Looks like there is a steady stream of work being done in AOSP to me.
If you think nothing happens in AOSP it's simply because you've never looked and you've accepted someone else's FUD at face value.
What you see there is very, very small compared to what appears with each release from Google. I'll also be amazed to see any commits or patches accepted from those that don't work at Google.
Suffice it to say, you can't build and run a beta of 4.3 or whatever. All of that is kept behind closed doors until their partners are ready to abandon their 4.2 devices or whatever.
Also it's not about control, it's about actually getting shit done.
It is all about control. Google has used their control to withhold the releases of at least one Android revision for a full iteration and I suspect they'll do it again at some point.
Wayland was a good thing, but nobody is adopting it because the community is refusing to give up the old broken X11 for something better.
Err, no. The Wayland protocol went 1.0 months back and the reference implementation, Weston, isn't ready for production use yet. Mir is the result of Canonical being full of shit.
And even still, Wayland has been in development for 5 years now - it's the same age as Android.
Yes, sometimes it takes a while to create a well designed protocol, rather than rolling your own and having to revise it again and again like Google did with SurfaceFlinger. Of course, had Google cooperated with other projects they could have had something sooner, but instead they decided to buy a proprietary project and use that.
Or hell, they could have used X11. It may have useless bits that will never see use on a mobile device but it's no slowpoke. Nope. NIH.
Tell that to the XDA and Cyanogenmod developers. Both attract substantial community development support.
XDA is mostly a script kiddie haven, where the GPL is violated regularly and people do things without thinking much about it. Cyanogenmod is a great project, but that does not make Android a community project, which it is not.
Google would actually have to be open with future Android development for it to truly be a community project, but they are loathe to do that. It wouldn't give their OHA partners the ability to release the OS on handsets before the sources were available (not that this has stopped them from releasing handsets to customers then waiting weeks to publish sources, in violation of the GPL in may cases.)
The AOSP is a sorry excuse for a "community project." No forward looking development happens there, it's just a dumping ground for when Google is done developing the next revision internally, taking input exclusively from its OHA partners.
I don't foresee this changing. Google likes the control too much.
It doesn't help because you're stuck with a binary only DRM module that could be just as much a security risk as flash. Each website could have its own security module, solving precisely no problems while introducing millions more, and they'll be compiled only for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. Other platforms will, invariably, need not apply.
DRM is antithetical to open technology. It requires openness be thrown in the dumpster for the sake of enforcing restrictions on others. I suspect that the next update of HTML5, if this DRM element is accepted into the standard, will allow for DRM to cover entire websites.
Sure, people being able to record things won't kill the industry, but if everyone started recording things and stopped paying, the industry would collapse.
Yeah, so in the phenominally unlikely scenario that everyone starts constantly recording everything an industry might go out of business. Therefore we should accept and appreciate DRM.
Ah, right, a trick question because no one can actually do anything on Linux.
I'm willing to bet that whatever it is you're doing on Linux could be done just as easily on OS X without fucking about maintaining the operating system.
Just for reference, I do a lot of tinkering with arduino devices, driver and mobile application development. You might say "oh you can do that on OS X" but the thing is that I have absolutely zero difficulty doing what I do on Linux, no tinkering with the platform necessary. I don't have to fuck around with Linux at all, beyond "maintaining the operating system" by kicking off the latest round of package updates.
I'm sorry if you're annoyed (and obviously angry) that people dislike OS X and like Linux, but them's the breaks.
Slashdot needs a category just for Linux haters and Apple fanboys.
Nope; it would be suicide for a computer running a traditional operating system.
Why would it? Apple's already proven that most people neither understand nor care when they impose harsh restrictions, and it's that majority that is always wielded like a club against people who approve of jailbreaking or unlocked platforms.
I'm sure they'd be just fined if they yanked control away from most of their users and sold limited "developer licenses" for OS X. I suspect that, in the end, OS X will end up little more than an iOS development platform.
it seems that.NET developers never get even grudging respect from the likes of Stallman and other Linux hardliners out there
Hardliners aren't going to show respect to an audience that uses tools fundamentally centered on non-Free platforms. What led you to think otherwise?
Ironically, this hostility towards.NET has played into the hands of those at Microsoft who sought to discourage the use of.NET outside of Microsoft's control.
Has it? It's done a marvelous job of killing integration of.NET technologies in Linux platforms, and for good reason quite frankly.
Yes, the patent laws are a problem but Microsoft has already made legally binding promises not to litigate their patents on core technologies
Only within the context of.NET. Were the patented methods to be used in other areas, as FOSS lends itself to, you would be open to a lawsuit from Microsoft. This is why they were rebuffed.
if you're worried about patents you should do what every sensible startup does and simply ignore them
We can't do this because with.NET we know it is encumbered with limited use patents and:
knowing that a patent exists means willful infringement which is treble damages.
even game programmers want to have a home and live off something but instant noodles.
Well given this is EA, they might earn enough to buy a home and something better than instant noodles, but they'll never have time to go home and enjoy them.
Forming a private cooperative to build their own internet infrastructure seems like a perversion of the crony capitalist system that is the foundation of western society.
Oh please. You know what's "crony capitalist?" Bullshit like states banning municipal broadband at the demand of local telco monopolies so that they don't have to compete with better service.
We've already tried forcing them to spread into more rural areas, all they did was raise rates and mark up impressive profits.
I think you will struggle to find iPhone users who are not aware of the App Store and what it entails. Furthermore, most users just really don't care.
I believe you are mistaken. Most people neither know nor care. Incidentally, that mode of thinking is why our political situation is such crap right now and not something to be deferred to or respected.
On the plus side, there is no need for antivirus software in devices running iOS
There's no need to run antivirus software on Android either.
something that I saw advertised prominently the last time I was in Akihabara.
Are you sure they didn't mean Mac OS X? Cause that was the claim for the longest of times.
Certainly, the rules to get a iOS developer license could be relaxed in such a way to demand less than $100 for it and make room for hoobists, but locked down nature of the devices and the efforts made to get accountability from the developers are a service to Apple's customers.
Or they could offer a simple switch enabled in the environment or from iTunes that lets end users do as they wish. It would have no impact on most people because the App Store is far too easy. But they won't, because Apple enjoys having absolute control over end users, developers, and their interactions.
There wouldn't be this stupid cat and mouse game if Apple would give people a legitimate means of opening up the device. They refuse to, thus people get annoyed when Apple stamps their shiny metal and white boot down again and again.
Android, even on devices with a locked bootloader, allows for installation of software from sources other than the Play Store. On iOS devices, you cannot install any software from sources other than the App Store, period.
Android vendors that lock the bootloader quite often catch a lot of shit, so I don't really see how this is equivalent.
You mentioned depositing money in an account with the post office and the first place that comes to mind is Japan, where the Japan Post is the single largest deposit holder in the country, more than all the other banks combined.
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The 3DS GPU isn't Mali but something developed by a Japanese company, I don't believe it's been used in anything else at this point.
What you see there is very, very small compared to what appears with each release from Google. I'll also be amazed to see any commits or patches accepted from those that don't work at Google.
Suffice it to say, you can't build and run a beta of 4.3 or whatever. All of that is kept behind closed doors until their partners are ready to abandon their 4.2 devices or whatever.
It is all about control. Google has used their control to withhold the releases of at least one Android revision for a full iteration and I suspect they'll do it again at some point.
Err, no. The Wayland protocol went 1.0 months back and the reference implementation, Weston, isn't ready for production use yet. Mir is the result of Canonical being full of shit.
Yes, sometimes it takes a while to create a well designed protocol, rather than rolling your own and having to revise it again and again like Google did with SurfaceFlinger. Of course, had Google cooperated with other projects they could have had something sooner, but instead they decided to buy a proprietary project and use that.
Or hell, they could have used X11. It may have useless bits that will never see use on a mobile device but it's no slowpoke. Nope. NIH.
XDA is mostly a script kiddie haven, where the GPL is violated regularly and people do things without thinking much about it. Cyanogenmod is a great project, but that does not make Android a community project, which it is not.
Google would actually have to be open with future Android development for it to truly be a community project, but they are loathe to do that. It wouldn't give their OHA partners the ability to release the OS on handsets before the sources were available (not that this has stopped them from releasing handsets to customers then waiting weeks to publish sources, in violation of the GPL in may cases.)
The AOSP is a sorry excuse for a "community project." No forward looking development happens there, it's just a dumping ground for when Google is done developing the next revision internally, taking input exclusively from its OHA partners.
I don't foresee this changing. Google likes the control too much.
It doesn't help because you're stuck with a binary only DRM module that could be just as much a security risk as flash. Each website could have its own security module, solving precisely no problems while introducing millions more, and they'll be compiled only for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. Other platforms will, invariably, need not apply.
DRM is antithetical to open technology. It requires openness be thrown in the dumpster for the sake of enforcing restrictions on others. I suspect that the next update of HTML5, if this DRM element is accepted into the standard, will allow for DRM to cover entire websites.
Yeah, so in the phenominally unlikely scenario that everyone starts constantly recording everything an industry might go out of business. Therefore we should accept and appreciate DRM.
My god, it'd kill the industry if people could record things! Just like the VCR did back in the early 80s, like Jack Valenti predicted it would!
Which it won't be, because DRM that is clear about how it is implemented is quickly broken.
You'll not only be required to sign an NDA, but also to license the patents.
If only it were that simple. Then the DRM would be broken outright and we could stop making up this bullshit.
No, with DRM no one wins.
Ah, right, a trick question because no one can actually do anything on Linux.
Just for reference, I do a lot of tinkering with arduino devices, driver and mobile application development. You might say "oh you can do that on OS X" but the thing is that I have absolutely zero difficulty doing what I do on Linux, no tinkering with the platform necessary. I don't have to fuck around with Linux at all, beyond "maintaining the operating system" by kicking off the latest round of package updates.
I'm sorry if you're annoyed (and obviously angry) that people dislike OS X and like Linux, but them's the breaks.
Slashdot needs a category just for Linux haters and Apple fanboys.
Why would it? Apple's already proven that most people neither understand nor care when they impose harsh restrictions, and it's that majority that is always wielded like a club against people who approve of jailbreaking or unlocked platforms.
I'm sure they'd be just fined if they yanked control away from most of their users and sold limited "developer licenses" for OS X. I suspect that, in the end, OS X will end up little more than an iOS development platform.
Hardliners aren't going to show respect to an audience that uses tools fundamentally centered on non-Free platforms. What led you to think otherwise?
Has it? It's done a marvelous job of killing integration of .NET technologies in Linux platforms, and for good reason quite frankly.
Only within the context of .NET. Were the patented methods to be used in other areas, as FOSS lends itself to, you would be open to a lawsuit from Microsoft. This is why they were rebuffed.
We can't do this because with .NET we know it is encumbered with limited use patents and:
Well given this is EA, they might earn enough to buy a home and something better than instant noodles, but they'll never have time to go home and enjoy them.
Perhaps you should, because there are people who genuinely believe what you wrote.
Oh please. You know what's "crony capitalist?" Bullshit like states banning municipal broadband at the demand of local telco monopolies so that they don't have to compete with better service.
We've already tried forcing them to spread into more rural areas, all they did was raise rates and mark up impressive profits.
I believe you are mistaken. Most people neither know nor care. Incidentally, that mode of thinking is why our political situation is such crap right now and not something to be deferred to or respected.
There's no need to run antivirus software on Android either.
Are you sure they didn't mean Mac OS X? Cause that was the claim for the longest of times.
Or they could offer a simple switch enabled in the environment or from iTunes that lets end users do as they wish. It would have no impact on most people because the App Store is far too easy. But they won't, because Apple enjoys having absolute control over end users, developers, and their interactions.
Slapdown? Just pointing out fact. My N900 and N9 still see regular use and will until something I actually want to buy comes along.
There wouldn't be this stupid cat and mouse game if Apple would give people a legitimate means of opening up the device. They refuse to, thus people get annoyed when Apple stamps their shiny metal and white boot down again and again.
The iPhone and its local SSH server predated the N900 by about 2 years.
Caveats, caveats everywhere.
Android, even on devices with a locked bootloader, allows for installation of software from sources other than the Play Store. On iOS devices, you cannot install any software from sources other than the App Store, period.
Android vendors that lock the bootloader quite often catch a lot of shit, so I don't really see how this is equivalent.
Isn't it such terrible irony?
That's obviously not Apple's view. Their view is obviously that no one does anything without Apple's permission.
Doubtful, though multitouch features wouldn't work. The lack of RAM and slow processor would be far greater inhibitors.
Pray tell, what terrorist has done this? Seriously? When in the last 10 years has a domestic terrorist actually killed children in the US?
Where are all these lurking Arab terrorists that we're told we should constantly live in fear of, thus we should give up our rights?
You mentioned depositing money in an account with the post office and the first place that comes to mind is Japan, where the Japan Post is the single largest deposit holder in the country, more than all the other banks combined.