
Android Chief Andy Rubin Sends His First Tweet — And It’s Aimed At Steve Jobs - tzury
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/19/andy-rubin-twitter/
======
apl
That's all great and witty and so on.

But his pseudo-definition of "free" is rather misleading. I don't think Jobs
argues that Android isn't free in the sense of being closed-source, or being
sold for money, or not being available on most devices. It is. I know that I
can compile it right now, from my command line. I know that I wouldn't have to
spend any money. I know that, with enough tinkering, I can put it on my iPhone
or whatever.

In the real world, on the other hand, this free Android doesn't exist. When I
buy a Samsung or HTC or Motorola Android phone, I don't get plain vanilla
Android - I get a distorted version full of crap and software I neither need
nor want. In the real world, Android is almost never the pure version Rubin
wants it to be. It's a weird hybrid, coerced into submission by Verizon,
Motorola and friends. The jailbreak community for Android is as large as the
one for the iPhone, meaning that in a very import sense, real-world Android is
about as open as iOS and webOS.

I don't care about theoretical openness. That's just rhetorics. Jobs merely
points that out.

~~~
bad_user
Let me put it this way:

With an iPhone you've got a shiny device that just works and doesn't come with
shit installed and that you cannot tinker with.

With an Android you've got a shiny device that many times comes with shit
installed and that you cannot tinker with (depending on the manufacturer).

The difference: you can build your own unlocked Android device, and because of
competition there will be phone manufacturers that will do just that.

Windows PCs aren't locked, and this came to be mostly due to harsh
competition, or am I missing something? Don't you think the likes of Compaq/HP
would've rather sold locked devices akin to gaming consoles (also popular at
that time)?

You're saying it is "theoretical openness"; I'm saying the market is too young
for Android's openness to unravel.

~~~
martythemaniak
Just because Apple makes it, doesn't mean it's not shit. I invite you to try
and remove their shitty stock app, or weather app or any of the other numerous
shitty little apps the iPhone comes with.

~~~
schultzor
They might be basic, but I think the stock iPhone apps are a long way from
being shitty in the same sense as Sprint's bundled NASCAR app.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Is this just a class thing? What does the NASCAR app do that's so objectional
except be possibly unwanted by the kind of person who doesn't object to a
stocks app.

I'm not in the US, but the fact that no-one even bothers to advance any actual
reason for not wanting it beyond it being "NASCAR" leads me to assume it's
plain old snobbery.

------
jakevoytko
If you lack the dependencies, bootstrapping this command is also a whimsical
one-liner:

    
    
       sudo apt-get install git-core wget && mkdir -p ~/bin && export PATH=$PATH:~/bin \
       && wget http://android.git.kernel.org/repo && chmod a+x ./repo \
       && mv ./repo ~/bin && mkdir android && cd android \
       && repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git \
       ; repo sync ; make
    

I ran this on an Ubuntu 9.04 installation inside of VirtualBox. Total dollars
spent between the VM, OS, GNU toolkit, package manager, external programs,
build environment, and the Android source code: $0.00. I never stop being
surprised that giving software away for free is a viable business model for so
many different companies.

------
demallien
Hmmm, a couple of points for Andy:

1) I just tried that line out on my Fedora machine - it doesn't work, doesn't
know what repo is.

2) after running 'make' does my computer turn into an Android device?

3) If not, what is the hardware I have to use

4) where are the instructions for loading the newly compiled code onto my
device - I see a make, but no make install... I mean I like binaries as much
as the next geek, but they aren't terribly interesting unless they, you know,
run.

5) I tried loading the binary on my device, but it refused - something about
unauthenticated code - what should I do to use your wonderful open system?

OK, obviously I'm trolling a little here, but Andy's tweet is every bit as
much a troll. I doubt very much that RMS agrees with Andy as to the openness
of Android... In fact, I just went and looked, here's his thoughts on the
subject:

 _Android's source code is free software, but in many phones the binaries of
Android are not free, because the phones are set up to refuse to run modified
versions if the user installs them. [This practice is called ‘tivoization’,
named after the product that pioneered it.] If the software in Android were
under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), users would be
guaranteed the freedom to install their own modified versions.

Even when Android is not tivoized, it needs non-free drivers or firmware to
run. As far as I know, no smartphone is made that can be run without
proprietary software. None respects its users' freedom.

The shortest path to making it possible to run a smartphone without non-free
software is to reverse engineer those non-free drivers or firmware and write
free replacements_ \- RMS

So that would be a 'no'

~~~
davidw
Android is really the best hope for a free and open mobile experience though,
at this point. It may not be 100% RMS approved, but it's fairly close, and the
weight of Google means it is actually getting traction, unlike, say, OpenMoko.
I guess MeeGo or something might count too, but that all seems quite vague at
this point.

I think that, with time, we'll see more truly open, Nexus One style phones. I
really wish they hadn't given it up so easily: something like that would be
competitive in Europe where it's much more common to pay full price for an
unlocked phone.

Sometimes, I think people forget just how cool open source is in terms of
being able to take stuff and hack on it.

~~~
demallien
You are right that it's the best that we have at the moment, but from where
I'm standing, openness in phones is decreasing, not increasing - each new
generation of Android devices seems to contain more and more locked-down
proprietry code.

Maybe I'm being naive, but when I hear 'open' I'm thinking that that means
that if I don't like a small part of my otherwise great smartphone, I can go
in and modify the code that handles that specific part, compile it, and
download the modified code onto my phone so that it does what it wants. That
is several orders of magnitude of effort away from today's reality of:

\- find a security flaw

\- design an exploit of the security flaw so that I can root my device

\- extract the drivers from the binary so that I can add them back into my new
image after recompiling

\- modify code and compile

\- reload new image onto phone

I just feel that the open source community is getting sucked in to supporting
this solution that is dragging us away from what would truly be an open
platform. If Rubin was being honest about an 'open' Android, it would be under
GPLv3, as RMS says. It's not, and the reason it isn;t is because it is not
open. Rubin is spinning this, and I do not respect that.

~~~
davidw
The Apache license is liberal and open, and very much free. RMS doesn't like
the fact that you can build proprietary stuff on top of it, but sometimes you
need that freedom in order to involve companies in your community.

I agree that we're still not seeing manufacturers do quite what we'd like, but
I think it'll come with time, most likely in places that are not the United
States: Europe and China most likely.

And, to be clear, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it's going to
come from Apple.

~~~
Locke1689
This is a logical fallacy -- you define and use two definitions of the word
"free" in the same context. On the one hand you associate freedom with RMS's
context, which must include the ability to actually run the free code. RMS
views the software and the specialized hardware it runs on as one and the same
-- inseparable in freedom. In the sentence just before it, though, you argue
that freedom is simply the Apache license as applied to software. In fact,
what you are actually arguing begs the question because you assert that the
software is free because it is under the Apache license, but we know that the
Apache license is free because the software is liberal and open, as defined by
the Apache license.

Before you can approach whether or not the software is free you must first
define what free is. The parent poster is relatively safe in this because he
provides RMS's definition of free, which is encoded in the GPLv3. Until you
provide a similar definition I don't think one can state the software is
either free or unfree.

 _I agree that we're still not seeing manufacturers do quite what we'd like,
but I think it'll come with time, most likely in places that are not the
United States: Europe and China most likely.

And, to be clear, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it's going to
come from Apple._

I think this is just speculation.

~~~
davidw
> define what free is.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition> \- Android qualifies,
except for a few bits and pieces.

> I think this is just speculation.

I'd bet a lot of money on it. Apple has a long, long history of making
beautiful, innovative, forward-thinking, and fairly locked down products, from
the Mac onwards.

~~~
Locke1689
_<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition> \- Android qualifies,
except for a few bits and pieces._

OK, but you admit that your definition of free isn't everyone's definition of
free. To be even more precise, the OSI itself doesn't even call that
definition free, they call it 'open source.' The FSF, in fact, has a contrary
definition that they maintain is actually free software. Both parties refer to
the OSI as 'open source' and the FSF as 'free.'

This leads in to the main problem that Google/Android have -- when they market
Android as being open they don't really define what open is. It is _prima
facie_ true that Android is not open on all fronts, so the question is really
what Google considers "open" to mean.

Jobs put this observation into an interesting context because it's important
to note that a lot of software in the iPhone is free as well. In the manual
you will find a list (quite a long one) of all the GPL and BSD licensed
software included inside the iPhone. The question, then, isn't who is open and
who is closed, but what the definition of 'open' is and who more closely
abides by it.

~~~
bad_user

        OK, but you admit that your definition of free isn't 
        everyone's definition of free
    

No shit ... my definition of "free" includes me distributing the code I made
however I want.

If it where for me I would include a new rule in the OSI definition that
excludes GPL from being called "open source", because its copyleft extends to
the whole package that links to GPL pieces, and for me this is not "free".

    
    
        Both parties refer to the OSI as 'open source' and the 
        FSF as 'free.'
    

The Apache license has been approved as "Free Software", which is by no means
the same as "free" ... an English word that you cannot trademark.

    
    
        It is prima facie true that Android is not open on all 
        fronts
    

In my definition of "open" that doesn't include forcing the phone
manufacturers to not build locked phones.

If my voice doesn't matter (I'm a nobody) here's the voice of Linus Torvalds
(you know, the guy without whom you can't speak about Linux):

    
    
        [Stallman] calls it "tivoization", but that's a word he 
        has made up, and a term I find offensive, so I don't 
        choose to use it. It's offensive because Tivo never did 
        anything wrong, and the FSF even acknowledged that. The 
        fact that they do their hardware and have some DRM 
        issues with the content producers and thus want to 
        protect the integrity of that hardware.
    
        The kernel license covers the *kernel*. It does not 
        cover boot loaders and hardware, and as far as I'm 
        concerned, people who make their own hardware can 
        design them any which way they want. Whether that means 
        "booting only a specific kernel" or "sharks with 
        lasers", I don't care.
    

And I don't care about what Jobs says, the real question is: can you build
your own iOS phone? can you participate in its development (like contributing
bug fixes)? Can you choose phones from multiple manufacturers and multiple
carriers? Can you install your own apps on it without going through that
certification shit-hole?

No? Well Android is a lot more open, regardless of definition.

------
pilif
What is all this proclaimed openness worth if it still boils down to
exploiting security systems if you want to run that system you just modified?

Of all the android devices currently available, the N1 (which is around a year
old and getting outpaced by newer devices) is the only one that even remotely
allows you to play with it in a truly open way.

Open isn't "it's able to run mostly-google-certified apps". Open is: Let me
modify this OS here and upload it to that device there.

Open isn't being unable to uninstall bloatware and trialware put in place by
carriers to get a couple of extra bucks.

Open isn't not being able to use all the features of a handset/os just because
a carrier decided they don't like the feature (with no official way of turning
the functionality back on)

~~~
bad_user
> _What is all this proclaimed openness worth if it still boils down to
> exploiting security systems if you want to run that system you just
> modified?_

Yes, because everybody can make an Android phone, even if it's too technically
challenging: there will always be smaller companies that will compete on
openness.

HTC, Motorolla, Samsung are competing on features, but just wait another 2 or
3 iterations.

At least Android (both the OS and the Marketplace) gives you this possibility.

~~~
pilif
but to really make a compelling Android phone, you'd also need the google apps
(even if it's just for the Android Market, or now the c2d services and who
knows what other features will require the google tools later on).

To get these, you have to agree to some licensing terms with Google. The terms
are not publically disclosed and for what we know, it's Google forcing these
security-features into these devices.

Android is all but open.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
_Android_ is completely open; it's Apache licensed and freely available and
freely redistributable. The Google apps, the device drivers, and the phones
themselves _are not_.

There is a difference. They are not all considered "Android". You can very
easily live without any of those closed features if you so desire. Buy my
Openmoko Freerunner from me, and you can run a 100% open Android system. You
can even find or make replacement applications for all of the proprietary
Google apps if you want to.

~~~
pilif
I completely agree with what you are saying. But:

Without the Google Tools, the experience you would get on that device is
subpar compared to what a device with the Google Tools would provide.

It's not the the (excellent) Gmail app we are talking about.

First and foremost, it's the Andorid Market.

I know that it's possible to install any .apk on a device, but you'd need to
get them. As it stands now, most of the better-known Android applications are
only available on the Android Marketplace.

So without the Google tools you don't just lose the few Google Apps (Google
Talk, Gmail, Google Voice), but also most of the Android Apps currently
available.

And it doesn't stop there. In Froyo, Google added the Cloud-to-Device API
(that's the c2d I was referring to) which provides about the same
functionality as Apples background notifications.

That, too, requires the Android Market, so a non-google-device loses that
functionality as well.

This is just one feature, but it shows a trend of Google being willing to
couple core API and system components to the availability of the Google tools,
so you just plain don't know whether pure free Android will continue to be
something you can put on a device you want to be competitive with (if any
device without the Android Market can be called that nowadays even)

~~~
MrScruff
I think this is a very good point. While at some point in the future it will
likely be possible to buy 'beige box' phone hardware and run a hand built
version of Android on it, it will in actual usage be a very different beast to
the devices being peddled by Motorola & HTC because of the missing access to
the propriety Google apps and services.

So if the 'Google certified' version of Android wins, I'm not sure how that is
good for anyone other than installing Google as the Microsoft of the mobile
age. In that scenario, I'm not sure why I should be rooting for one dictator
over another, other than that at least one has taste.

------
awakeasleep
Hm.. He didn't actually respond to Mr. Jobs, though-- right?

Mr. Jobs said that the issue of openness was a side issue to the real issue of
fragmentation/integration, iirc.

So regardless of the accuracy of that statement, a response would have to
address that point.

~~~
dasil003
Jobs is just pulling a calculated PR move of framing the conversation. If you
address "fragmentation/integration" then he's already won, because the way
it's worded is in Apple's favor. What Andy failed to do is shift the language
back to something both favorable and _understandable_ , such as "actually it's
about choice vs dictatorship".

------
MrScruff
Wonder why he left out the 'make install'? Oh, right...

------
lpgauth
Oh common.

Openness != Open Source

"Don't worry dad, you can remove those pre-installed apps from your carrier by
re-building the OS." Right.

------
sahaj
it's obvious what jobs is doing here. he's throwing an opinion to build public
consensus/sides-line on (doesn't matter if it's wrong or right). this is
exactly what news stations like FOX and such do.

------
snotrockets
My definition of open is more relaxed: it's open if you can extend and change
it without getting permission first.

------
rimantas
Well, if that defines typical user experience, Apple has little to fear.

------
jscore
Touché

------
GHFigs
Note the absence of 'make money;'.

~~~
GHFigs
Note the absence of 'make money;'.

Edit: Apparently some of you are either offended by money or have mistaken
this for a joke. My bad in either case. I was (and am) unable to think of a
way to point to the proverbial elephant in the room without sounding at least
a little bit smarmy.

I am not an uncomprehending oaf here. I can look at this and say "Oh, neat!",
too, but if this is to be taken as a reaction to Jobs's criticism, then I
don't think you can escape the context of that criticism. Jobs did not say
"open is not neat", he said "open does not always win"--where "winning" is
inescapably to do with profit--and this, I believe, only serves to clarify
what exactly does not win without actually refuting the claim. "Open" is not a
panacea. It is not magic pixie dust that turns shit into gold. It's a cop out
answer to the tough question of how do you build a great product, and it makes
correspondingly little money for Google. If you were in Jobs's position would
you not take this as a sign that your approach--the approach which relies
dramatically less on partner companies not dropping the ball and that has
already made you money hand over fist--is one to have greater confidence in?

