Woooooosh... he was making a joke. Many iPhone apps are just a website wrapped up in an app that you have to install and download.
Flash performs so poorly on mobile devices
It performs perfectly and smoothly on my Nexus One. The only things I've found that didn't work well were things that also had issues in a desktop browser. Not that I'm defending Flash and wouldn't like to see it die... just pointing out that your statement isn't true in at least my case.
I have no idea what you're talking about. We're using vSphere 4 and the client is certainly not slow or outdated, and it also definitely doesn't use Java. I'm not sure what you have, but the client we use looks like a modern Windows application (definitely not cross-platform though I wish it was!) and performs just fine.
Google didn't tell him to stop "hacking its products". They asked him to stop distributing their proprietary Google applications (gmail, etc), because he wasn't authorized to do so.
Again, I can't disagree. And ironically, being open is what allows the vendors to be more closed. But that's why I only buy reasonably open phones, like the Nexus devices. And by that I mean one that isn't locked down and is easily modded (binary blobs may still be involved, but the phone doesn't try to prevent me from messing with it). HTC isn't as bad as it could be, but you're definitely spot-on with Motorola. I'll never buy a Motorola device due to how locked down they are.
And I would not like using my phone without those capabilities at all. For the same reason I prefer to use nvidia's binary driver with my video card in Linux. I'm still not really seeing anything that's different from any other open source project with a very liberal BSD-based license. If I take the Apache web server, for instance, and create some great, but closed, product from it (as the Apache license allows) and cleverly achieve large market penetration with my closed product... I don't feel that makes the original Apache web server any less open, and the source to it is still available for anyone else to do what they want with it. This is how I view the Android OS.
My original point was that Android 2.3.5 is the most recent release, and is open source. The fact that it's open source is what allowed Cyanogen to create a usable OS based around it, even if that means using some binaries. If it wasn't available at all, he wouldn't even be able to do that (of course I guess a pure binary distribution could be modded and hacked and whatever, possibly illegally). Android as a whole may be more than Google, but I'm specifically talking about Android the OS that is the basis of all the rest of that, since the original question was about a release of Android from Google, and not about the plethora of other companies and devices involved in everything Android.
I don't disagree at all... however, those binaries don't come from Google, but from the phone manufacturers (at least to my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong). This isn't much different than the binary nvidia drivers I use in Linux for my video card... although yes, there are open source alternatives (and different hardware) in that case, but using the binaries doesn't make the Linux distribution itself any less open source.
Also, there were pure Android Gingerbread builds available for phones such as the Nexus One, straight from AOSP, before any binary drivers were actually released... I didn't run any of those builds, as I understand there was some reduced functionality (which makes sense if a driver was missing)... but Android itself was still built and running from its pure open source release. I believe the reduced functionality was worked around by people like Cyanogen creating shims that could make use of the Froyo binary drivers in Gingerbread, though.
I guess what I'm saying is that you're completely correct, but I don't feel a company separate from Google choosing not to release their drivers for their proprietary hardware as open source means that Android itself is not still open source. I believe other Linux variants, such as OpenWrt for routers, have done similar things with Broadcom chipsets as well.
Again, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this... this is just my understanding from my following of ASOP, CyanogenMod, xda-developers forums, and other sources. I'm certainly not claiming to be any kind of authority on the subject.
Most of Android is released under the Apache 2.0 license, which does not require anyone to provide source, yet it is an open source license. Google is also not required to release the source to any parts they own the rights to and in fact they can release this under whatever license they choose, including a closed one. Manufacturers may not even be allowed to release any source under whatever license they have obtained any non-open code from Google under, and may choose not to release any Apache-licensed code.
Being able to request source from the vendor is a requirement of the GPL, not the Apache license. As far as I know, Google has released the source to any GPL components, such as Linux kernel patches (see kaiser423's comment above).
Android 2.3.5 is the most recently released (on July 25) by Google, and you can easily obtain the source from AOSP. I'm running it on my phone right now, thanks to CyanogenMod.
If you meant 3.x (Honeycomb), that's really a whole different branch based on Android, and Google has said for a long time that it will be merged back in with the rest as a combined phone/tablet OS (like iOS is), which they call Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 3.x right now is basically a private fork for a few tablets to get them into the market that the iPad currently dominates.
From a business point of view, they're probably using these current tablets and manufactures to work out exactly what an Android tablet OS should be before unleashing a half-assed attempt on the world for any company to grab and implement poorly, making Android look stupid. I don't necessarily agree with holding back the 3.x source, but that's my guess at some possible justification. Better to delay and get it right, than release and look like failures... that might be their reasoning. Working with a controlled set of hardware and companies is a good way to refine your product before general distribution.
So while they may not have released the Honeycomb source code, they certainly are continuing to develop Android as open source (see 2.3.5), and have clearly stated that they will continue to so (Ice Cream Sandwich). I can't really call bullshit until Google breaks their word and doesn't release the Ice Cream Sandwich source (or releases it without the additions from Honeycomb)...
I work for a government organization, and we have all Dell workstations. They have special government pricing that allows us to buy without going to tender (tender is basically already done and Dell won the bid for a given time). The price is very good, and their support and warranty has been great. I can't speak for others, but we certainly still use Dell.
I upgraded to 11.04 and had no issues. I tried Unity out and didn't like it so I just chose the classic desktop when I logged in and was right back to my normal Gnome environment. There's really nothing to "deal with"... just upgrade and then it's as simple as choosing Gnome when you (or her) login if you don't want Unity. It's really that easy. Unity is just the new default, but Gnome is still there if you choose it.
You should stop telling her not to upgrade and just do it. I've been a daily Ubuntu user since 6.06... I depend on it for my job, so it's important to me that it works, and works well... I always backup before upgrading so I can roll back just in case things aren't good... but I can honestly tell you that there's really no issue here. Upgrade and enjoy... with or without Unity.
At my work, yes, we would definitely support your needs if that's what we require of you.
I'm actually a web developer too (with admin/network management as backup to the other guys), and while I don't have quite as many platforms to develop for as you, all my needs are met to support what I do need to develop for. It's what I was hired to do, so the tools I need to perform that job are provided. If tomorrow we have more needs that I'll have to develop for, the tools I require to do that will be budgeted for as part of that need.
You could definitely manage yourself... the IT department can't be expected to know every piece of software or hardware inside and out. That's part of my/your job. But we definitely don't expect anyone to pay for and bring in their own equipment. We'd make sure you had those 5 mobile devices, those 4 tablets, purchase all that software, give you your various environments (either through physical systems or VMs or a combination of both, and you may be expected to manage those environments as part of the skills you bring to the job), and send you for any required training on any of it so that you have what you need to do what we hired you to do.
Big businesses are going to have to become more flexible about how IT is provisioned and managed.
At my job (where I work in the IT department), if they need a device to do their job they're more than welcome, and even encouraged, to ask their director to fund it for them, in which case we'll be happy to provide them with a device we can control on our corporate network that allows them to do the job they were hired for. If they need it to do their job properly, we'll make sure they get it. No need to use their own personal (and potentially insecure and uncontrolled on our network) device they paid for themselves.
If they simply want to use their personal device because they want to or think it's cool and trendy, even though the device we provide them with does everything they need to perform the job we hired them to do.... too bad, sorry.
If they wanted James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, or Patrick Naughton, they should've just said so. I think those are about the only three people who can claim 20 years of Java experience in 2011:)
I've seen the same on xda-developers. Reports indicate it still doesn't work in Canada... Netflix knows where you are (probably by the type of account, not just IP location)... thanks though, I'll probably give it a try anyway just to see:)
You don't need to root the phone. As I and Locutus already pointed out, you should already have 2.3 Gingerbread if you have a Nexus S. It came with that from the moment it was available to the public. If there's a 2.2.1 available for it, it would already be a rooted custom firmware. Google never made firmware less than 2.3 for the Nexus S.
At my work we have the option of getting issued a phone (a Blackberry.. ugh) or using a personal phone and being compensated monthly for it. I use my personal Nexus One because it's superior to a Blackberry (for me, anyway. Give me Android or iOS over Blackberry any day. I don't mean that in general for everyone, though. To each their own, whatever works for you, etc.)... but I really don't like that Android 2.2.1 forced Exchange policies on my phone... ie. the admin can now remotely wipe my phone through Exchange if they want. However, my boss and I happen to be the admins, so it's not really a problem. I told him if he wipes my phone, I'll do evil things to our servers, then quit:)
I should note that my boss and I are friends and he took that as the joke it was meant to be, and I have no concerns that he'll ever wipe my phone on me... though even if he did, that's why I keep regular nandroid backups!
I was excited by this... my Nexus One is on the list! So I clicked the Market link... and... "This item cannot be installed in your device's country."... damnit! Netflix is available in Canada, why can't they make the app available? I use the Boxee Netflix app just fine here... sigh...
That will prevent the Java binary from loading the JVM and running, but leaves libjvm accessible to other apps that might want to load and start the JVM. A much better way would be to find the location of your installed JRE/JDK and "chmod 000/path/to/jre"... that's if you don't want to just uninstall it. But you're right with the chmod trick, it's nice in that you can undo it later if you do want to run a Java app.
You don't enable or disable Java. If it's installed on your system, it's available to use. You can, however, enable or disable the Java applet plugin for your web browsers, which is probably what you're talking about and isn't necessarily what this is about (TFA didn't mention applets or browsers). Java applications (not applets) can run on your system as long as you have Java installed, regardless of whether you have the browser plugins enabled or not, just like how you can open a PDF if Adobe Reader is installed, regardless of whether you have the Adobe Reader browser plugin enabled or not. So in theory, if they found an attack vector for your OS, having the Java plugin disabled wouldn't stop this from running on your system at all.
Getting it onto your system is the trick, though. If they found a hole in the Java plugin's sandbox, they could potentially exploit that using an applet and get the code onto your system. Disabling the plugin prevents that possibility, but if they were trying to push this via browsers there are lots of other plugins and holes are found in browsers all the time.
That being said, I don't bother with the Java plugin either, because applets are crap and I have no use for them and agree with you about sites requiring them (and I'm a full-time Java developer)
Agreed... and I always give new things a good chance.
When they moved the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the left side of the windows, I gave it a try, and found that going to one side instead of the other really didn't have any actual impact on my life so I was happy to use that, and I still do. It's really not a life-changing thing for me, I got used to it in about 2 minutes and I don't really care.
But Unity? I tried it. I really did. And it sucked like a tornado. Taking up useless space on the left side of my screen with icons in seemingly random order? I much prefer my tiny and thin bars at the top and bottom of the screen that show me useful, realtime information that I want, and give me very quick access to everything I need.
I don't hate things because they're different or because I'm ignorant of them. I hate them after I really give them a chance and learn about them and they still just do not work for me. I use Ubuntu as my OS on my daily workstation at my job, so I need things to be quick, efficient, and work the way I work. Unity doesn't do that for me at all, even after I tried.
If Ubuntu drops Gnome completely and makes it a pain in the ass (and/or unsupported) to install... I'll be moving to Kubuntu or Xubuntu. I've used both before, and unless they've completely changed into something else, either would work just fine for me. Maybe Unity is very good for some people... I'm just not one of them.
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No, you don't. What are you talking about?
Woooooosh... he was making a joke. Many iPhone apps are just a website wrapped up in an app that you have to install and download.
Flash performs so poorly on mobile devices
It performs perfectly and smoothly on my Nexus One. The only things I've found that didn't work well were things that also had issues in a desktop browser. Not that I'm defending Flash and wouldn't like to see it die... just pointing out that your statement isn't true in at least my case.
I have no idea what you're talking about. We're using vSphere 4 and the client is certainly not slow or outdated, and it also definitely doesn't use Java. I'm not sure what you have, but the client we use looks like a modern Windows application (definitely not cross-platform though I wish it was!) and performs just fine.
It can be cheaper to buy outright, depending on the carrier and plans. For example: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/08/02/how-to-save-on-your-cell-phone-plan-with-secret-no-contract-deals/
(note that I'm not American, so I don't know much about T-Mobile, but I came across that article recently and thought it might help)
Google didn't tell him to stop "hacking its products". They asked him to stop distributing their proprietary Google applications (gmail, etc), because he wasn't authorized to do so.
Again, I can't disagree. And ironically, being open is what allows the vendors to be more closed. But that's why I only buy reasonably open phones, like the Nexus devices. And by that I mean one that isn't locked down and is easily modded (binary blobs may still be involved, but the phone doesn't try to prevent me from messing with it). HTC isn't as bad as it could be, but you're definitely spot-on with Motorola. I'll never buy a Motorola device due to how locked down they are.
And I would not like using my phone without those capabilities at all. For the same reason I prefer to use nvidia's binary driver with my video card in Linux. I'm still not really seeing anything that's different from any other open source project with a very liberal BSD-based license. If I take the Apache web server, for instance, and create some great, but closed, product from it (as the Apache license allows) and cleverly achieve large market penetration with my closed product... I don't feel that makes the original Apache web server any less open, and the source to it is still available for anyone else to do what they want with it. This is how I view the Android OS.
My original point was that Android 2.3.5 is the most recent release, and is open source. The fact that it's open source is what allowed Cyanogen to create a usable OS based around it, even if that means using some binaries. If it wasn't available at all, he wouldn't even be able to do that (of course I guess a pure binary distribution could be modded and hacked and whatever, possibly illegally). Android as a whole may be more than Google, but I'm specifically talking about Android the OS that is the basis of all the rest of that, since the original question was about a release of Android from Google, and not about the plethora of other companies and devices involved in everything Android.
I don't disagree at all... however, those binaries don't come from Google, but from the phone manufacturers (at least to my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong). This isn't much different than the binary nvidia drivers I use in Linux for my video card... although yes, there are open source alternatives (and different hardware) in that case, but using the binaries doesn't make the Linux distribution itself any less open source.
Also, there were pure Android Gingerbread builds available for phones such as the Nexus One, straight from AOSP, before any binary drivers were actually released... I didn't run any of those builds, as I understand there was some reduced functionality (which makes sense if a driver was missing)... but Android itself was still built and running from its pure open source release. I believe the reduced functionality was worked around by people like Cyanogen creating shims that could make use of the Froyo binary drivers in Gingerbread, though.
I guess what I'm saying is that you're completely correct, but I don't feel a company separate from Google choosing not to release their drivers for their proprietary hardware as open source means that Android itself is not still open source. I believe other Linux variants, such as OpenWrt for routers, have done similar things with Broadcom chipsets as well.
Again, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this... this is just my understanding from my following of ASOP, CyanogenMod, xda-developers forums, and other sources. I'm certainly not claiming to be any kind of authority on the subject.
Most of Android is released under the Apache 2.0 license, which does not require anyone to provide source, yet it is an open source license. Google is also not required to release the source to any parts they own the rights to and in fact they can release this under whatever license they choose, including a closed one. Manufacturers may not even be allowed to release any source under whatever license they have obtained any non-open code from Google under, and may choose not to release any Apache-licensed code.
Being able to request source from the vendor is a requirement of the GPL, not the Apache license. As far as I know, Google has released the source to any GPL components, such as Linux kernel patches (see kaiser423's comment above).
Android 2.3.5 is the most recently released (on July 25) by Google, and you can easily obtain the source from AOSP. I'm running it on my phone right now, thanks to CyanogenMod.
If you meant 3.x (Honeycomb), that's really a whole different branch based on Android, and Google has said for a long time that it will be merged back in with the rest as a combined phone/tablet OS (like iOS is), which they call Ice Cream Sandwich. Android 3.x right now is basically a private fork for a few tablets to get them into the market that the iPad currently dominates.
From a business point of view, they're probably using these current tablets and manufactures to work out exactly what an Android tablet OS should be before unleashing a half-assed attempt on the world for any company to grab and implement poorly, making Android look stupid. I don't necessarily agree with holding back the 3.x source, but that's my guess at some possible justification. Better to delay and get it right, than release and look like failures... that might be their reasoning. Working with a controlled set of hardware and companies is a good way to refine your product before general distribution.
So while they may not have released the Honeycomb source code, they certainly are continuing to develop Android as open source (see 2.3.5), and have clearly stated that they will continue to so (Ice Cream Sandwich). I can't really call bullshit until Google breaks their word and doesn't release the Ice Cream Sandwich source (or releases it without the additions from Honeycomb)...
I work for a government organization, and we have all Dell workstations. They have special government pricing that allows us to buy without going to tender (tender is basically already done and Dell won the bid for a given time). The price is very good, and their support and warranty has been great. I can't speak for others, but we certainly still use Dell.
I upgraded to 11.04 and had no issues. I tried Unity out and didn't like it so I just chose the classic desktop when I logged in and was right back to my normal Gnome environment. There's really nothing to "deal with" ... just upgrade and then it's as simple as choosing Gnome when you (or her) login if you don't want Unity. It's really that easy. Unity is just the new default, but Gnome is still there if you choose it.
You should stop telling her not to upgrade and just do it. I've been a daily Ubuntu user since 6.06... I depend on it for my job, so it's important to me that it works, and works well... I always backup before upgrading so I can roll back just in case things aren't good... but I can honestly tell you that there's really no issue here. Upgrade and enjoy... with or without Unity.
At my work, yes, we would definitely support your needs if that's what we require of you.
I'm actually a web developer too (with admin/network management as backup to the other guys), and while I don't have quite as many platforms to develop for as you, all my needs are met to support what I do need to develop for. It's what I was hired to do, so the tools I need to perform that job are provided. If tomorrow we have more needs that I'll have to develop for, the tools I require to do that will be budgeted for as part of that need.
You could definitely manage yourself... the IT department can't be expected to know every piece of software or hardware inside and out. That's part of my/your job. But we definitely don't expect anyone to pay for and bring in their own equipment. We'd make sure you had those 5 mobile devices, those 4 tablets, purchase all that software, give you your various environments (either through physical systems or VMs or a combination of both, and you may be expected to manage those environments as part of the skills you bring to the job), and send you for any required training on any of it so that you have what you need to do what we hired you to do.
Big businesses are going to have to become more flexible about how IT is provisioned and managed.
At my job (where I work in the IT department), if they need a device to do their job they're more than welcome, and even encouraged, to ask their director to fund it for them, in which case we'll be happy to provide them with a device we can control on our corporate network that allows them to do the job they were hired for. If they need it to do their job properly, we'll make sure they get it. No need to use their own personal (and potentially insecure and uncontrolled on our network) device they paid for themselves.
If they simply want to use their personal device because they want to or think it's cool and trendy, even though the device we provide them with does everything they need to perform the job we hired them to do.... too bad, sorry.
Yep. For a name like "rubycodez" you certainly know your Java history! :-)
If they wanted James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, or Patrick Naughton, they should've just said so. I think those are about the only three people who can claim 20 years of Java experience in 2011 :)
As I already said above, I've been following xda-developers and it still doesn't work in Canada. Booo.... but I appreciate your response, thanks :)
I've seen the same on xda-developers. Reports indicate it still doesn't work in Canada... Netflix knows where you are (probably by the type of account, not just IP location)... thanks though, I'll probably give it a try anyway just to see :)
You don't need to root the phone. As I and Locutus already pointed out, you should already have 2.3 Gingerbread if you have a Nexus S. It came with that from the moment it was available to the public. If there's a 2.2.1 available for it, it would already be a rooted custom firmware. Google never made firmware less than 2.3 for the Nexus S.
At my work we have the option of getting issued a phone (a Blackberry.. ugh) or using a personal phone and being compensated monthly for it. I use my personal Nexus One because it's superior to a Blackberry (for me, anyway. Give me Android or iOS over Blackberry any day. I don't mean that in general for everyone, though. To each their own, whatever works for you, etc.) ... but I really don't like that Android 2.2.1 forced Exchange policies on my phone... ie. the admin can now remotely wipe my phone through Exchange if they want. However, my boss and I happen to be the admins, so it's not really a problem. I told him if he wipes my phone, I'll do evil things to our servers, then quit :)
I should note that my boss and I are friends and he took that as the joke it was meant to be, and I have no concerns that he'll ever wipe my phone on me... though even if he did, that's why I keep regular nandroid backups!
The Nexus S only ever came with 2.3. How can you have 2.2.1? Did you employer root your device and downgrade it?
I was excited by this... my Nexus One is on the list! So I clicked the Market link... and... "This item cannot be installed in your device's country." ... damnit! Netflix is available in Canada, why can't they make the app available? I use the Boxee Netflix app just fine here... sigh...
That will prevent the Java binary from loading the JVM and running, but leaves libjvm accessible to other apps that might want to load and start the JVM. A much better way would be to find the location of your installed JRE/JDK and "chmod 000 /path/to/jre" ... that's if you don't want to just uninstall it. But you're right with the chmod trick, it's nice in that you can undo it later if you do want to run a Java app.
You don't enable or disable Java. If it's installed on your system, it's available to use. You can, however, enable or disable the Java applet plugin for your web browsers, which is probably what you're talking about and isn't necessarily what this is about (TFA didn't mention applets or browsers). Java applications (not applets) can run on your system as long as you have Java installed, regardless of whether you have the browser plugins enabled or not, just like how you can open a PDF if Adobe Reader is installed, regardless of whether you have the Adobe Reader browser plugin enabled or not. So in theory, if they found an attack vector for your OS, having the Java plugin disabled wouldn't stop this from running on your system at all.
Getting it onto your system is the trick, though. If they found a hole in the Java plugin's sandbox, they could potentially exploit that using an applet and get the code onto your system. Disabling the plugin prevents that possibility, but if they were trying to push this via browsers there are lots of other plugins and holes are found in browsers all the time.
That being said, I don't bother with the Java plugin either, because applets are crap and I have no use for them and agree with you about sites requiring them (and I'm a full-time Java developer)
Agreed... and I always give new things a good chance.
When they moved the minimize/maximize/close buttons to the left side of the windows, I gave it a try, and found that going to one side instead of the other really didn't have any actual impact on my life so I was happy to use that, and I still do. It's really not a life-changing thing for me, I got used to it in about 2 minutes and I don't really care.
But Unity? I tried it. I really did. And it sucked like a tornado. Taking up useless space on the left side of my screen with icons in seemingly random order? I much prefer my tiny and thin bars at the top and bottom of the screen that show me useful, realtime information that I want, and give me very quick access to everything I need.
I don't hate things because they're different or because I'm ignorant of them. I hate them after I really give them a chance and learn about them and they still just do not work for me. I use Ubuntu as my OS on my daily workstation at my job, so I need things to be quick, efficient, and work the way I work. Unity doesn't do that for me at all, even after I tried.
If Ubuntu drops Gnome completely and makes it a pain in the ass (and/or unsupported) to install... I'll be moving to Kubuntu or Xubuntu. I've used both before, and unless they've completely changed into something else, either would work just fine for me. Maybe Unity is very good for some people... I'm just not one of them.
They demoed this at CES months ago... http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/ces-microsoft-shows-off-windows-8-on-arm/8339
Damnit. You're right of course :)