Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: karajorma on October 21, 2013, 03:41:39 am
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http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
I thought this was a very interesting article. And a great example of how we're all setting ourselves up for another Microsoft.
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I've been saying this for years only to have fandroids "school" me otherwise. Sigh.
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Of course the irony is that Samsung, et al are busy making their own programs rather than simply clubbing together and making something that frees them from Google.
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The only "real" hope is cyanogen, however I have little.
And don't get me wrong, I ain't no "iFan". My phone is a samsung.
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The only "real" hope is cyanogen, however I have little.
Not the only one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla
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I assume he means real hope for Android. There are plenty of other phone companies out there who don't want to use Android.
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Good read.
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The only "real" hope is cyanogen, however I have little.
Not the only one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla
You should have said "No, there is another".
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Still can't be worse than anything CrApple ever does...
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I keep getting the impression that Google is shaping up to become Apple rev. 2.0
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ive decided long ago to only use linux on arm devices. why phones arent shipping with debian is beyond me. as much as i hate it, id rather use linux than any of these tap screen oses.
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so, the OS is open source, but the apps are not, therefore it's basically apple?
no.
no, you still have quite a bit of freedom on android, you can install apps you want irregardless of what anyone else says, you can (gasp) write your own apps, you can load and unload media, it's almost as if the phone was not treating you like some sort of criminal. now Google has fallen quite a way from where it was under Eric Schmidt in the 'not evil' department, and I honestly AM disappointed in them over the very subject being discussed hert, but saying Google's bad while Apple is still around and swimming Scrooge McDuck style in oceans of money is like talking smack about Indonesia for not being a bastion of human rights when a chasm has oped up releasing the hoards of Mordor upon the lands of man. all this says to me is more effort should be made to make a truly open source android distribution, but I think things are not in too bad a shape on the software front, the biggest problem I have is in the hardware front, getting custom software onto a device is far far too difficult and intentionally encumbered. This is not Google's fault, unless you want to say they have not been draconian enough in there licensing to require open hardware..
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Maybe you missed the bit about how if a phone company decides to make a phone that doesn't use Google's version of the OS they're kicked out forever. So yeah, you can do all that stuff without Google's permission but that's just because Google think it will make them more money to have you do that.
I think the problem is that while Apple are far worse now, Google are positioning themselves for even worse abuses of power later. When Apple are stupidly draconian, you have a choice, don't buy an Apple. There's very little on iOS which you can't find for another platform. But if Google start being draconian then we have a much bigger problem because they have a big enough market share to do what Microsoft did and say "We'll support Apple (Cause they're too big to ignore), **** everyone else."
And once they do that, owning a smartphone is going to be a lot less fun for all of us, even those of us using Android.
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irregardless
Ew.
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I did that on purpose BTW ;)
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That's even worse! :ick:
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What I like about Apple and dislike about Google is real simple. The first never lied. They always said they liked it as a closed system, vertical integration all the way, profits to the max, etc. Google is the ****ty here because after promising the land of freedom, of not being "ev1l", embracing the open sourceness of awesome, etc., they actually behave like the ****ty corporation they actually are and adopt practices to ensure everyone in the hardware market is subdued to Google's way OR ELSE. They want to have the cake and eat it too. They want to be reckoned as the lovers of freedom and open source while behaving in the exact opposite direction.
And there are a lot of people who are willing to eat this pile of **** as "true". At least iFans aren't this deluded: they know what Apple is. They just happen to like the way they do things.
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Basically what Luis Dias said.
The main issue (at least to me) here isn't that they are starting to close source a bunch of stuff or that they are forcing manufacturers to not produce devices that use an android fork. It's the fact that they do so while maintaining their smug, holier-than-thou attitude, putting down other companies while proclaiming "lol, we love open source and an open internet!", essentially doing the opposite of what they claim.
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why phones arent shipping with debian is beyond me. as much as i hate it, id rather use linux than any of these tap screen oses.
http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
http://www.zdnet.com/ubuntu-touch-the-smartphone-ubuntu-linux-arrives-7000022221/
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/review-ubuntu-touch-nexus-7-almost-awesome
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ubuntu != debian
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You said Linux phone, however.
If someone can show me a phone that is comparatively relevant and "open source" as Android, I'd like to know. And don't say Apple or Microsoft. The former because of its closed ecosystem and the latter because of the lack of widespread usage and support.
If you tell me that Android isn't open source because it has developed a successful business model and is crushing competition by limiting other phone OS from having access to its apps, then I can agree that it's not supporting anything but a Google universe. However besides Google, I have yet to see a successful open source phone.
Firefox phones are aiming at a niche market, and Ubuntu has its own problems in the open source world. The latter is also being described as "Not Linux" and "Not Open Source" by others who are critical of Canonical.
EDIT: I'm thinking the solution is to not find an alternative to an Evil Google World because everything else is either worse or a tier lower. I'm thinking that we should be focusing on what to do about an Evil Google World if it comes. Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?
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get Eric Schmidt back, Google didn't start turning evil until about fifteen minutes after Larry Page took over.
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As others have said, the issue is that Google claims to be open source when it quite obviously isn't. Not to mention that it's not that hard for them to embrace and extend the open source parts of the OS until there is no open source version of Android.
Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?
Is there anyone who thinks that the Microsoft World back in the day was actually any good for consumers?
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Great article.
They don't seem to tout their open sourceness much these days, or at least it's not mentioned on their mobile info page (http://www.google.com/mobile/) or the about Android page (http://www.android.com/about/). The AOSP page (http://source.android.com/) is perhaps a wee bit disingenuous though given this article, although the page is only accessible through a menu at the upper right and isn't that front-and-center.
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Is there anyone who thinks that the Microsoft World back in the day was actually any good for consumers?
I dunno. Windows 95's UI was pretty awesome for consumers.
Shame that they're so embarrassed of it, nowadays.
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Windows 95 was only awesome cause Win 3.1 was so ****. :p
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EDIT: I'm thinking the solution is to not find an alternative to an Evil Google World because everything else is either worse or a tier lower. I'm thinking that we should be focusing on what to do about an Evil Google World if it comes. Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?
As I said, the only hope I see in androidworld is Cyanogenmod. I didn't point to Apple or MS as a "solution" to the android problem.
As I also said, I *do* prefer Apple or MS's proprietary solutions than a crippled "open source" solution that only works properly when you add the closed proprietary tools that Google adds to the android ecossystem for the main reason that at *least* they are not being hypocrites and lying to consumers about it.
Do take consideration that OS X (and therefore iOS) is also built on top of an open source software, but of course anyone bringing this up would be insanely idiotic for that OSS is a really simple core software that is useless for everybody without the proprietary stuff built on top of it. I see that Google is building more and more and more of this proprietary stuff on top of android, and it will end up the same.
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osx is based on unix, some of which is proprietary with some free bsd thrown in. the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.
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the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.
Yeah... except not.
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wikipedia would disagree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation
check your fanboyism at the door.
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Wikipedia doesn't disagree with me.
Minix is open-source.
P.S.
What do you think Linus based Linux on?
P.P.S
Open-source and proprietary commercial aren't exclusive adjectives.
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minx was not as open as you think it was, it had a more open license but was still restrictive enough to warrant the creation of a whole new os. you did have to pay a licensing fee. so dispite the code being open it was not foss. thats what torvalds sought to correct. linux was pretty much written from scratch. it did use some minx code early on until those parts were replaced.
what i said about osx was a completely separate statement. osx comes from closed source osx server, with some frebsd and netbsd elements thrown in (which are open source). the os is most definitely not free though.
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minx was not as open as you think it was, it had a more open license but was still restrictive enough to warrant the creation of a whole new os. you did have to pay a licensing fee. so dispite the code being open it was not foss. thats what torvalds sought to correct. linux was pretty much written from scratch. it did use some minx code early on until those parts were replaced.
You've got to be kidding... I know you had to pay a license fee, it doesn't change the fact that it was open source. The license could state only space mutants could use it and that you had to pay the GDP of a large country to use it and I still wouldn't care. I was correcting you on, and I quote
the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.
which is simply not true. He was annoyed at the non-free part.
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lots of unix was closed source back then. linus liked minix because it was open source. but the licensing was too restrictive and he wanted a foss os. hince linux. what i said was close enough. especially if you consider the point of the post was to state that osx was not fully based entirely on open source software (free or otherwise).
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ubuntu != debian
Sort of, yeah, but they're pretty related.
(http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5090/linuxdistrotimeline75cr6.png)
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(If you can't read the tiny diagram, Ubuntu was forked from Debian originally, which is why they have the same package manager; package management is one of the big distinctions between distros.)
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@ Nuke: Try this? thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=85892.0) (avoiding further derail of this topic)
EDIT: @ PH, thanks, I went back and lvlshotted it for clickable goodness.
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i really dont care, i was just trying to correct an ambiguity about osx.
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There's something pretty amusing about United Linux's place in that timeline.
lol, it includes linux from scratch as a 'distro'
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I want my Ubuntu Edge Phone... want want want ...
Why can I not has it?! :(
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i put debian on my oldest still functional rig (that wasnt the porn laptop). havent really done anything with it yet.
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I want my Ubuntu Edge Phone... want want want ...
Why can I not has it?! :(
I use WP now, but would rather use even Android over anything controlled by Shuttleworth. They guy seems to think that Linux=Ubuntu, and good riddance to other distros.
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If any distro could claim that, wouldn't it be Debian?? Or maybe Red Hat or Slackware/SUSE? I know Ubuntu is popular, but jeez...
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red hat maybe, slackware, no.
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As others have said, the issue is that Google claims to be open source when it quite obviously isn't. Not to mention that it's not that hard for them to embrace and extend the open source parts of the OS until there is no open source version of Android.
Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?
Is there anyone who thinks that the Microsoft World back in the day was actually any good for consumers?
i originally took the thread as looking for an alternative to Google World by using either Microsoft or Apple or nothing, but I realized that was not the case. In my defense, I can stand Google World if it doesn't become worse than Microsoft World and if Cyanogen and other open source ROMs are available.
By the way, is there a phrase besides [company] world? I only used it because I couldn't think of a term at the time.
Off topic: Ubuntu today is very different from Ubuntu of ages past. Ubuntu is very different from Debian in the present. GUI wise, vanilla Ubuntu looks a lot like Mac and feels a lot like Aero.
And Nuke is making a distinction between open source and FOSS, where the definition of "free" can be found here: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
Note that FreeSpace Open is the former but not the latter.
I've seen anti-Ubuntu people saying that Shuttleworth thinks Linux = Ubuntu, but I have never seen anything that even supports that statement. There are many other cases against him (Ubuntu-centric, not-community driven, terrible at marketing, disregards the upstream, does not work alongside with other open source projects, splits and angers the Linux community, etc.) but the Linux = Ubuntu seems more like propaganda that the anti-Ubuntu people have against him for the sake of Ubuntu's popularity and Canonical's control over its development.
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You may dislike him for many things, but terrible at marketing? The guy with arguably the most popular linux distribution?
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I was thinking about his recent marketing endeavors. Refer to Ubuntu Edge, Unity, and Mir. Refer to the criticism Edge got after the campaign ended when Shuttleworth claimed it was never meant to succeed. Also, some would argue that Android is the most popular Linux distro, but Ubuntu is an impressive feat that Shuttleworth did.
I actually like Shuttleworth and Ubuntu for the record. He makes me think of a nicer Torvalds, sharing some similar personality traits. The vocal fanatics within the open source community are petty, zealous, and damaging. After watching the open source community's constant bickering, I've been getting tired and less enthusiastic about the movement. Not counting Google, Canonical is the only company that is really pushing for commercialized open source software on a grand scale. This probably belongs to an entirely different thread, and if it was, I'd like to continue to vent out my frustration towards the open source community.
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i originally took the thread as looking for an alternative to Google World by using either Microsoft or Apple or nothing, but I realized that was not the case. In my defense, I can stand Google World if it doesn't become worse than Microsoft World and if Cyanogen and other open source ROMs are available.
I think the point is that they'd be available but basically useless since you couldn't do much with them at all.
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By the way, is there a phrase besides [company] world? I only used it because I couldn't think of a term at the time.
Platform and its ecosystem.
Linux's greatest enemy is its own community. Biggest improvements have originated from companies, such as Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, SuSe, etc and not from the individuals of the community. Of course there are exceptions, people who have contributed majorly to Linux outside of their employment. Apt comparison of Linux community at personal level would be a big family full of talented children but no adults. Children who always fight and have tantrums.
No doubt a community can work together, as evidenced by Debian. One of the oldest and popular distros now. But even Debian has had its fair share of trouble from its own supporting community. I believe charismatic and capable leader personalities have strong impact on the community and can make it work better. Unfortunately such personalities are extremely rare in the Linux community, they're less about being charismatic leaders and more about bolstering their own ego and generally being dicks.
:sigh:
I don't really know much about Shuttleworth's personality, but at least he has made Ubuntu a huge success at the expense of his own financials. You see, as far as I know Ubuntu has not made profit like ever (yet). But the more popular it becomes, the more people and particularly companies opt to buy their supporting services, thus generating income and paving road to further improvements that benefit the Linux community, despite people complaining about lack of upstream contribution.
I can't but wonder what kind of impact will SteamOS have. Can't wait to try it out.
And meanwhile, you can keep your eyes out on Firefox OS for phones.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/
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Bumping this not-so-dated thread, which should actually be renamed "Android is not FLOSS" because it is evidently open source.
It's been nagging at me that the arguments against Android makes a lot of sense yet also seems wrong. And I remembered why some days ago, but I didn't post it at the time. And here it goes:
Google has absolutely zero obligation to maintain the Android apps. The fact that they released these apps to the public is essentially their gift to the masses (unless Google never made those apps libre, in which case this argument falls apart). In order for the open source community to work, the community has to maintain and keep their products relevant. Since Google is a for-profit organization, it has every right to replace its default open source apps with its own proprietary apps.
Which brings up the argument about any open source Android being completely useless. Re-reading the article, it talks about how Samsung apps try to replace but generally fail to replace Google's stock apps. It also describes the problems of Amazon's need of licensing a map app. This was the one argument that I didn't know much about until I read an article that gave me the idea to post this. This link (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/10/mappero-native-maps-app-ubuntu-touch) talks about how even Firefox OS has its own dedicated map app and how Ubuntu also will have one. Knowing this, the whole "open source community will never be able to do anything with Android" falls apart. Because the open source community has every arsenal to make an open source alternative to Google's Android.
I apologize for my lack of cohesion. It's been a long week already. I welcome any criticism against my argument.
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Google has absolutely zero obligation to maintain the Android apps. The fact that they released these apps to the public is essentially their gift to the masses (unless Google never made those apps libre, in which case this argument falls apart). In order for the open source community to work, the community has to maintain and keep their products relevant. Since Google is a for-profit organization, it has every right to replace its default open source apps with its own proprietary apps.
Given that they leveraged the open source ideals behind Android to make it successful in the first place, before it actually become popular, many would argue that they do actually have a moral obligation to not turn around and say "**** you guys, it's ours now that it's worth something"
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but what is the 'it'?
"android" is the operating system, the fact that they have non-free apps does not mean the operating system is not free. this is an extremely common practice in open source, make a solid bare bones open source product and make money selling high quality closed source plugins. it is not google's fault no one in the community seems interested in replacing/maintaining the open source components. it seems as though it's free enough.
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Given that Google say "If you make a non-Google phone we kick you out of the treehouse forever" it pretty much IS Google's fault that no one is interested in the maintaining them. With the exception of Amazon, why would anyone be interested in maintaining the other open source components with that threat hanging over their head?
Google are quite clearly leveraging a dominance in the mapping market (amongst others) to create a dominance in the phone market. Quite frankly that makes them at least as anticompetitive as MS were back during the browser wars.
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And all in the name of "free" and "not evil", etc.,etc.
That's the worst part for me.
At least Microsoft were never opaque about their own evilness.
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Given that Google say "If you make a non-Google phone we kick you out of the treehouse forever"
to manufactures, yes.
what really puzzles me is why there is not an android equivalent to debian. a totally community driven android distro
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what really puzzles me is why there is not an android equivalent to debian. a totally community driven android distro
There is? http://www.cyanogenmod.org/about
And more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_firmwares
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The problem is that they're always going to be OS's for dabblers unless someone is willing to break with Google and sell them. Imagine where Debian would be if Microsoft had said that anyone shipping a Linux PC would never be able to buy Windows from them again.
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Or AMD with Intel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_v._Intel), if Intel had been even more extreme.
It strikes me as a double standard that Google is able to get away with things that any other company in the world would be crucified for.