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How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica)
Ryan Paul speculates
on the ramifications of the new Amazon Appstore for Android. "The Amazon Appstore for Android launched last week. Although the online retail giant's new software storefront still has some rough edges, it could eventually have significant ramifications for the entire Android ecosystem. If Amazon's Appstore proves to be a viable alternative to Google's own Android Market, it could weaken the search giant's control over the Android platform and shift the balance of power in a direction that favors hardware makers-opening the door for forks and deeper differentiation.
This could prove to be especially significant right now, because Google's decision to withhold the Android 3.0 source code for the foreseeable future has created a need for Android hardware vendors to pursue more autonomy and insulate themselves from Google's increasingly dictatorial control over the operating system."
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Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 20:47 UTC (Tue) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]
If Amazon or somebody can't crack Android back open again it really doesn't matter because the whole stated point of Android is moot. It is currently a closed source operating system almost exclusively installed on locked hardware. All that currently separates Android from iOS is a less heavy handed policy toward what can and can't be sold in the app store of each platform. And that policy is just as subject to the whim of Google as the source code blobs they used to toss over the wall once in awhile and have stopped doing.
How many times must we fall for the promises of a single source platform vendor before we wise up? "Don't be evil." is as empty a slogan as a campaign promise from a politician. Google does these things for the only reason that everyone else does things they shouldn't, because they can. Because people bought into an ecosystem where they could do it. Code tossed over the wall whenever they get around to it isn't open source, never was. Had we demanded a more open process it would have made it a lot harder for them to do what they have done, they would have to have publicly forked into a private repo and that would have set off the alarm bells months before 3.0 shipped, long enough that their fork would probably have ended up being less interesting than what was in the public repositories.
Now we have a decision to make. No one option is clearly better so expect lots of argument.
1. Abandon Android as just another closed platform like iOS. There are strong arguments for this. The whole design philosophy of Android is about supporting closed source apps after all. Otherwise explain the benefit of java/Dalvik again? Here in our world we achieve cross platform via autoconf/automake, not by compile once, emulate everywhere. Dumping Java from a rebooted phone platform design would almost certainly pay dividends in the most important issue currently impacting mobile computing: battery life.
2. Just hope Google eventually does another code dump and we all just forgive, forget and go on as before. Until the next time. And there is always a next time, ask any victim of abuse.
3. Fork Android from the last code dump into a Git repo, forget 3.0 ever happened and move on.
Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 21:11 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
While there are some well place complaints here, do remember that unless android used a proprietary license or a free software license with an anti-tivoization clause in it (such as the GPL3), google cannot prevent manufacturers from closing devices without some side agreement with the manufacturers. And, how would they be able to get such an agreement? Likely only by doing things that you would claim would make the platform less open (say: giving them preview code drops...) in the first place. And, even then, after the public code release, other manufacturers could still close their devices.
As for using the GPL3, who knows if android could have succeeded at all with it? I respect google's decision to not use it in the hopes of getting deeper android penetration. For me, from a hardware perspective, closed, but potentially hackable devices, are better than no (or very few) devices. Obviously I am speaking about non honeycomb devices. All bets are off with honeycomb, so far, they are simply closed source devices.
Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 21:28 UTC (Tue) by xxiao (subscriber, #9631) [Link]
The sad truth is that, there is no OSS alternative for tablet anymore. Meego(which is actually a non-starter) took a hit, and Google had the best time to pull its trigger.
Maybe the only choice is to fork and evolve 2.3? Or Debian+JVM?
Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:25 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
> The sad truth is that, there is no OSS alternative for tablet anymore. Meego(which is actually a non-starter) took a hit, and Google had the best time to pull its trigger.
Hmm, if Meego is a non starter, then was there ever an OSS alternative for tablets?
If there never was an OSS alternative, then I don't see things as getting worse, things can only get better. If google releases Honeycomb source, the world will be better off than it ever was. If they don't, it's as if nothing happened. Tablets aren't any worse off now than phones were ~3 years ago when google announced android for phones, are they? So, why so pessimistic?
Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:47 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
Hasn't anyone else done a quick and dirty local modified version of an open source package for a client?
Tablet makers: We need these features _now_!
Android hackers: But if we do them that quick, they'll be crappy hacks and everyone on LWN will laugh at our code!
Google management: OK, so don't show people the crappy version, and release the cleaned-up version when you're not ashamed of it.
It's not shame... Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:54 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] It's probably the same thing Apple did. Remember? iPad was released with iOS 3.2, later iPhone got iOS 4.0, 4.1 till finally iOS 4.2 unified two forks. I doubt Google wants to support two forks - they probably want to merge them... and it means at least one fork is essentially frozen (probably Tablet one). If it's frozen and can not be changed then why will you open-source it? Just to help competitors who don't give anything back? Not a good idea IMO.
It's not shame... Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:58 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
> Just to help competitors who don't give anything back?
Well how could they or their supporters, if they doesn't release the code in the first place?
Your logic ignores the competitive advantage of free software and focuses only on the disadvantage.
It's not shame... Posted Mar 29, 2011 23:10 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] > Just to help competitors who don't give anything back? Talk with Google and join the OHA? You don't need public release of code for that. Your logic ignores the competitive advantage of free software and focuses only on the disadvantage. And this "competitive advantage" is... what exactly? I know of only one: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". And it does not work for short-lived forks.
It's not shame... Posted Mar 29, 2011 23:37 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
> Talk with Google and join the OHA? You don't need public release of code for that.
There are supporters who aren't partners. Those are sometimes more likely to contribute back. Some partners mainly care about getting the code to work on their devices and some to make proprietary forks. Users care a lot, just look at the cyanogen mods.
> And this "competitive advantage" is... what exactly? I know of only one: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".
You are joking right? Are you deliberately ignoring everything you have learned here on LWN? How about features, alternative platform fixes, general maintenance, refactoring cleanups, documentation, artwork, design ideas, ...
> And it does not work for short-lived forks.
Honeycomb is likely only a short lived fork in the sense that it is likely to merge back with the non honeycomb tree. It is hardly a throw away fork. Add helping to complete and merge honeycomb to the list of things that contributors could do.
I don't think that google would create and host an open source code review contribution tool (https://review.source.android.com) just for android if they didn't think that outside contributors could be and advantage.
It's not shame... Posted Mar 30, 2011 8:40 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] You are joking right? Are you deliberately ignoring everything you have learned here on LWN? How about features, alternative platform fixes, general maintenance, refactoring cleanups, documentation, artwork, design ideas, ...Lack of manpower, big egos, NIH-syndrome, starting hacking on new features before the bugs in the previous release are fixed... Just look at the recent articles and threads on CentOS, GNOME 3, Arch Linux.
Back to Maemo! Posted Mar 30, 2011 11:22 UTC (Wed) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
Before Meego there was something much better, called Maemo. The code for Hildon etc. still exists and could be developed further.
Back to Maemo! Posted Mar 30, 2011 12:49 UTC (Wed) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032) [Link]
What advantages do you see in Maemo over Meego? To me the two seem essentially equivalent only one is GTK+/deb based the other Qt/RPM-based.
Back to Maemo! Posted Mar 30, 2011 13:47 UTC (Wed) by ufa (subscriber, #56005) [Link]
"What advantages do you see in Maemo over Meego? To me the two seem essentially equivalent only one is GTK+/deb based the other Qt/RPM-based."
The difference is basically that Maemo was done, and Meego is not
Back to Maemo! Posted Mar 30, 2011 14:27 UTC (Wed) by debacle (subscriber, #7114) [Link]
GTK+/deb is yes, it's a matter of taste already an advantage over Qt/RPM :~)
Furthermore, I used Maemo/Hildon since its infancy, being one of the first N770 users, now N800 user. I really like it! I just don't see any reason to drop this wunderbar system for anything else.
Somebody needs to open Android back up Posted Mar 29, 2011 21:33 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
I can understand your feelings, but I don't share them.
And adding hyperbole will not help. The day you can legally download (any) iOS source, and use it for something we can talk about iOS being the same as Android. Until that day, they are in different leagues, for me at least.
Also, demanding that others do what you want them to do for your benefit and at their expense is not something that will take you very far. The parts of Android that are Google's code, they are free to do whatever they want with them. The others, if they want to use my code, they'd better abide by the rules, or will lose the right to do so. Whatever we ask from Google, it will only succeed if it benefits both them and us in some way or another.
We could agree that the current situation is not optimal from our perspective, but we must not forget ours it's not the only rightful perspective.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:34 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Had we demanded a more open process it would have made it a lot harder for them to do what they have done... You did. Once, twice, thrice... The end result was... underwhelming. Great things are not created by bazaars. You can only create them using cathedral approach. Sure, once certain level of maturity is reached bazaar starts to work, but you can not use it to create something from scratch. Dumping Java from a rebooted phone platform design would almost certainly pay dividends in the most important issue currently impacting mobile computing: battery life. Sorry, but it's not a guarantee. All three aforementioned platforms used C/C++, not Java. All three had worse battery life then Android. Sure, it's possible to create less power-hungry platform then Android with Dalvik, but abandonment of Java by itself does not guarantee that. Fork Android from the last code dump into a Git repo, forget 3.0 ever happened and move on. Interesting idea. One question: who will fund this work? Volunteer-only effort may take literally years - and it's result will only be interesting to anyone if/when Google will never release future versions of Android. I'm not saying everyone should accept the Google's game, but before you'll go and try to propose alternative make sure you have enough support behind your back to actually deliver this alternative. Better yet: have this alternative already available. Last time I've checked the whole famed "community" was unable to deliver even half-decent Flash player (because most were satisfied by zero-priced closed source alternative). Don't overestimate the strength of the "community" - it's powerful, but it's not omnipotent... and it can be easily swayed by "good enough" alternative.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 29, 2011 22:56 UTC (Tue) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]
+1. Ideology is important, but funding and industry buy-in more so. When mobile hardware is a commodity market we'll start to see more RMS effect.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 30, 2011 6:35 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
The possibility is already there, the question is when do you jump into it. Similar to PCs in the early 90s, some did jump into (GNU/)Linux already in ca. 1993, while I did only in 1997, and most people only after Ubuntu shipped et cetera. Now I jumped into free software on mobile phones in 2008, and I'm quite happy to stay there even if it will be until eg. 2018 when there's a "Ubuntu of mobile phones" there (and yes, even Ubuntu hasn't got a big market share at least yet, even the installations are in tens of millions). MeeGo seems to be a possibility of that date being earlier, and actually in better pre-installed amounts than Ubuntu. But the whole free software ecosystem is also so much more mature nowadays that the date can be quite soon if UI work and modem drivers are done. The needed middleware is there already, FSO (or oFono) + Qt/E17(/GTK-Clutter), even though FSO and oFono would both enjoy more contributors.
The mobile phone market really starts to be on the edge of commodity market, with Openmoko phones and reverse-engineered selected (older) Android-shipping hardware and Nokia N900 out there, plus the promised probably quite nice MeeGoish device from Nokia. One needs to spend time with any of those to use free distribution on the phone having the phone as the one to rely on, but for me desktop Linux is already so ready that I'm happy to have this mobile challenge and possibility to contribute in a meaningful way.
The possibility is already lost... Posted Mar 30, 2011 7:51 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The possibility is already there, the question is when do you jump into it. The problem here is simple: the question of "when" is critical. Windows took the world when previous paradigm shift happened - when PCs grew from 16-bit toy computers to 32-bit multitasking-capable workstations. Microsoft won that battle and was able to successfully fight off all contenders till the next paradigm shift. Everyone expected that it'll be 64bit transition. And whoever will win this battle will be "king of the hill" for the next 30-50 years. Of course history does not repeat itself... but it rhymes. This time major change, surprisingly enough, was not 32-bit to 64-bit transition (Microsoft was able to predict that one and pass it quite smoothly). It was form-factor change: computers migrated from top of the lap to pocket and, may be, in backpack too. I think we still have two-to-three years before final outcome will be known, but anything after that will linger on the edge of obscurity - no matter how good it'll be. MeeGo seems to be a possibility of that date being earlier, and actually in better pre-installed amounts than Ubuntu. MeeGo missed the big opportunity already. End of story. It may be ready to capitalize on the next paradigm shift in 10-15 years time. If it'll survive till then. But the whole free software ecosystem is also so much more mature nowadays that the date can be quite soon if UI work and modem drivers are done. It's not just a question of UI work. Till you have ISVs on board you'll just have another niche player. Akin to "Linux desktop" in the last 10 years. And "Linux desktop" was able to survive because hardware was [relatively] open: we had a Wintel duopoly, but actual computer systems were produced by bazillion computer makers, not by Microsoft or Intel. The mobile phone market really starts to be on the edge of commodity market, with Openmoko phones and reverse-engineered selected (older) Android-shipping hardware and Nokia N900 out there, plus the promised probably quite nice MeeGoish device from Nokia. The question is simple: how long it'll last? And what the end result will be? The most probable outcome is Rockbox fate: something used by a few enthusiasts but not something significant on the wide scale. It's still pretty interesting, but it's not something to really brag about.
The possibility is already lost... Posted Mar 30, 2011 16:03 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] It's still pretty interesting, but it's not something to really brag about.To summarize, I was not bragging about consumer device market shares, I was talking about using free software on mobile phones, and to more minor effect possibilities of getting pre-installed free software phones in the future. With "Ubuntu of mobile phones" I meant really smooth out-of-the-box experience for an average mobile phone user, similar to what Ubuntu offers to average desktop user at the moment (and these accomplishments have usually not much to do with market shares). I think your comment was relatively limited to the past market shares in desktop systems, while the market shares did not prevent free software being used on the desktop. Now they don't prevent it anymore in mobile phones, and I disagree the trend would be going away. The market shares are interesting from one view point and of course it's nice that Linux kernel soon has >50% market share in smartphones, but that or the market share of Linux in eg. televisions (all Sonys etc) are not really that interesting from the point of view of being interested in running self selected free software on those devices. In case of phones and the current Android model, it does help to some extent to get hardware drivers upstream, which helps bringing free software distributions to a bigger variety of mobile phones in addition to "freedom friendly by default" products.
Is it so hard to understand? Posted Mar 30, 2011 23:08 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] To summarize, I was not bragging about consumer device market shares, I was talking about using free software on mobile phones, and to more minor effect possibilities of getting pre-installed free software phones in the future. It's almost the same thing. See Rockbox, OPIE, GPE, etc. Projects may survive but they'll be renegated to historical curiosity... With "Ubuntu of mobile phones" I meant really smooth out-of-the-box experience for an average mobile phone user, similar to what Ubuntu offers to average desktop user at the moment (and these accomplishments have usually not much to do with market shares). Volunteer free software community can do many things but polished desktop was not among them. To achieve that you need money. It's as simple as that. And if you don't want to operate at loss you need market share to recoup your investments in one form or another. Desktop Linux was mostly funded by success on server (RedHat, SUSE), and by VC (Eazel, Ubuntu, etc - it does not matter if the VC comes from the pocket of CEO... it's still VC). It's not really any different from the situation with Android (well, it's slightly different because RedHat and Ubuntu keep less stuff closed, but this difference is quantitative, not qualitative). Now they don't prevent it anymore in mobile phones, and I disagree the trend would be going away. It depends of Google and OHA. They keep the platform more-or-less open, but it may change. Currently it includes lots of video-related binary blobs, but it's open enough to be used as starting point... like desktop systems were open enough to be used as starting point because Windows was designed this way back before Microsoft become a monopoly. The market shares are interesting from one view point and of course it's nice that Linux kernel soon has >50% market share in smartphones, but that or the market share of Linux in eg. televisions (all Sonys etc) are not really that interesting from the point of view of being interested in running self selected free software on those devices. Yes and no. You don't really need open OS, but you need open hardware. Sure, you can run Linux even on totally locked-down platform like XBox360 or Wii, but porting takes years so in the end you lose all hope of ever running it on "latest and greatest" hardware - and then it's the road to the oblivion. But if your platform is "open enough"... well there are different possibiltities. The biggest thing about Android are two facts: If Google really wants to close it the only thing it needs is to move it to different (probably proprietary) kernel - and then MeeGo, OpenMoko, "Freedom Android fork" and other such efforts will follow Rockbox, OPIE, GPE, etc to the oblivion. I doubt that's what Google plans to do, but given these facts such tantrums just look silly.
It seems so. Posted Mar 31, 2011 6:38 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] It's almost the same thing. See Rockbox, OPIE, GPE, etc. Projects may survive but they'll be renegated to historical curiosity...As you pick up one of those smaller projects... if a project is not widely regarded as a market share success, it's a historical curiosity and not a useful piece of software? I believe there are a lot of happy Rockbox users around, and all of them are a reason for Rockbox to be a huge success. I'm still not talking about conquering the world (while that's nice as well), I'm still talking about using free software. Volunteer free software community can do many things but polished desktop was not among them. To achieve that you need money.I disagree on the first point, and regarding the second point there is a lot of money to be made by both smaller and bigger players. Commercial partners are always welcome. It depends of Google and OHA.No it does not. It's not suddenly like they would be the only manufacturers in the world, or the only ones doing Linux phones. They are also not the most interesting ones either because of their relative closedness, but they might become more interesting in the future (there are many good things about them as well). Yes and no. You don't really need open OS, but you need open hardware.Yes, and that's what we have today (of course even more open hw is always welcome than just "all host CPU driver sw is free") and I don't think it's going away. But really, I mostly just want to say that I disagree with you on most points, and that we are also talking about somewhat different topics. I do not have the time to actually write an essay about in which ways I think you are wrong, I just do think so. (of course, it's up to anyone to form their own opinions, this is just mine)
It's simple, really. Posted Mar 31, 2011 17:09 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If a project is not widely regarded as a market share success, it's a historical curiosity and not a useful piece of software? It depends on the ability to use it with contemporary hardware. If you can only buy the required hardware in the second-hand shops then it's historical curiosity. I believe there are a lot of happy Rockbox users around, and all of them are a reason for Rockbox to be a huge success. Well, Rockbox was a significant success - but that time has gone. Today it's very hard to buy a compatible hardware and few users bother. As userbase dwingles developerbase dwingles as well. It may be revived as software project (time will tell), but as an OS for hardware players it's basically dead already... They are also not the most interesting ones either because of their relative closedness, but they might become more interesting in the future (there are many good things about them as well). "Relative closedness"? Retaive to what? Symbian? MeeGo? Freerunner? Dead platforms, dead products... Like it or not Android is the most open viable platform today. If there are lots of companies who create more open hardware platforms I sure would like to hear about that. Yes and no. You don't really need open OS, but you need open hardware.Yes, and that's what we have today (of course even more open hw is always welcome than just "all host CPU driver sw is free") and I don't think it's going away. I would like to share your optimism. I really do. But I fail to see what's it's based on. Hardware becomes more closed over time, not less. And if you want to provide some kind of platform you need the hardware to run it on. The most open widely available hardware is currently Android-based - and this is the most important factor.
It's simple, really. Posted Apr 1, 2011 7:06 UTC (Fri) by mats (subscriber, #62046) [Link]
> Well, Rockbox was a significant success - but that time has gone. Today it's very hard to buy a compatible hardware and few users bother.
I just bought a new SanDisk Sansa Clip+ a few months ago for the sole purpose of running Rockbox. It was really easy to find (here in Europe at least) with many stores carrying it. Rockbox works perfectly on it and I am very happy with the purchase.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 29, 2011 23:36 UTC (Tue) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link]
> Dumping Java from a rebooted phone platform design would almost certainly > pay dividends in the most important issue currently impacting mobile
> computing: battery life.
Sadly, I'm not so sure. The overwhelming power-hog on my Desire HD (running CyanogenMod btw), is the screen. What eats power most is eBooks: nearly zero CPU, but the display sucks power. I can get about 2 hours of book reading, but a day of standby, or ~6 hours of phone calls, or music.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 30, 2011 1:51 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
Same issue on my OpenMoko FreeRunner.
Pixel Qi FTW. I only hope that they get some more traction in the market, more screen sizes and more kits for replacing your phone/tablet/laptop display.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 29, 2011 23:58 UTC (Tue) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]
<quote>Once, twice, thrice... The end result was... underwhelming.</quote>
What is underwhelming about Maemo? It was only killed by Cathedral politics.
BTW, Linux kernel is a product of the bazaar, so your negative assertion is disproved by example.
It's kida a moot point... Posted Mar 30, 2011 1:52 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
Maemo isn't dead, it lives on as a community project. There are even some folks thinking/talking about merging it into Debian.
Sorry, but no... Posted Mar 30, 2011 8:11 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] What is underwhelming about Maemo? It was only killed by Cathedral politics. Right. But the fact remains: "Cathedral politics" was able to kill it. It means few people cared. Ask yourself: why Nokia threw it away and went with Windows Phone 7? Because only geeks wanted "normal unix workstation in your pocket". The same happened with Zaurus years before: few geeks bought it (of course they were disappointed when they found out it's chock-full of binary blobs), but "normal people" were not interested so eventually it stopped being Linux-based and switched to Windows. The next thing we'll hear from MeeGo apologists is that Hurd, too, is a resounding success. BTW, Linux kernel is a product of the bazaar, so your negative assertion is disproved by example. Linux kernel only become open bazaar after years of development. Initially it was developed by quite small number of people - and they coordinated development quite precisely among themselves (kinda like OHA just without all these secrecy - it was mostly replaced by obscurity because few people were interested in Linux back then). BTW new features are still developed privately in cathedral manner and often are shipped in real products before they are presented to upstream.
Sorry, but no... Posted Apr 1, 2011 7:11 UTC (Fri) by rilder (guest, #59804) [Link]
"why Nokia threw it away and went with Windows Phone 7? Because only geeks wanted "normal unix workstation in your pocket"."
So you are comparing Windows 7 mobile with Meego ? Interesting. Even though Meego is/was geeky, it is still far far better than Windows 7 as a mobile platform. Also, regaring "unix workstation in pocket", now Nokia will soon realize that there is no pocket where there phone will fit in; sorry, but they went completely antipodal to their core strategy. There is no need why anyone would want to use Nokia on Windows 7 when there are Android and iPhone serving different user bases.
Another thing being - geeks - not the same when it comes to mobile phones, I have seen plenty of non-geeky people who wanted to change/mod their phones to help them better, look at Cyanogen Mod for instance - it is not just geeks who are using it.
Sorry, but no... Posted Apr 2, 2011 13:15 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] There is no need why anyone would want to use Nokia on Windows 7 when there are Android and iPhone serving different user bases. Time will tell. I, too, think Nokia did wrong choice, but I'm not so sure noone will want Windows Phone 7. Previous incarnations of Windows Phone were pretty popular. Not as popular as iPhone or Android, but pretty popular nonetheless. I have seen plenty of non-geeky people who wanted to change/mod their phones to help them better, look at Cyanogen Mod for instance - it is not just geeks who are using it. Sure! But the problem here is: only geeks buy things with explicit goal of changing/modding them. When Joe Average buys phone (or any other gadget, really) the "freedom to tinker" is very far on the list of things he looks for. It's when s/he already owns the phone s/he finds out it's locked and can not be fixed. If there are many similar models then may be s/he'll choose the more open one, but if you can buy locked system on each street corner and unlockable one only in a few select shops... it's not even a contest. When new phone models come out every few months you just don't have any hope of keeping your "community-driven" project relevant: when all new models are not supported and you must buy things which are almost obolescent or even "sold out" (means you can only buy them used)... who will do that except geeks?
How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica) Posted Mar 30, 2011 5:35 UTC (Wed) by ttonino (subscriber, #4073) [Link]
Somehow it makes sense to me not to release Honeycomb into the wild.
Google tells us it is about the scenario where Android 2.3 and 3.0 have to live together.
The Chinese will produce bad 3.0 phones, while manufacturers that go for UX will stick to 2.3.
Consumers will go for the higher version number. They've learned that is most important, especially a major version.
And they are disappointed, and may decide Android is bad.
That said, Google could solve this by releasing a "3.0 for phones" (which is just 2.3 rebranded).
So... is it to reward hardware manufacturers that dropped a lot of code? I wouldn't be surprised, given that the Honeycomb is a fork. Mfg X may well have suggested to Google: we built this together from your open source project, and you can have it (saves us on maintenance and gives us market acceptance) - but we'd like to keep it to ourselves for now.
Or Google thinks that keeping Market access and the Google apps is an insufficient differentiator, in which case we can look forward to a close sourced future. But then fragmentation would start - and it is already starting with the Android compatibility on BlackBerry tablets.
Hmm... Can this be the real target? Posted Mar 30, 2011 8:31 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But then fragmentation would start - and it is already starting with the Android compatibility on BlackBerry tablets. Hmm... But BlackBerry tablets will either not offer 3.0 features or will offer some kind of emulation of them. Can this be the real target? Never thought about this story in such a way... but it makes sense.
How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica) Posted Mar 30, 2011 11:37 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
> The Chinese will produce bad 3.0 phones, while manufacturers that go for UX will stick to 2.3.
But the "Chinese" do not need the source code, only the binary which was already released, sot this does not make sense.
How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica) Posted Mar 30, 2011 8:49 UTC (Wed) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
> If Amazon's Appstore proves to be a viable alternative to Google's own
> Android Market, it could weaken the search giant's control over the > Android platform
So in essence, giving Amazon control of it instead of Google?
Right now, there's a war on, and it's about control over _books_ (and by extension, education and so on). And it's not like Amazon is a nice player, they're right now developing a very tight grip on the whole publishing-business. And of course, Google also has an interest in books...
How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica) Posted Mar 30, 2011 11:21 UTC (Wed) by MKesper (guest, #38539) [Link] "Someone" wrote a nice essay about that part of the story, years ago: The Right to Read. By the way, today is Document Freedom Day!
How Amazon could loosen Google's iron grip on Android (ars technica) Posted Mar 30, 2011 14:08 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]
There was this article on TechCrunch a few days ago regarding everything from Google other than search actually being a moat: http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat/
In that regard, Android would most likely fall in this category. So, in sum, the only question for google would be how to continue making it an effective tool to fend off competition in the search world. In this regard, the earlier article from BusinessWeek is quite relevant: https://lwn.net/Articles/435342/ It looks like they've effectively "forked" the code-base with little regard to the older way of doing things to get it to work on tablets and they will only release an ulterior cleaned-up tree that seamless merges the code-bases. They would have likely made it easier for everyone to understand if they would have not used an incremental number (i.e. from 2.3 to 3.0) but would have instead used something closer to what it really is: Android for Tablets 1.0. That would have been less confusing. It would also likely have made it clearer to everyone, including consumers, that it's not preferable to buy a phone running Android 3.0 than one running 2.3. Then again, maybe the issue was to keep branding continuity given the current brain-share "Android" enjoys ...
Regarding Amazon, I'm not sure it can actually "loosen" Google's grip and I'm not sure it would benefit from forking the code. The only thing that would really make a difference here is if someone had enough fire-power to fork the code and carry it forward *faster* than Google can. An organization would likely therefore have to have something of the order of several hundred engineers paid to do nothing but develop a forked Android, possibly in a more open, community fashion. The economics of this one just don't add up though. No one has the incentive of maintaining Android on that level as a moat as Google does. And no "community" effort could even remotely come close to the sheer engineering power Google is pouring into this.
So, for the foreseeable, we will likely have to make-do with Google's code-drops, no matter how frustrating these are. Unless I'm missing something.
Google's iron grip on Android already loosened Posted Apr 1, 2011 5:28 UTC (Fri) by alison (✭ supporter ✭, #63752) [Link] Myriad and Iced Robot are going to loosen Google's grip on Android no matter how successful Amazon's Android market is. One approach is "cathedral" and one "bazaar": pick your poison. The Iced Robot project (best name and logo ever!) is especially significant since GOOG could try and stop Myriad with legal threats, but they dare not sue Debian. Were there never another Android code-drop, CyanogenMod could be the basis for a successful line of mobile devices. What's to stop Huawei or China Mobile from coming out with a CyanogenMod-based tablet? The Linaro is another well-funded, serious mobile Linux project.
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