In the end, it's our fault for electing people that refuse to regulate the cell phone carriers properly. Or, it's our fault for doing business with them. There are some countries where carriers are not allowed to include un-uninstallable apps. But not the US. Why? Because consumers in the US don't care about anything but a low, low price.
Right now, Android is the only popular mobile OS that you can clone from git, build, and install on some piece of hardware. All hardware? Nope. But some? Yes. This means it's basically open. Just because someone sells you a box you're not allowed to open doesn't mean that all boxes are un-openable, after all.
I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code. While it's not possible to do this with every Android phone ever made, it's not possible to do it with any iOS or Symbian or WebOS device. This makes Android the most open; and after the industry has been closed tight for 20+ years, it is quite refreshing. We haven't achieved perfection yet, but Android is the only software stack bringing us closer.
(Remember commercial UNIXes? Neither do I. Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD relegated them to a very tiny niche market. Android is the beginning of this for mobile; you don't just wake up one day, free of the oppression of closed hardware and proprietary software. It takes time and effort, and Google is leading the way right now. Someone else will build on this in the future, and things will become even more open.)
I think the beef some of us have with Google is that they seem to have left their balls at the door. However much Google is or isn't living up to "don't be evil" these days, I suspect most of us can agree that we'd rather have their rules than Verizon's or AT&T's. Why aren't they being stronger? They've had the only really credible alternative to the iPhone for a long time now -- why aren't they using that fact to make the carriers play ball?
Nerds love to rag on Apple for their controlling ways, but seem to forget how completely locked down -- and utterly, horribly, greedily tacky -- the mobile universe was before the iPhone. Apple, through, I don't know, sheer force of will, cracked a huge hole in the status quo. Google could have landed a deathblow if they'd just stuck to their guns. Oh well.
jrockway, I hope you're right, and this is the beginning. I fear that the best window of opportunity is already past. Sensible regulation would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. Irony of ironies, perhaps it will be Microsoft that comes in and forms the second leg.
Android may be a credible alternative to the iPhone now but that wasn't originally the case nor was it guaranteed. Many carriers had essentially anointed the iPhone the One True Smartphone. The US is a special case with the AT&T exclusivity but carriers in other countries even built out new GSM networks just for the iPhone. The first version of Android was nothing special, so Google did what they needed to do: give the carriers and manufacturers everything they wanted and more.
Manufacturers want to be able to customize the UI and software to distinguish themselves and not just be commodity hardware provider for Google's OS -- Google allowed that. To get the carriers on board, Google gives them the app store revenue (minus transaction charges). They also give both carriers and manufacturers a cut of the search revenue. Google has done everything possible to ensure that the carriers will have a reason to promote Android. One of the reasons they do promote Android is that they can load it up with NASCAR apps.
It's taken that much to get Android to the point where it as credible alternative to the iPhone. Trying to undo that now is like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
Telus and Bell switched to GSM because their old networks were falling apart, and because they were missing out on roaming fees from international customers. On top of that, there were a bundle of phones that they couldn't get, or which showed up later on CDMA.
Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get the iPhone is a ridiculous notion. Bell and Telus spending billions of dollars to get a new, next-gen 3G network, with higher speeds and the ability to use data while a voice call is in progress.
Your point is valid but the fact remains that both companies offer and heavily promote only one GSM phone: the iPhone. That was all I was trying to get at.
I get the impression that carriers like Android devices better than iPhones. Analogies are fraught with danger but this looks similar to the early Mac vs PC days. I predict Apple can keep a decent minority market share as long as they execute well. Android or something like it will probably dominate the rest of the market. The network effects are strong.
with Google is that they seem to have left their balls at the door.
From what I've heard from Google, I think with Android they're already sensitive about the perception that they're the "500 pound gorilla in the room" and they're keen to reassure the carriers and the phone manufacturers that they're not taking full control of their businesses.
Even though I think many people at Google would like to see things unfold differently, they also want to see Android adopted widely as its path to success (breadth instead of depth.) The art of compromise.
I think if you buy a N1 then you can still have a "google-centric" Android experience, though. For now.
Another possibility is that this is as open as Android is ever going to be. The original Droid was a high-water mark for openness and standardization on Android. Subsequent phones have been progressively more customized and locked down.
Examples: AT&T banning sideloading, Motorola phones taking a more aggressive approach toward hacking, Verizon signing exclusive deals like Skype and moving toward a proprietary app store, Google deferring to carriers on tethering, Verizon's forcing Bing on users, etc.
"I can always hack it" isn't a solution, unless you'd accept that hacking is also a solution to Apple's App Store censorship. Android's fans are so focused on how evil Apple is that they're ignoring the way Android itself is becoming less open. I'm not entirely happy with Apple, but I'll take their curation over the carrier's vision of a new walled garden based on Android any day.
Another possibility is that this is as open as Android is ever going to be.
This is a great point. Many of us are imagining a hypothetical alternate world where Google forced all Android phones to be non-evil, but maybe that world can't exist. Maybe if Google was fascist about openness, the carriers would just ship Symbian and WinMo instead.
The original Droid was a high-water mark for openness and standardization on Android.
I would say the Nexus One is the high-water mark, although apparently many people never even knew that it existed due to the lack of marketing.
We can't do an all-out attack on the carriers since they will fortify their positions and we need the carriers to move data for us.
So we will take them by stealth and guerilla warfare, a little bit at a time, forcing them to be dumb bit-movers.
Google could move faster than they do right now. I think they already have the infrastructure and applications on Android to make a worldwide Skype alternative which is free. But the carriers would scream if Google does that. Hence, they slowly morph the Android system into their vision over time. A carrier can't complain on each of the small steps -- but take all the steps together and their power is dwindling.
"Open" is not a discrete thing. You can be "more open" than another handset or operating system. But "not being open" does not imply being "closed". The positive thing about Android is that we are seeing the most open devices ever. And this signals the slow but sure death of the carrier conglomerates.
"I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code."
100% open code? So this means your not running any of the gmail/gtalk/gvoice/g... ? None of those are open code, and quite frankly, they are the most used applications on my android phone.
I would also argue that the android OS is one of the least 'open' open source mobile OSes available. When you compare android's development practices to companies like Nokia with their N900 and Intel with Meego, both companies who are actively concerned with making sure their changes get back upstream, and then you'll see that the openness of android is more of a facade.
Android is 100% open source. Things like Maps are just third-party applications that you can install as it pleases you. (And yes, I did install those apps after replacing the OS.)
The whole point of open source is that you can do what you want with it - you're under no obligation to give your changes back if you don't want to. At least, that's how it is under the less restrictive licenses.
OTOH, free software is not about protecting the rights of programmers - it's about the rights of users.
In that sense, a restrictive license is one that allows programmers to make the once free and open code closed and secret, restricting what users can do with it.
I am a programmer, but I am also a user. I really appreciate the rights what you call "restrictive licenses" give me and find the rights they take away (mainly the right to abuse my users) a fair price for my freedom.
You keep repeating this bullshit about protecting users over and over again.
Sorry, but the only interested users of the source code are programmers, so restrictive licenses do hurt true users of the product. As for non-programmer users they don't give a damn about openness or closeness of the code, lip service at most. The thing either works or it does not, period.
I believe there are lot of those who chose Android because they heard it is open. Now ask, how many did see the single line of Android code.
How did Android being "100%" open help those poor solus have skype and tethering on their phones.
Yeah but we're not talking about less restrictive licenses, we're talking about linux and the gpl and the fact that zero of the changes from android have made it back upstream into the kernel.
Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using, and that is something that android has not done well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfQTaIGPxP8
Don't get me wrong, I still think android is great, I've been using android phones since just after the G1 was released, and its a great platform, but there are definitely a lot of open issues with it that could be handled better.
> Yeah but we're not talking about less restrictive licenses, we're talking about linux and the gpl and the fact that zero of the changes from android have made it back upstream into the kernel.
Sure they have. The kernel developers deemed most of the changes unsuitable for upstream. That's a shame, but it's their prerogative to reject the changes, and Google's prerogative to still want to do things their way.
> Dirk Hohndel from MeeGo made a good point at OSCON this year that open source is not just about releasing patches to code you changed, but oepn source is about engaging with the upstream projects that you're using...
So now some guy who I've never heard of has an opinion on what open source "is," and that's canonical? I don't think so, and I don't agree (as an open source developer-in-hiatus myself).
Open source is whatever you damn well care to make of it (as long as you're honoring the relevant licenses). That's why it's so awesome.
Jailbreaking your phone is legal (as opposed to illegal), but I haven't seen anything saying that jailbreakability is a requirement for phones. If it were, it wouldn't be difficult to apply that to things like game consoles and phones, which is a precedent no one (except consumers) have any interest in doing.
The ruling simply says that you can't be arrested for jailbreaking phones; it doesn't require that a given phone be jailbreakable.
What are you running on your EVO? I toyed with Cyanogenmod a few weeks ago, but gave up because it had some rough edges compared to Sense (like two text messages coming with every voicemail). However after a day of tinkering with various home replacements just to make the phone more usable sideways, I'm thinking I may have given up on the open source option too soon. It'd be nice to have a de-facto community distribution to repave the various carrier-specific installs, but I didn't get the impression that Cyanogenmod was there yet. Should I give it (or something else) a second look?
The two text messages for incoming voicemails is fixable. Basically, sprint just text messages your phone with a special text message to say there is a new visual voicemail. You can either block those messages from making through to handcent/chomp/whatever (which doesn't block it from visual voicemail), or you can do what I, and many others, did and use Google Voice for your voicemail instead.
With Google Voice for voicemail, I can at least, you know, get a friggin phone number for the person calling me and not just their pre-recorded greeting name.
Right now, Android is the only popular mobile OS that you can clone from git, build, and install on some piece of hardware. All hardware? Nope. But some? Yes. This means it's basically open. Just because someone sells you a box you're not allowed to open doesn't mean that all boxes are un-openable, after all.
I had no trouble hacking my EVO 4G, deleting the stock OS with HTC and Sprint crapware, and installing a build with 100% open code. While it's not possible to do this with every Android phone ever made, it's not possible to do it with any iOS or Symbian or WebOS device. This makes Android the most open; and after the industry has been closed tight for 20+ years, it is quite refreshing. We haven't achieved perfection yet, but Android is the only software stack bringing us closer.
(Remember commercial UNIXes? Neither do I. Linux and Free/Open/NetBSD relegated them to a very tiny niche market. Android is the beginning of this for mobile; you don't just wake up one day, free of the oppression of closed hardware and proprietary software. It takes time and effort, and Google is leading the way right now. Someone else will build on this in the future, and things will become even more open.)