If you haven’t heard, there’s been a bit of a dust-up today between Google and its throngs of Android phone users. If you have heard, chances are you heard it post-spin, where Google is painted as being this horrible evil dictator, violating the ‘spirit of open source.’
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s what’s actually going on.
Google’s Android phone platform is, in fact, an open source operating system. Any phone manufacturer who wants to license Android for use on their handsets can do so, completely free of charge — but there are a few caveats. Anyone deploying an Android device has to choose between a few different Android packages, including the “with Google” option, which allows the manufacturer to use Google’s good name to promote their device. However, the “with Google” package requires that you deploy all the software the way Google demands. No deleting GMail and including Hotmail instead, for instance.
If the manufacturer does want to remove GMail and include Hotmail, they can still totally do that — they just can’t use Google’s name to advertise their product. Oh, and they also can’t include some of Google’s popular apps.
While the operating system is open source, some of Google’s applications are not, and are rather restrictively licensed, giving Google a bit more control over how they are used. The idea is they don’t want someone’s crappy modified Android install soiling their good image.
Very soon after the first Android device’s release, clever hackers figured out a way to bypass the security T-Mobile included on it, allowing them to install custom installs of Android, based on newer, better code than what the devices were originally shipped with. Sure, that newer code would eventually be handed out to all devices, but many of us nerds are rather impatient, and would rather use it now. Crashes and all. So a sort of “community” of hackers was born, eventually culminating in several really popular Android distributions that included all sorts of really awesome functionality that was either not “prime-time”-ready — or was flat out barred from inclusion by the carrier. (In this case, T-Mobile.)
This has been going on for roughly a year now, and several people have risen and fallen as the de facto “ringleaders” in charge of assembling the components into updates that mere users can apply to their phones. Many of these updates happened to include all those applications that Google has specifically licensed to be only distributed by those that comply with their licensing demands, and today finally caught the ire of Google.
Google has sent a Cease & Desist letter to the maintainer of arguably the most popular of these Android distributions, citing his inclusion of applications to which he does not have the proper license for distribution as the activity that needs to be ceased. He’s no longer able to include GMail, Google Maps, etc., in his releases, which arguably makes his builds extremely undesirable for most users.
As you might expect, people understand this licensing issue, and completely realize that it’s not good to be in blatant violation of an application’s distribution license. Just kidding! In actuality, people are going “ape shit,” threatening to buy iPhones, yelling obscenities at Google, and being all-around poor sports about the whole thing.
“Google is violating the spirit of open source!” cry many.
Online petitions have been made. There’s an “app” in the Google Market which is currently the most popular Market download of the day, that essentially demands that Google re-license these apps so that people can continue to use them however they want. Facebook groups demanding the same thing are thriving. Twitter has gone nuts.
There’s a funny thing about the “spirit of open source,” though: many, if not most, open source projects are licensed in such a way that the code cannot be used in commercial applications without following the requirements of the license. It is never OK for someone to violate the license. When, as invariably happens, some company does violate the license, people go nuts. Likewise, nobody ever expects to be able to include someone else’s proprietary functionality in their open source app. Yet, in the “spirit of open source,” Google should just throw out their licensing altogether so that these whiny, entitled, whineyfaces can continue to use them on a distribution of Android that won’t, and cannot license them properly?
That’s a bunch of crap. Google is in a bit of an awkward position, having angered a significant amount of its Android user-base, but they are completely in the right here. Does it suck? Yes. But should Google be expected to give away everything for free just because people have been using it illegally for a year? I’ll leave answering that as an exercise for the reader.
(If you’d like to check your answer against the correct one, here it is: “No.”)
UPDATE: Some are suggesting that Google’s inclusion of proprietary apps in an open source environment is a bad thing. This may well be the case, but you knew about it before you bought an Android phone and/or started developing for the Android platform. You chose to accept that fact, and now you have to live with it. Google didn’t suddenly remove the apps from the source tree and ‘closed source’ them; they were closed source from the start.
UPDATE: Someone made this silly Hitler-meme-video, effectively illustrating the attitudes of these whinyfaces:
They are only "giving it away for free" to cyanogen users via him pulling them off his phone and including them.
The expectation is that if you want to distribute Android, and want to include the Google experience apps, you have to license them. Which generally is done with the purpose of advertising a product, which benefits the distributor — AND Google.
In this case, Google gains nothing from their proprietary apps being included in Cyan’s ROMs.
Look, the reason these people are "whining" is because when they bought the phone, they did so under the impressions that this would be a different experience from the iphone. This thing was billed as being OPENSOURCEMOBILEPLATFORM. And no matter who’s definition of Open source you use, Google is still violating this assumption.
Now, are they in the legal right? Yes, sure. But just because someone is in the legal right, does not put them in the moral right.
"In this case, Google gains nothing from their proprietary apps being included in Cyan’s ROMs."
Bull. The Stock firmware is utter crap. If anything, google gains the fact that I can now play flac, transfer files via bluetooth, and have increased performance with the ability to root my phone (And thus install cyanogen.)
Can you show me advertising material stating that the phone is open source?
I’ve been eagerly following Android from the very beginning, and never have I been under the impression that the open source nature of the platform would mean that I get to change anything on it that I’d like.
"This thing was billed as OPENSOURCEMOBILE PLATFORM"
The PLATFORM is open source, as billed. Anybody can do anything they want with the Android operating system. This doesn’t include the bits that Google has said all along are not included as part of the platform, of course, and definitely doesn’t include the hardware made by any individual manufacturer, or the software released by any individual mobile carrier. But as far as the platform goes, it’s definitely open source.
The T-Mobile G1, however, has never, ever been billed as "open source." From the first announcement we’ve known that the user would not have root access, and that it would include applications under differing licenses. Google has never been secretive about its intentions to keep its core "experience" apps to themselves.
Linux is an open source platform, but there are plenty of closed source applications that run on Linux. Does that violate the spirit of open source? Are you petitioning all the authors of those closed-source applications to open them up to comply with the Linux spirit? That argument is just silly.
To extend the ridiculous argument further: the Android platform is open source, but there are tens of thousands of applications in the Android Market that are NOT open source. Should we petition all of them to be opened because they’re violating the spirit of open source too?
Not to mention that if cyan breaks something in a release, and a bunch of people see their friends’ phones acting funky, it could actually HURT Google.
I completely agree with you that it’s making Google look bad. And I’m really bummed about it. My main problem is the insane reactionary bullshit that’s spreading around the Internet right now, showing everyone just how whiney these people are.
Now thats utter crap and you know it. The stock firmware runs slower, and crashes more often than does the cyanogen MOD. The cyanogen mod also allows you to run an app that you could not using the stock firmware, since the root vulnerability was closed a ways back. If google wants to be uniform about this decision, they’re also going to have to remove all the applications on the market place that require you to have root access. If anything this is google hurting themselves.
In fact, people who use cyanogen are the ones who are…well, were….going to be recommending an Android phone over an iphone. I doubt that people will be doing that now. With just google being able to develop the platform, I seriously doubt people will do this. Without significant help, which google pretty much just shot at, Android will never be able to remotely compete with the iphone. If someone asks you which they should choose, the polished iphone, or the rough aroudn the edges, but promisingly OPEN Adnroid phone; you would probably tell them grab the android phone; since if you don’t like what the stock firmware is doing, you can always get a ROM with some other options. Now google has effectively said "If you don’t license our apps, you can’t use our apps." Which includes the marketplace. People like choice, but they like conformity in their choice. This will effectively kill the Android ROM scene, and thus effectively kill the ability of the users of the android phone to chose. Q.E.D. Google just shot themselves in the foot. At least recognize that :\
"If google wants to be uniform about this decision, they’re also going to have to remove all the applications on the market place that require you to have root access. If anything this is google hurting themselves."
Google’s problem is not with having root access. In fact, the Android Developer Phones ship with root access out of the box. (But does NOT include the Google "experience" apps in question.) You’re confusing things by adding more to your argument. Root is not a part of this issue.
"since if you don’t like what the stock firmware is doing, you can always get a ROM with some other options"
That is completely ridiculous. No one has ever, EVER said that you’d be able to load custom firmwares on any of the currently available Android devices. (with notable exception of the Android Developer Phone, which is only available straight from Google, does not include any of the applications that make it useful as a day-to-day phone, and requires being a registered developer to order.)
The only reason you’re ABLE to load different ROMs on your phone is because of the combination of the work of hackers and mostly due to a couple of really embarrassing slip-ups by Google and HTC.
Nobody is supposed to be able to run different firmwares on these devices, and frankly, anyone who touts that as a selling point is an idiot. I D I O T, idiot. You’d have a point if the displays at the T-Mobile store said "and if you don’t like these features, you can just install a custom ROM!" But they don’t. Never, ever, has that ever been a selling point — nor has "it is OPEN SOURCE!" — and the fact that you think it is says a lot.
Yes, it’s cool that we CAN install custom ROMs. It is VERY cool, and I love being able to do it, but it’s not a feature. (It’s actually a bug.) And it could go away at any time.
The Motorola CLIQ, for instance, is a completely different system than all the HTC phones we’ve been using, and likely won’t be cracked for root/ROM access any time soon, if ever. "But it is an OPENSOURCE PLATFORM!" you cry. Nonsense.
It is unreasonable to expect that just because two Android phones have had exploitable bugs allowing users to do things the manufacturer never intended that they should just always allow everyone to do whatever they want.
I’m sorry, but you don’t have a cohesive argument. You’re jumping all over the place, making all sorts of ridiculous claims that are just making you sound silly.
The Google apps have always been licensed such that they cannot be distributed. People have been distributing them in blatant violation of the license. Google has put a stop to it. That’s it. End of story.
"With just google being able to develop the platform, I seriously doubt people will do this. Without significant help, which google pretty much just shot at, Android will never be able to remotely compete with the iphone."
That is a misunderstanding of the nature of the open source platform. Anybody CAN contribute to the Android platform. Even Cyanogen himself has actually submitted code to the ‘stock’ Android tree. You could too. It is not "just Google."
What Google is not allowing, however, is you making your own version of Android and including the apps that are only allowed to be included in the Google-branded version of Android.
I think that, if it weren’t for the new Android Market, Google would have continued turning a blind eye just like Microsoft and HTC do.
But suddenly getting 30k+ people using the new Market while they’re still polishing things behind the scene undoubtedly ruffled a few feathers.
This opinion is pure speculation, mind you. It just makes sense. Up until now, Google had no reason to care, but when the Android blogs are all reporting that you can access the new Market now just by installing the latest Cyanogen, they surely would start to.
I too think that this would be the best course of action for Google to take. The only thing that I’ve been arguing is that it’s kind of ridiculous to expect/demand that Google TAKE this action.
It’d be really nice if they would, but so many people are arguing as if they are entitled for Google to do that for them.
Oh. I’ve not owned an ADP, but I recall that when the 1.5 ADP image came out a month or so before the official T-Mobile update they initially didn’t have the Google apps in it. I guess I just assumed that was because they weren’t available on ADP.
The spirit of open source means that users get everything for free, and that nobody is allowed to "own" anything.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Open Source software is generally free, but if people don’t exercise some ownership, you’ll end up with a huge market free-for-all that will eventually destroy the platform and end up undermining the things we love about having a common OS.
Just look at all the Linux flavors out there, for example. How often do you find an app that works on this flavor of Linux but not that one. That very problem drove me away from Linux and back to Windows… let’s not do that with Android!
The author lives in Vancouver, Washington, USA with his girlfriend and a menagerie of cats, rats, fish, birds, guinea pigs and robots.
Among other inanities, he strives to use investigative techniques to work young starlet breasts into every aspect of rational discourse — focusing on the discourse, thus making it not perverted. Also, has recently begun a career as “Internet hairstylist.”
He can be contacted via email and Jabber IM at ‘jer@nyquil.org’. He likes to be contacted.
(All press inquiries, however, ought be directed towards the author’s agent, Alistair Hoel, via email to ahoel@nyquil.org.)
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