By Jake Edge
March 4, 2009
The Android developer phone (ADP1) is a nice piece of hardware which allows
freedoms that the T-Mobile standard-issue G1 does not allow. As the name
might imply, it is targeted at developers so that they can more easily
develop applications for the Android Market, but also so that they can
hack on the Android platform itself. So far, though, the Android
development community has been less-than-satisfied with the development
support provided by Google. In fact, the recent decision to disallow access to
copy-protected applications in the Android Market has a lot of
ADP1 purchasers up in arms. But that isn't the only thing that has
annoyed—or worse—Android hackers.
The idea behind a developer program is, or should be, that developers get early
access to the code that customers will soon be running, so that they can
test their applications—finding and fixing bugs before the general
public ever sees them. For whatever reason—manpower is the
oft-stated problem—Google has turned this on its head. Customers who
purchase the consumer version (i.e. G1), will get the RC33 version (in the
US, European version numbering is different) of the
firmware. The G1 phones ship with an earlier version, but an over-the-air
upgrade will eventually bring them up to that version. For developers who
purchased an ADP1, however, there is no equivalent upgrade, at least
officially.
There has been a fair amount of complaining about the lack of an ADP1
upgrade on the android-developers
mailing list. Jean-Baptiste Queru, who seems to be the Android engineer
who was selected or volunteered to answer questions on the list, is
unhappy about the delay—and lack of
information—as well:
There's no news on that subject as there isn't anything to announce
yet. We're still pushing hard to get 1.1 available for ADP1 owners,
but some things take time and no matter how quickly we want them done
we can't skip the necessary steps.
[...] You're not the only one frustrated about this. I am too.
The 1.1 firmware release for the ADP1 is supposed to have more-or-less
equivalent functionality to the RC33 release for the G1. But what,
exactly, that release will contain is still a closely-held secret.
That seems to be one of the biggest complaints about how Google is treating
Android developers: lack of information. The problem with copy-protected
applications for the ADP1 is just another example.
Android offers application developers two restrictions that they can apply
to their programs in the Android Market: for-sale and copy-protection. It
is believed that most for-sale applications will also carry the
copy-protection restriction, but that is not required. Gratis applications
can also be copy-protected if the developer wishes to do so.
The ADP 1.0
code does not allow access to either kind of application in the Market.
ADP 1.1 is believed to relax that restriction to only those that specify
copy-protection, though that may not be much different in practice. The
reasoning, according to Queru, is that
"copy-protected apps aren't offered on devices where the
copy-protection is known to be ineffective." Because the ADP1
phones are unlocked, there are various ways that the copy protection
could be overridden.
The fear seems to be that developers might pay for an application, then
squirrel it away and apply for a refund. Developers could restore the
deleted application after receiving the refund or copy it to other
phones. While that is a possibility, it
leaves some feeling like developers are being
singled out as pirates. One of the problems is that folks who have
gotten root access on their G1 phones can access copy-protected
applications. In the end, folks who want to pirate applications—be
they developers or consumers—will find a way to do it.
It is a time-honored tradition amongst software developers to check out the
competition. Many of the hobbyist developers hoping to strike it rich with
Android Market applications purchased the ADP1 in the belief that it would
have the same functionality that the consumer version does. Now they have
found out that they can't purchase competitor's applications (at least in
the likely case that they are copy-protected), on top of the realization
that they can't get a blessed version of the latest code. Other ADP1
purchasers were looking to get around the geographic and/or cellular
carrier restrictions of the G1, but now have a phone with fewer capabilities.
There are alternative firmware loads for
the ADP1, but it doesn't sit well that Google has yet to provide one. A
somewhat popular alternative is to use the so-called "holiday"
version—the version that shipped on the ADP1s that Google
gave its employees as a holiday bonus. Interestingly, that code does not
allow accessing copy-protected Market applications either, which makes it
likely that the restriction is simply an attempt to be consistent about
copy protection, as Queru stated, rather than a real belief that developers
are more likely to be pirates.
Google could have avoided much of the outcry by being more
transparent—something the company seems to have a general problem
with—and by paying more attention to its developer program. The
official developers
blog does not seem to cover many of the areas that are of concern
to the community. One must wander through the mailing list or third-party
sites to find information about the restriction on copy-protected
applications, for example.
There are alternative mechanisms for handling copy protection, of course.
Several were bandied about on the mailing list as the "forward
locking" scheme—essentially signing the application in such a way that it
won't run on other phones—is seen as suboptimal. The
alternatives are other forms of DRM, however, as Queru points out:
No doubt that using a DRM solution that is not based on
forward-locking is the right long-term approach. We know what it would
take to implement it. There just wasn't enough time to do it.
Developers just want a phone that can do what they need it to, so some are
starting to feel like they made a bad decision by purchasing the ADP1.
That has led to suggestions that
folks should just sell their ADP1 and use the emulator or a G1 phone to
do their development. That may be a bit of an extreme reaction, but there
are probably some who have done that or are considering it. A bigger worry
for Google might be that they decide to ditch the Android platform entirely
for something more developer-friendly.
Some have portrayed Android as the future of the Linux desktop—on
phones and netbooks at least—but the problems that are currently being
experienced on phones could well spill over. DRM and
locking devices to particular vendors are not "features" that people normally
associate with Linux and free software, but they are being demanded by some
vendors. Those kinds of restrictions are really meant to keep consumers
from reaping the benefits of freedom. While folks may be used to that
treatment from mobile phones, one hopes they don't have to get used to it
from their computers as well.
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