not at all.
Maybe some obscure chinese manufacturers that the rest of the world have never heard of are violating the GPL, but certainly all the big-name brands (HTC, samsung) are not violating the GPL.
None of this has anything to do with Android. It is select Android Licensees, and not Android itself, that is violating the GPL.
This is in no way Google's fault. How could it be?
The continued GPL violations by HTC are the #1 reason why I didnt buy a Desire Z and bought a Nokia N900 instead (the locked firmware/bootloader was #2)
Unfortunately six of the plugins I rely on (yes, those plugins that are supposedly the #1 reason to use Firefox over less customizable browsers) don't yet even support Firefox 5. Everytime that "update Firefox" box comes up, I check, find six plugins outstanding, and back out of it.
Update too fast and you will leave users behind.
Does chrome suffer the same fate? Chrome does allow plugins and it appears to be their quick release schedule that has prompted mozilla to do the same...
but it is still evident that anyone looking at making a fast buck, still expects the stock price to go up. so its either confidence in the company, or "confidence in others' confidence in the company" if that makes sense...
It would be rather freaky to see the machine fly past before you finished building it.
I know you're joking, but it provokes serious thought (if one should call any talk of time travel "serious").
If time travel were possible, and if it were possible for humans to access such travel, then surely we would only need to start the project and bang, a person from the future would show up and tell us to stop because of all the damage it caused in their future time.
Or picture the LHC, doing a test. You would see the result before you fired the beam. We can deduce that time travel is therefore logically impossible as follows:
1. If it WERE possible, you would see the result of the experiment before pressing the button to fire the beam of electrons (or whatever). 2. Upon seeing the result, you then decide not to press the button... 3. which means step #1 could not have happened.
I have to wonder if the experiments would be more difficult if there were MORE robot-driven cars.
If a human sees a car driving unusually, they will keep clear of it. This may artificially skew the safety results.
Also, robot-controlled cars are probably designed to navigate in a world of human-controlled cars. Are they equally as good at navigating around other of the same type of robot-controlled cars?
I'm sure they've thought of this, but my brain is telling me there are very different challenges in this case.
you even called them "iOS devices". It is the software that makes them what they are.
Its not about whether Apple is a company that primarily does one or the other, its about what part of Apple is the most VALUABLE. I'd say its the software.
It is the software that makes these machines what they are. It is the software that differentiates Apple from other companies.
Sure the design and hardware is good too, but we see plenty of good designs out there, yet it is iOS and OSX that drive people to buy Apple.
OSX is further proof of this. The hardware it runs on hardly differs from a standard PC (and you can in fact build a hackintosh from standard pc parts) - yet its value lies in the software.
So while you could say Apple is delivering the whole experience, over 90% of that experience lies in the software.
hold on there. while stock prices are notoriously volatile, they ARE a measure of public confidence in a company. So whilst you could claim that it is not representative of how much a company is worth (and rightly so), the stock price IS representative of how much the public (well, shareholders actually) THINK a company WILL be worth.
There are valid reasons why people choose not to buy Apple - stop confusing people who dislike Apple with people who think Apple shouldn't be as successful as they are.
There's no such thing as a product that suits everyone.
However, with Apple, I think it is actually genius that they have discovered that good design sells. Their marketing is pretty good too. Their hardware is often best-in-class, or at least not far off.
Apple revolutionised the industry by claiming that the look & feel, and the UI are the most important aspects of any device. It went against the trend where the focus was on features and complexity. Apple brought simplicity and usability to the market and it has paid off in a big way.
However, back to my first argument. It doesn't matter how much faster, simpler, or easier to use an Apple product is, if I dont like it, or if I dont like the way it works, I'm not going to use it.
So yes, Apple's success is valid and they do make good stuff, but you cannot claim it is for everyone. And the market confirms that. There are more people who dont own Apple products than people who do.
Its an open software platform. What you're asking for is an open hardware platform to go with it.
The phones you buy direct from Google come the closest to this. And in fact you have all the source code that matters.
Why criticize Google for what other manufacturers do?
Anyway, I think this is all in the realm of "wouldn't it be nice" but Google (and others) are under no obligation to give you the source. Why not be happy for what we DO have, which is more than we've ever had before Android came along (in mainstream anyway)
I've only seen one, and it looked a bit basic in the menus. But otherwise, I'm sure the phones are great, and the software works well in a microsoft world, syncing with exchange better than any other for example. The OS is still in development and quickly coming up to feature parity with android and iOS so it wont be long before it'll be a really decent alternative.
however, I couldn't resist having a poke at it - just light-hearted humour.:-)
those things are all the responsibility of the manufacturer, not Google, and they are not "Android". Are you going to claim that Linux isn't really free because the nvidia driver isn't open source?
If you wanted all of the things you mentioned, then you bought the wrong phone. Get a Google experience phone and you'll have everything you wanted. The fact that others dont do this does not change the fact that Google do it.
this is in response to Android being free...you have only given examples of manufacturers who have not provided their OWN software for free. the kernel is definitely covered by GPL so if you pushed hard enough you could definitely get the samsung kernel. However they would be free to produce kernel modules for their hardware that is not free. This has nothing to do with Android.
Dont confuse the issue. Android is free, but no one claimed that the software on your phone that you may refer to as "Android" (or more correctly, "based on" android) is free.
You can absolutely grab one of the Google experience phones (available here in AU without any carrier crap in some cases) and download the android software stack, compile it up and run it on your phone. the fact that almost every other manufacturer doesn't release their stuff for free is irrelevant - and doesn't change the fact that android itself, is free.
If you are expecting to grab any android phone and run any software you want on it, you are simply misguided. The article is all about Google giving android away for free, which they certainly do.
iOS is just stripped down version of Mac OS X with a different interface isn't it? So the real story is that they are moving towards the iOS GUI if this proves correct.
as a programmer, I think its very unlikely there is a lot of shared code between the two. definitely the base system and possibly a similar kernel, enough to run the same base libraries, but the GUI would be almost entirely different. And the GUI isn't just some thin layer on top of a complex system, no, the GUI IS the complex system on top of a thin base system layer.
Rather than merge the code, its more likely they would merge the concepts. Some code may well be portable (its objective c in both cases), but I doubt the merge would be trivial, or even possible in some cases.
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So just how does Google "lock people in" exactly?
I'm pretty sure every single Google service (including search) is 100% voluntary.
And people love to throw around the term 'monopoly' as if its somehow bad. Nope - a monopoly isn't illegal on its own, and all you're doing is giving Google credit for becoming one - its not an easy feat, unless your market is tiny.
If Google are big because people want to do business with them, how is that bad?
oh wait, that's right - Google are going to fry us all and the whole world will become slaves to Google while the few really smart people who have basically not gone outside for the past 15 years will stand over us saying "told you so".
Sorry, but I dont buy it. Google are just an advertising company - they find out what we're interested in so they can sell things to us. how sinister...
My 2 year old understands the appeal of Angry Birds. In fact there are very few other games she can play...but she picked up Angry Birds pretty quick.
You sound like someone who wouldn't be happy with an app UNLESS you yourself wrote it - so go you.
From the summary it sounds like they're taking their toys and going home.
Fair enough - and reason to complain too.
I wonder if its intentional or just that they are incompetant. I'm betting that the people in charge of releasing the source are not the same people who worked on it, and are probably not sure what they are even doing.
Anyway, I think we're done :-)
Why is Google's source code release irrelevant?
Android is Google's product, and no one else's, and Google does comply with the GPL. Therefore the headline is incorrect. Android doesn't violate the GPL. Not at all.
Maybe some obscure chinese manufacturers that the rest of the world have never heard of are violating the GPL, but certainly all the big-name brands (HTC, samsung) are not violating the GPL.
None of this has anything to do with Android. It is select Android Licensees, and not Android itself, that is violating the GPL.
This is in no way Google's fault. How could it be?
The continued GPL violations by HTC are the #1 reason why I didnt buy a Desire Z and bought a Nokia N900 instead (the locked firmware/bootloader was #2)
cant find what you want at http://www.htcdev.com/ ?
Or maybe you hadn't looked?
Unfortunately six of the plugins I rely on (yes, those plugins that are supposedly the #1 reason to use Firefox over less customizable browsers) don't yet even support Firefox 5. Everytime that "update Firefox" box comes up, I check, find six plugins outstanding, and back out of it.
Update too fast and you will leave users behind.
Does chrome suffer the same fate? Chrome does allow plugins and it appears to be their quick release schedule that has prompted mozilla to do the same...
what laptop/tablet would you buy? and why?
the choice is about the software that runs on them.
The hardware is important, but the primary focus is the software. The hardware just needs to support it.
but it is still evident that anyone looking at making a fast buck, still expects the stock price to go up. so its either confidence in the company, or "confidence in others' confidence in the company" if that makes sense...
It would be rather freaky to see the machine fly past before you finished building it.
I know you're joking, but it provokes serious thought (if one should call any talk of time travel "serious").
If time travel were possible, and if it were possible for humans to access such travel, then surely we would only need to start the project and bang, a person from the future would show up and tell us to stop because of all the damage it caused in their future time.
Or picture the LHC, doing a test. You would see the result before you fired the beam. We can deduce that time travel is therefore logically impossible as follows:
1. If it WERE possible, you would see the result of the experiment before pressing the button to fire the beam of electrons (or whatever).
2. Upon seeing the result, you then decide not to press the button...
3. which means step #1 could not have happened.
therefore, it is an impossibility.
anyway, i'm offtopic... carry on...
I have to wonder if the experiments would be more difficult if there were MORE robot-driven cars.
If a human sees a car driving unusually, they will keep clear of it. This may artificially skew the safety results.
Also, robot-controlled cars are probably designed to navigate in a world of human-controlled cars. Are they equally as good at navigating around other of the same type of robot-controlled cars?
I'm sure they've thought of this, but my brain is telling me there are very different challenges in this case.
how much does the hardware cost?
now how much does the software cost?
you even called them "iOS devices". It is the software that makes them what they are.
Its not about whether Apple is a company that primarily does one or the other, its about what part of Apple is the most VALUABLE. I'd say its the software.
It is the software that makes these machines what they are. It is the software that differentiates Apple from other companies.
Sure the design and hardware is good too, but we see plenty of good designs out there, yet it is iOS and OSX that drive people to buy Apple.
OSX is further proof of this. The hardware it runs on hardly differs from a standard PC (and you can in fact build a hackintosh from standard pc parts) - yet its value lies in the software.
So while you could say Apple is delivering the whole experience, over 90% of that experience lies in the software.
hold on there. while stock prices are notoriously volatile, they ARE a measure of public confidence in a company.
So whilst you could claim that it is not representative of how much a company is worth (and rightly so), the stock price IS representative of how much the public (well, shareholders actually) THINK a company WILL be worth.
There are valid reasons why people choose not to buy Apple - stop confusing people who dislike Apple with people who think Apple shouldn't be as successful as they are.
There's no such thing as a product that suits everyone.
However, with Apple, I think it is actually genius that they have discovered that good design sells. Their marketing is pretty good too. Their hardware is often best-in-class, or at least not far off.
Apple revolutionised the industry by claiming that the look & feel, and the UI are the most important aspects of any device. It went against the trend where the focus was on features and complexity. Apple brought simplicity and usability to the market and it has paid off in a big way.
However, back to my first argument. It doesn't matter how much faster, simpler, or easier to use an Apple product is, if I dont like it, or if I dont like the way it works, I'm not going to use it.
So yes, Apple's success is valid and they do make good stuff, but you cannot claim it is for everyone. And the market confirms that. There are more people who dont own Apple products than people who do.
just to extend your definitions further...
market prices indicate "perceived value".
where have you been for the last 2-3 decades?
having and enforcing a patent has nothing to do with releasing an actual product.
No, Android is a software platform. Neither the drivers nor the hardware form part of Android.
Android (as in AOSP) is open source (free, as in freedom, if you will). What you do with it is mostly up to you.
Whether or not the hardware is open has nothing to do with Android being open. Nothing.
We can complain all day to Google that the manufacturers close up their hardware but what do you expect Google to do about it?
Its an open software platform. What you're asking for is an open hardware platform to go with it.
The phones you buy direct from Google come the closest to this. And in fact you have all the source code that matters.
Why criticize Google for what other manufacturers do?
Anyway, I think this is all in the realm of "wouldn't it be nice" but Google (and others) are under no obligation to give you the source. Why not be happy for what we DO have, which is more than we've ever had before Android came along (in mainstream anyway)
I'm assuming they will want OSX to be able to run iOS apps, which would require more changes than you are suggesting.
Still, my assumption may not be valid. We're just guessing here really...
I've only seen one, and it looked a bit basic in the menus. But otherwise, I'm sure the phones are great, and the software works well in a microsoft world, syncing with exchange better than any other for example. The OS is still in development and quickly coming up to feature parity with android and iOS so it wont be long before it'll be a really decent alternative.
however, I couldn't resist having a poke at it - just light-hearted humour. :-)
i see what you did there.
those things are all the responsibility of the manufacturer, not Google, and they are not "Android". Are you going to claim that Linux isn't really free because the nvidia driver isn't open source?
If you wanted all of the things you mentioned, then you bought the wrong phone. Get a Google experience phone and you'll have everything you wanted. The fact that others dont do this does not change the fact that Google do it.
this is in response to Android being free...you have only given examples of manufacturers who have not provided their OWN software for free. the kernel is definitely covered by GPL so if you pushed hard enough you could definitely get the samsung kernel. However they would be free to produce kernel modules for their hardware that is not free. This has nothing to do with Android.
Dont confuse the issue. Android is free, but no one claimed that the software on your phone that you may refer to as "Android" (or more correctly, "based on" android) is free.
You can absolutely grab one of the Google experience phones (available here in AU without any carrier crap in some cases) and download the android software stack, compile it up and run it on your phone. the fact that almost every other manufacturer doesn't release their stuff for free is irrelevant - and doesn't change the fact that android itself, is free.
If you are expecting to grab any android phone and run any software you want on it, you are simply misguided. The article is all about Google giving android away for free, which they certainly do.
iOS is just stripped down version of Mac OS X with a different interface isn't it? So the real story is that they are moving towards the iOS GUI if this proves correct.
as a programmer, I think its very unlikely there is a lot of shared code between the two. definitely the base system and possibly a similar kernel, enough to run the same base libraries, but the GUI would be almost entirely different. And the GUI isn't just some thin layer on top of a complex system, no, the GUI IS the complex system on top of a thin base system layer.
Rather than merge the code, its more likely they would merge the concepts. Some code may well be portable (its objective c in both cases), but I doubt the merge would be trivial, or even possible in some cases.