It's probably also easier to manage the development if your development is done by people "under your thumb." I don't see a need to attribute nefarious motives to them for this.
The concept of openness is not black or white. There are many shades of grey, and certainly wrt mobile OSs, Android is more open than WP7, iOS, RIM, or WebOS. Just like there are differences between FOSS licenses (e.g. BSD vs GPL). They have to contend with the wishes of the carriers and hardware mfgs, not just developers, which can be quite difficult to balance.
Yes, Android's conception of openness is the kind where you get to advertise how moral you are and how dastardly the competition is, not the kind where you have to compromise on difficult business decisions.
So you disagree that Google/Android is more open than any of the other platforms?
I've never understood Google's 'openness' argument as a moral one. I always took it to mean that I can do whatever I want with my hardware, including side-loading software at various levels of the stack. This has held mostly true.
I'm seeing two kinds of attacks on Google/Android's openness when this kind of thing happens. The first is from F/OSS advocates that feel betrayed and manipulated by Google's use/misuse of F/OSS terms, which is pretty understandable to me as Google's handling of its software seems to be very different from traditional F/OSS.
The other is from Apple advocates trying to score cheap gotcha/schadenfreude points. Your comment is the second kind.
Google has been pushing the 'open' line heavily since Android launched. They've benefitted from endlessly positive PR; they deserve to be called on it when they choose profits over principle. That seems to be a lot these days.
> I can do whatever I want with my hardware
All handset manufacturers lock down the firmware. You can download the source, but you can't do anything without hacking the phone. If that's 'open', then by unlocking my iPhone I can render it just as 'open'. Now you can't even download the source. As for side-loading, the second-largest mobile provider in the US doesn't let you do it at all. How is Android open if Google never calls out the gatekeepers as they strip away the openness?
The only substantial way Android can even claim to be 'open' is the lack of editorial control over the software installed on Android phones. Of course, Skyhook probably has something to say about that too.
As for Apple, they do plenty of things I don't like. But fundamentally they're just a consumer electronics company turning out gadgets with few political implications.
Apple isn't the world's largest advertising company, running the world's largest private information gathering system. Apple isn't the go-to company when Obama wants advice on tech issues. Apple hasn't enabled censorship in China. Apple hasn't supported net neutrality when it suited their needs, then yanked the rug away when it didn't.
Google is all of those things - and their reputation as the universal love child, reflexively defended by legions of fans based on their commitment to principles like 'not being evil' and 'openness', enables them to act without regard to those principles.
I disagree that the PR has been "endlessly positive;" I do think they should be called out when they deserve it, and I think some of the points that you point out qualify. I don't think delaying the release of Honeycomb really qualifies, but that's debatable.
The handset manufacturers/carriers do lock down the software. But that's not Google, that's the manufacturers/carriers. When Google is involved (with their flagship devices like the G1 and Nexus devices) the hardware is not locked down at all.
I think one of the problems with what you're saying is the conflation of specific hardware, Android, and Google Experience Android. Anyone can take open source Android and put it on any hardware they manufacture. That's open. Some manufacturers can negotiate with Google to put Google Experience Android on their hardware. That's less open, but more open than most/all other platforms. Skyhook can make a deal with anyone making non-Google Experience Android devices they want to. Google Experience Devices still enjoy almost complete freedom in the Android Market, as well as openly distributed APKs (excepting ATT devices).
RE Apple and political implications: I disagree with you. Their editorial oversight and the heavy-handed and arbitrary way that they exercise it is political control.
RE Apple and censorship: Apple doesn't enable censorship in China. They actively engage in censorship everywhere (through the App Store). I'm sure if Apple had occasion to enable censorship in China, they'd (prudently) do so. (As an aside, Apple has other issues in China.)
I'll admit I do like Google and have a warm and fuzzy feeling about them. But I think it's deserved. Google has done some amazing things, some (like the release of Android source) unequivocally open.
That said, I do think Google makes some pragmatic decisions sometimes that are compromises of their professed principles. And that does make me angry. I don't reflexively defend those decisions. I do hope that they are pragmatic decisions taken with a long-term view (e.g. working with carriers/manufacturers until Android and specifically Google Experience Android is a sufficient industry power that they can force the industry to open up and allow software freedom).
Again, delaying the release of source code to me does not qualify as a breach of principle, and the criticisms thereof strike me as reflexive, and mostly in the two ways I described above.
>Maybe it is, but you really can't go around claiming openness when you don't provide it.
How does "closed Honeycomb" reflect on any of the code that you previously would have considered "open"?
Before someone commits code to an open-source project, that code isn't available. No one would claim that the existence of that unavailable code says anything about the openness of the available code. And that wouldn't change if the unavailable code was shared with some of the author's friends.
What if the author in your example and his friends shipped the unavailable code as a consumer product and called it Android Smart Tablet?
They've been making a lot of noise for years about Android the open source software stack for mobile devices. Now they
're releasing mobile devices, calling it Android, basing it on Android, and keeping the source to themselves; Weak.
> What if the author in your example and his friends shipped the unavailable code as a consumer product and called it Android Smart Tablet?
Would you have not complained if they had called it "Banana" instead? Or, would you have complained when they open-sourced Banana because it was really Android.
They open-sourced a huge amount of code and you're complaining because they didn't open-source some other code because that other code has the same name?
Seems to me that the important part of Android openness was the ability to sideload and run competing app stores.
It's great that the OS source was also open, but it seems like this has only a very indirect impact on end users and app developers, unlike app store policies.
Until Android is open-source in the public development sense there will always be hope and hype for a properly-free open alternative.
What the world really needs is for some small competitor to Google in some space to make a very public attempt to get some tech into the tree. For example, for one of the smallest mapping companies to try and make an API for in-app mapping-services.
If it were open in the public development sense, how many more committers do you think there would be? 10% more? 50%? 200%?
In the context of the rapidly-changing ubiquitous computing space with open-source (or even commoditised) hardware nowhere to be seen, I just don't see what gains would come from an OSS project rather than Android's 'eventually-open' model.
I'm surprised to find out that none of the reused components are GPL besides the kernel. Is the whole tree otherwise licenses like Apache that don't require releasing the sources?
That was one of the original design goals of Android. Apparently the device manufacturers & carriers wouldn't have played ball if this was not the case.
If they are truly only closing it temporarily for usability and user experience reasons (e.g. 3.0 won't work well on most phones right now), then I have no problem with it.
I don't see why they would or should care about "usability and user experience" for 3rd party devices.
Closing Honeycomb's source is not going to stop cut-rate handset manufacturers from shipping a terrible Android experience on their phones, it is merely going to mean the terrible experience will be built on Gingerbread or lower instead of Honeycomb. Either way whatever damage might be done to Android via the user's own bad choices is done and in any case that's a caveat emptor situation that Google can't and shouldn't try to control.
I'm not sure what the actual reasons are behind this but IMO the consequences are all pretty negative. This move makes Andy Rubin look like a bit of a hypocrite in light of his public twitter-spat with Steve Jobs, it generates ill will for them among the open source community, it mildly kneecaps one of the important things that make a subset of tech-trendsetters favor Android over iOS, etc, and for what purpose exactly? No good one that is visible from the outside looking in.
Ultimately Android is Google's thing and they can take their ball and go home for any reason, but if they are going to do so they should really give a better explaination of why they are doing it because the one they seem to be going with rings hollow.
> I don't see why they would or should care about "usability and user experience" for 3rd party devices.
Because it degrades the users experience with Android.
Sure, some manufacturers will create a bad experience using Android 2.2. But, if Google knows that Honeycomb WILL have issues with most handsets, it would be prudent to hold off until those issues are resolved.
Just a possibility I'm throwing out there. Haven't read up on the issue yet.
FTA, quoting Andy Rubin:
“To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs. We didn’t want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut. We have no idea if it will even work on phones.”
I'm no Apple Fanboi (I'm a Linux fanboi, if anything), but this shows what a phenomenal job Apple has done with iOS.
No, they don't. They want Ice Cream (the 3.1 version that combines the tablet and phone "forks" of Android) on it. They don't want people trying to hack Honeycomb onto a phone when they know it's going to turn out horribly.
Cheap crappy manufacturers are rushing to get the latest version on their phones even if it doesn't work well, while big-name manufacturers use horribly outdated versions that don't work as well as the current one? It seems like only Google cares about actually delivering a good experience to the user.
Can someone with insight in to the industry explain this?
I assume that big name manufacturers don't care about updates because they already have the consumers' money. Underdog manufacturers are shipping bleeding edge Android to differentiate their product and then get your money.
30 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 62.2 ms ] threadSometimes you have to "close" the source for a period of time to satisfy commercial restrictions and all is well when it is opened again.
I've never understood Google's 'openness' argument as a moral one. I always took it to mean that I can do whatever I want with my hardware, including side-loading software at various levels of the stack. This has held mostly true.
I'm seeing two kinds of attacks on Google/Android's openness when this kind of thing happens. The first is from F/OSS advocates that feel betrayed and manipulated by Google's use/misuse of F/OSS terms, which is pretty understandable to me as Google's handling of its software seems to be very different from traditional F/OSS.
The other is from Apple advocates trying to score cheap gotcha/schadenfreude points. Your comment is the second kind.
> I can do whatever I want with my hardware
All handset manufacturers lock down the firmware. You can download the source, but you can't do anything without hacking the phone. If that's 'open', then by unlocking my iPhone I can render it just as 'open'. Now you can't even download the source. As for side-loading, the second-largest mobile provider in the US doesn't let you do it at all. How is Android open if Google never calls out the gatekeepers as they strip away the openness?
The only substantial way Android can even claim to be 'open' is the lack of editorial control over the software installed on Android phones. Of course, Skyhook probably has something to say about that too.
As for Apple, they do plenty of things I don't like. But fundamentally they're just a consumer electronics company turning out gadgets with few political implications.
Apple isn't the world's largest advertising company, running the world's largest private information gathering system. Apple isn't the go-to company when Obama wants advice on tech issues. Apple hasn't enabled censorship in China. Apple hasn't supported net neutrality when it suited their needs, then yanked the rug away when it didn't.
Google is all of those things - and their reputation as the universal love child, reflexively defended by legions of fans based on their commitment to principles like 'not being evil' and 'openness', enables them to act without regard to those principles.
The handset manufacturers/carriers do lock down the software. But that's not Google, that's the manufacturers/carriers. When Google is involved (with their flagship devices like the G1 and Nexus devices) the hardware is not locked down at all.
I think one of the problems with what you're saying is the conflation of specific hardware, Android, and Google Experience Android. Anyone can take open source Android and put it on any hardware they manufacture. That's open. Some manufacturers can negotiate with Google to put Google Experience Android on their hardware. That's less open, but more open than most/all other platforms. Skyhook can make a deal with anyone making non-Google Experience Android devices they want to. Google Experience Devices still enjoy almost complete freedom in the Android Market, as well as openly distributed APKs (excepting ATT devices).
RE Apple and political implications: I disagree with you. Their editorial oversight and the heavy-handed and arbitrary way that they exercise it is political control.
RE Apple and censorship: Apple doesn't enable censorship in China. They actively engage in censorship everywhere (through the App Store). I'm sure if Apple had occasion to enable censorship in China, they'd (prudently) do so. (As an aside, Apple has other issues in China.)
I'll admit I do like Google and have a warm and fuzzy feeling about them. But I think it's deserved. Google has done some amazing things, some (like the release of Android source) unequivocally open.
That said, I do think Google makes some pragmatic decisions sometimes that are compromises of their professed principles. And that does make me angry. I don't reflexively defend those decisions. I do hope that they are pragmatic decisions taken with a long-term view (e.g. working with carriers/manufacturers until Android and specifically Google Experience Android is a sufficient industry power that they can force the industry to open up and allow software freedom).
Again, delaying the release of source code to me does not qualify as a breach of principle, and the criticisms thereof strike me as reflexive, and mostly in the two ways I described above.
How does "closed Honeycomb" reflect on any of the code that you previously would have considered "open"?
Before someone commits code to an open-source project, that code isn't available. No one would claim that the existence of that unavailable code says anything about the openness of the available code. And that wouldn't change if the unavailable code was shared with some of the author's friends.
So why does "closed Honeycomb" have that effect?
They've been making a lot of noise for years about Android the open source software stack for mobile devices. Now they 're releasing mobile devices, calling it Android, basing it on Android, and keeping the source to themselves; Weak.
Would you have not complained if they had called it "Banana" instead? Or, would you have complained when they open-sourced Banana because it was really Android.
They open-sourced a huge amount of code and you're complaining because they didn't open-source some other code because that other code has the same name?
Wowsers.
It's great that the OS source was also open, but it seems like this has only a very indirect impact on end users and app developers, unlike app store policies.
What the world really needs is for some small competitor to Google in some space to make a very public attempt to get some tech into the tree. For example, for one of the smallest mapping companies to try and make an API for in-app mapping-services.
Then Google will wake up.
You are aware that OEM engineers who are open source comitters to android do have access, right?
In the context of the rapidly-changing ubiquitous computing space with open-source (or even commoditised) hardware nowhere to be seen, I just don't see what gains would come from an OSS project rather than Android's 'eventually-open' model.
so take your time google.. we are all waiting for ice cream =)
Closing Honeycomb's source is not going to stop cut-rate handset manufacturers from shipping a terrible Android experience on their phones, it is merely going to mean the terrible experience will be built on Gingerbread or lower instead of Honeycomb. Either way whatever damage might be done to Android via the user's own bad choices is done and in any case that's a caveat emptor situation that Google can't and shouldn't try to control.
I'm not sure what the actual reasons are behind this but IMO the consequences are all pretty negative. This move makes Andy Rubin look like a bit of a hypocrite in light of his public twitter-spat with Steve Jobs, it generates ill will for them among the open source community, it mildly kneecaps one of the important things that make a subset of tech-trendsetters favor Android over iOS, etc, and for what purpose exactly? No good one that is visible from the outside looking in.
Ultimately Android is Google's thing and they can take their ball and go home for any reason, but if they are going to do so they should really give a better explaination of why they are doing it because the one they seem to be going with rings hollow.
Because it degrades the users experience with Android.
Sure, some manufacturers will create a bad experience using Android 2.2. But, if Google knows that Honeycomb WILL have issues with most handsets, it would be prudent to hold off until those issues are resolved.
Just a possibility I'm throwing out there. Haven't read up on the issue yet.
I'm no Apple Fanboi (I'm a Linux fanboi, if anything), but this shows what a phenomenal job Apple has done with iOS.
Can someone with insight in to the industry explain this?