Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard) [LWN.net]

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 15:53 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] (12 responses)

Now if only Google put more effort in playing along with the community.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 16:36 UTC (Tue) by dberlin (subscriber, #24694) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, if only google was more like maemo.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 17:01 UTC (Tue) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Hahaha, nice one.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 17:06 UTC (Tue) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

What, you mean irrelevant?

(I agree it'd be awesome if Google works closer with the community but asking them to be more like Maemo is just... bad taste... :D)

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 19:34 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Well, actually developing code out of community might have helped Android.

A lot of solutions in Android would have been a huge NO-NO if developed in community and could have delayed it for _years_ (wakelocks, for example).

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 19:59 UTC (Tue) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] (7 responses)

If only the community put more effort playing along with commercial product requirements.

I mean there is a need to meet half-way instead of expecting the other participant to walk all the way to meet you.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 20:44 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

can you point at what the community should be doing to 'play along with commercial product requirements' that doesn't result it 'accept anything that anyone wants because they say they have a commercial requirement'?

the kernel developers work with commercial product developers all the time, and do it successfully. but successful interaction also requires that the commercial product developers not do everything in secret and then present the final result as a 'take it or leave it' proposition

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 8:02 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] (3 responses)

From what I see most successful community/commercial kernel developments come from server side. There deployments are planned well in advance and 10 year support is expected. Thus there is both time to deal planning in open as well as a clear incentive to mainline code for long term support. And, of course, server customers demand high quality.

At and Android and consumer electronics in general, things don't quite go that way. Getting new shiny products out faster than competitors is CRITICAL and nobody cares about long term support. There is no time to argue in open on howto to implement an interface (including bikeshedding and taking in account corner cases that might materialise in a parallel universe with different rules of physics). Likewise, there is almost non existing customer demand for long term support. Once the product is in the market, engineers are already working on the next one.

So, if people want more community interactions from google and other android players, the community collaboration model needs to take in account wider user cases than just servers. And that isn't doublespeak for "accept crap from vendors as-is". The only truly important thing is that community collaboration must not slow product development cycle.

What I want to say, is that if people, like original poster, want google to deal more with community, they need to make sure there is an incentive to do so. "Making community happy" is a surprisingly strong incentive, but if it comes with the price of slowing down product cycle, things are likely to continue like currently...

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 19:42 UTC (Wed) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link]

You make some good points, but also some I disagree with.

"Likewise, there is almost non existing customer demand for long term support."

Not at all. I, for one, would like more long-term support, but I realize that it's not in the interest of the carrier or device manufacturer.

"The only truly important thing is that community collaboration must not slow product development cycle."

That's far from the only important thing. Android partners also want to be able to market new features when and how they wish. Sometimes that means keeping information from the public (or a public mailing list).

I don't have a solution to that problem, but I think it's clear that it exists.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 14, 2011 5:11 UTC (Thu) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (1 responses)

"From what I see most successful community/commercial kernel developments come from server side. There deployments are planned well in advance and 10 year support is expected."

"At and Android and consumer electronics in general, things don't quite go that way. Getting new shiny products out faster than competitors is CRITICAL and nobody cares about long term support."

Couldn't be farer from my reality. We don't care at all for long term support on our servers, because there's new hardware that needs support anyway and our programmers don't want to wait five years till they can use those new features in the new software versions. Our software would simply not work without those recent PostgreSQL features and developing for Perl 5.8 would be a nightmare.

On the other hand I would so love to get those bugs in my phone fixed. I had no need for a new phone at all if it weren't for those annoyances. But chances of getting them fixed are zero because "once the product is in the market, engineers are already working on the next one."

So my next phone will run 100% free software, because I'm just too fed up with everything else.

This is about money, as usual...

Posted Jul 15, 2011 7:56 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Couldn't be farer from my reality.

First, the question: how much kernel work is going in your organization or sponsored by your organization? If the answer, as I suspect, is "not much", then your experience it not all that relevant to the kernel development, don't you think?

We don't care at all for long term support on our servers, because there's new hardware that needs support anyway and our programmers don't want to wait five years till they can use those new features in the new software versions. Our software would simply not work without those recent PostgreSQL features and developing for Perl 5.8 would be a nightmare.

Well, this is typical situation for small organization (especially startups) - but these don't pay salaries to kernel developers directly or even indirectly (by buying RHEL subscriptions). In my case we are almost ready to switch... drumroll... from Python 2.4 to Python 2.6. We support both (of course), but most new development is with Python 2.6. And this situation is fairly typical for large companies (who can actually sponsor kernel work).

On the other hand I would so love to get those bugs in my phone fixed.

Will you pay for that? How many other people will pay for that? If the answer, as I suspect, is "why should I pay? I already paid for the phone once!" then you've just gotten the reason not to fix bugs in old stuff: there are no money in that.

So my next phone will run 100% free software, because I'm just too fed up with everything else.

Even radio firmware? That I'm yet to see. All the biggest problems I've had with my phones are radio firmware related (phone shows me as connected, but noone can reach me - this kind of things).

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 20:47 UTC (Tue) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] (1 responses)

Any commercial entity can make use of Linux in their products, free of charge, by observing the rules of the GPL.

Further advantages can be had, free of charge, by additionally observing the rules of the kernel development community.

Who is meeting whom half-way?

Or are you arguing that Google is different, because Android's market share means that Linux somehow "needs" Google?

Not being sarcastic; I'm honestly curious why you think Linux developers owe anything to ODMs/OEMs and commercial middleware providers.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 10:19 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

I belive that what he's arguing is that _both_ the kernel comunity (including developers) and ODMs/OEMs can benefit from closer collaboration. The question is working out a way to handle this collaboration, taking into account the different needs of all parts (users should be considered too).

In the case of contradictory needs, maybe we could find a "creative" solution, or agree on some balance.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 15:59 UTC (Tue) by dcg (subscriber, #9198) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm happy for Android, but a project that develops their code outside of the internet is not exactly what many of us would associate with words like "linux" or "dream". Maybe this is the "linux desktop dream" for googlers, but it isn't the linux desktop dream of everybody that does not work there.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 16:20 UTC (Tue) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, well, a commercial business cannot afford to wait 6 months while rewriting all of their kernel code that works perfectly well just because an official kernel project gatekeeper does not like how they did it.

Or did you mean the rest of the Android userspace?

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 16:34 UTC (Tue) by dberlin (subscriber, #24694) [Link]

Actually, they were in fact, perfectly willing to rewrite it, and it was more they rewrote it, and then *someone different* told them to do it yet another way.

So it's more realistic to say "they cannot afford to rewrite it several times when there is no clear decision maker with the authority"

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 12, 2011 17:57 UTC (Tue) by dcg (subscriber, #9198) [Link]

All of it? I never said anything about rewriting code.

That said, if Android was developed as a open project, there would be chances to solve design issues way before they are adopted by vendors and app developers. With the current closed development model, it's not surprising that they constantly find issues to merge features back into mainstream projects...

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 4:51 UTC (Wed) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link]

+1.

And add to it the vendor locked propreitary hardware.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 2:58 UTC (Wed) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link] (8 responses)

I think this is a kind of a weird claim which must be revealing the existence of a rather potent reality distortion field.

Android is "Linux" only in the it uses the Linux kernel but the development methodology, the level of openness and freedom, the application APIs, the common software tools, are pretty much entirely unlike the software stack we associate with "Linux desktop".

I'm pretty sure that, assuming compatible hardware, I could swap out the Linux kernel for the Freebsd one on 99% of Linux desktop users and they wouldn't notice.

I doubt anyone had much of a dream of a Linux desktop which only included the Linux kernel, burred away under layers of non-linux-system-stuff with a mostly Java userspace.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 5:40 UTC (Wed) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link] (2 responses)

I recently mailed the Google Music folks complaining that their music importer didn't support Linux distributions. My argument is that if you're main platform uses pieces of Linux desktop infrastructure then you should try to support Linux desktop because you'll be investing in those pieces as well by making Linux distributions more palatable.

Of course after reading this article, if most of the google folks have linux desktops how are they enjoying Google Linux themselves without a Linux based importer?

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 9:04 UTC (Wed) by petur (guest, #73362) [Link] (1 responses)

indeed, and the same goes for most of their other products. Linux support is an afterthought, and always some revisions behind.

I observe that Google is good at *using* linux and other open/free tools to create their business, but then don't care about supporting that community.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 16:16 UTC (Wed) by imitev (guest, #60045) [Link]

> "but then don't care about supporting that community"

I agree Google could do better, but you're not very fair - for instance they invested/invest quite a lot of money in GSoC, which many projects benefit from (maybe not the one Google is *using*, but at least there's some feedback to the "community" at large.)

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 12:46 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

While the main thrust of your argument is sound I'm more than dubious about your 99% estimate

I suspect it's as sadly mistaken as the idea that Ubuntu, Fedora or similar Linux distributions would be a seamless "upgrade" for many Windows users.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 16:32 UTC (Wed) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link] (2 responses)

"Android is "Linux" only in the it uses the Linux kernel but the development methodology, the level of openness and freedom, the application APIs, the common software tools, are pretty much entirely unlike the software stack we associate with "Linux desktop"."

I thought Linux was a kernel. So what you are basically saying is that Android is not Fedora or Ubuntu?

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 16:51 UTC (Wed) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link] (1 responses)

Or gentoo, or arch, or slackware, or anything even remotely like them.

Can you really say you've had dreams of a "Linux desktop" which would have been met with by copy of windows with the NT kernel swapped out for the Linux kernel but everything else kept the same?

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that kind of "linux desktop" that anyone would care about having would have more than just the Linux kernel in common with the Linux systems we use today especially since the kernel is basically invisible to desktop users so long as it works correctly.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 17, 2011 9:26 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]

I have never dreamed of a "Linux desktop". But if MS Windows used Linux as its kernel it would of course be a "Linux desktop".

It seems that you are confusing a "Linux desktop" with the current Linux/Xorg/Gnu/Gnome/KDE/More... based free OS distributions we have today.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 19:00 UTC (Wed) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link]

"I'm pretty sure that, assuming compatible hardware, I could swap out the Linux kernel for the Freebsd one on 99% of Linux desktop users and they wouldn't notice."

I'm pretty sure it won't work for 99% of Linux desktop users on random hardware. Other would notice slower response times.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 4:17 UTC (Wed) by Hausvib6 (guest, #70606) [Link] (2 responses)

Years ago, I have a nightmare where Microsoft is making money off Linux. Android is so successful that even its rival can profit from it.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 5:44 UTC (Wed) by fujii (guest, #60630) [Link] (1 responses)

Microsoft is profiting from Android: http://blogs.forbes.com/timothylee/2011/07/07/microsofts-.... Unfortunately that will happen to any successful commercial software.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 12:09 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

And Microsoft actually earns more money from Android patent licenses than from sales of its own smartphones.

Epic fail.

Android is not the Linux desktop dream come true

Posted Jul 13, 2011 6:42 UTC (Wed) by YangBaxter (guest, #25377) [Link] (1 responses)

> What that means is that one handset vendor probably doesn't want to
> interact too much with the other handset vendors because they are
> competitors.

In my Linux destop dream, we have open software that just runs
and hardware vendors who are concentrating on their business:
competing for the best hardware possible.

Android is not the Linux desktop dream come true

Posted Jul 13, 2011 8:47 UTC (Wed) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]

In my dreams there is a documentation for hardware too.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 6:44 UTC (Wed) by wertigon (guest, #42963) [Link] (1 responses)

Android isn't a Linux desktop. It's a Java desktop.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 14, 2011 22:51 UTC (Thu) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]

Actually, it's Dalvik, which is NOT java (you can't run java bytecode in the Dalvik VM).

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 8:15 UTC (Wed) by Uraeus (guest, #33755) [Link]

I think what a lot of us are hoping for from Google is not that they drop everything they are doing to work with upstream, instead that they just has using a upstream kernel as an officially stated goal and dedicate a little bit of resources towards working at achieving that goal over time. It might take years before they actually do so, but for every piece of Google specific stuff they are able to shed the easier it will be to share drivers etc., between Android and 'normal' linux systems. Currently doing hardware enablement for Android kernels is taking almost all resources at most ARM vendors for instance, and it would be nice if that worked also helped people wanting to make non-Android devices, which includes other departments and groups at Google themselves even.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 13:16 UTC (Wed) by xxiao (guest, #9631) [Link]

are you kidding me?
by closing Android? in that sense it will be more like Window$ as far as desktop goes.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 13, 2011 21:52 UTC (Wed) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]

Android is a separate beast, it's not the dream Linux desktop, because it uses incompatible graphical stack, its own drivers and etc. Therefore the progress of Android doesn't help Linux at large. It creates competition and duplication of effort for hardware manufactures, who won't write drivers twice, writing them only for Android instead. The result - you can't use other Linux on those devices, Android only (because of absence of drivers). Wayland is a much better approach, and it's a pity that Google didn't come up with something as useful for global Linux community.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 14, 2011 0:45 UTC (Thu) by jch (guest, #51929) [Link] (4 responses)

Where I come from, a Linux desktop is free of anti-features designed to meet the desiderata of the telecom companies (or any other third party).

A case in point: support for ad-hoc wifi networks. The support for that exists in wpa_supplicant, but apparently Android's upper layers deliberately filters out ad-hoc networks. Support for ad-hoc is issue 82 in the Android bug tracker; at the time of writing, it has 1005 comments.

Android might be a popular Linux desktop, but it certainly doesn't represent what Free and Open Source software stands for. For us Free Software hackers and enthusiasts, it is at best irrelevant, at worst a costly diversion.

-- jch

Well, Ok...

Posted Jul 15, 2011 8:09 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

Where I come from, a Linux desktop is free of anti-features designed to meet the desiderata of the telecom companies (or any other third party).

Got that: Linux desktop is by your definition is super-ultra-niche-product which few people ever care about. Because in real world there are always some third party which acts as mediator between developers and users (be it Canonical, RedHat or Verizon) and of course what the end users see is limited by desiredata of said entity.

Android might be a popular Linux desktop, but it certainly doesn't represent what Free and Open Source software stands for. For us Free Software hackers and enthusiasts, it is at best irrelevant, at worst a costly diversion.

Nope. It's hugely relevant. Since your Linux desktop is amusing obscurity it needs someone else to push the compatible hardware platform: traditionally it was Windows, nowadays it's Android. Still much better then BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7, don't you think?

Well, Ok...

Posted Jul 15, 2011 13:33 UTC (Fri) by jch (guest, #51929) [Link]

> Because in real world there are always some third party which acts as mediator between developers and users (be it Canonical, RedHat or Verizon)

The difference, of course, is that when I buy a licence for RHEL, I am RedHat's customer, and RedHat has no interest in throwing anti-features at me. Not so with Android -- it's the carriers that Google needs to cater to.

> your Linux desktop [...] needs someone else to push the compatible hardware platform

Indeed, that's a good point.

-- jch

Well, Ok...

Posted Jul 18, 2011 17:33 UTC (Mon) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]

No, it's not Android. Or to be prices, Android is not a Linux desktop. It's Android desktop, period.

Google: "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true" (der Standard)

Posted Jul 15, 2011 11:59 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (guest, #36106) [Link]

I took the "Linux desktop dream" comment another way: It means that Android is, finally, a user-centric Linux-based system which is successful in the marketplace. It's not the Linux desktop we want, necessarily, but it's the massive end user adoption of Linux that desktop Linux advocates have been seeking, even if it's taken a form that we do not prefer.