Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H) [LWN.net]

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jun 30, 2012 6:06 UTC (Sat) by liam (subscriber, #84133) [Link]

Assuming you're serious, commits make that a bit difficult for said fructose and pectin laden company to assert.

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jun 30, 2012 8:26 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Commits != publicity.

Quite a few newspapers say things like 'Apple invented multitouch', for example.

Marketing and development

Posted Jun 30, 2012 21:44 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

They also routinely say that Einstein invented the atomic bomb, that Gates invented the personal computer and that Jobs walked on water. Keeping a closed development tree is not going to improve newspaper accuracy.

Marketing and development

Posted Jun 30, 2012 21:59 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Ok. Imagine this:

Apple makes a big presentation during the WWDC showing their all-new FFC (Far Field Communication) functionality (gleaned from Android commits), capable of broadcasting your credit card numbers at range of 10 kilometers. Press is wowed by this invention and everyone talks how cool it is.

Then 2 months later Google shows their own implementation of FFC that they've added back in December last year and that was sitting in the development branch. I kinda doubt that people would care about that.

Marketing and development

Posted Jun 30, 2012 22:08 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Fair enough. Now imagine both events reversed: first Google makes the announcement for FFC, later Apple claims to have invented something similar, but instead of FFC it is called "WonderWave". Would anything change? Remember Firewire, Bonjour, AirPort and so many others.

I think the question hinges on how much Google values open development (very little) versus helping the competition (complete disaster). Remember the Honeycomb fiasco, which would have not been possible with an open development model.

Marketing and development

Posted Jun 30, 2012 22:56 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

If Apple does this later then that won't be a problem. People are not that stupid to be confused just by name.

Honeycomb was indeed a complete disaster (and Google admitted that). But I'm not entirely sure if secret development is pointless. After all, Apple is also very secretive.

Marketing and development

Posted Jun 30, 2012 23:10 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

People are not that stupid to be confused just by name.

Thanks, but you overestimate us greatly.

I don't know what advantages secret development brings to Android; probably a lot. But we are here on LWN, we value free software, we value open source, and we like development made in the open. Google wants to benefit from that momentum by making periodic code drops; I greatly appreciate their openness (especially compared with the likes of Apple), but we can ask for a little bit more.

I personally think that the virtues of open development greatly compensate for not having those little secrets. Just as Apache has trounced IIS, GNU/Linux has butchered all the proprietary Unices, Firefox has slaughtered IE -- there is value in doing things in the open. If announcements are all that is at stake then Google may develop a few selected secret features while the main tree remains public.

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jun 30, 2012 22:38 UTC (Sat) by liam (subscriber, #84133) [Link]

I cant't against the general stupidity of the media, but letting that concern dictate policy, especially in an area where Google would see a definite improvement with both oem relations and time to market, seems like weak management.

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jun 30, 2012 6:22 UTC (Sat) by emichan (guest, #78123) [Link]

Although you might well be correct, it strikes me as an odd concern for an open source project.
The reason I had supposed for the code dumps was that Google wanted to get the "free" publicity twice a year. That seems an even poorer reason than the Osborne Effect.

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jul 1, 2012 15:45 UTC (Sun) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]

The Osborne effect happens only when you know that the phone you'll buy now will not get that update. So in order to make pressure to handset makers to actually update, open development and the Osborne effect are Google's friends.

Once Google added a cool feature to the development branch, which is not really ready to use now, but people want it, only those phones will continue to sell where the update is possible. Goal reached.

Anyways, Linux distributions go to "rolling releases" or have been doing that for very long (Debian "testing"), and Google could have the same model with Android. Whoever wants the newest feature now, switches to "Android beta(tm)", and there they go. Any handset maker who wants to have the Android brand must either commit to take the vanilla Google source (and if some Chinese company does so, they should get the release-keys for free), or timely contribute their stuff to "Beta".

If they fail so, no Android brand. Google and the handset makers need to understand that a phone is now a PC, and the operating system is a separate product.

Google plans to ease the Android update problem (The H)

Posted Jul 2, 2012 21:18 UTC (Mon) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]

Does anyone know why Android isn't developed in the open?

The word that best describes Google's approach to corporate governance is "hubris" and the word that least describes it is "humility".

According to the Google spin on reality, only those smart people who were able to pass through Google's incredibly finely tuned smart person filter (three months of phone screens and 6 hours of on site attack interviews) are properly qualified to know what is right and what is wrong in computer software development. There are flaws in this reasoning. For one thing, Google's smart person filter is imperfect. It sometimes rejects smart people and sometimes accepts stupid people. (By way of example, I was able to pass through it undetected.) The result is, Google does not in fact employ every smart person, and some of those they do employ are lazy and stupid just like those of us not employed by Google. However, Google coders do all share one common attribute: they do what they feel is best to advance their career. And that does not necessarily including putting a lot of energy into improving the Android code in areas that Google does not monetize.