

Android chief Rubin's response to Android critics misses the point - redacted
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/android-chief-rubins-response-to-android-critics-misses-the-point.ars

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greattypo
I agree with Ars on this one. And hopefully whether you're pro-Android or pro-
iPhone or pro-whatever, you can appreciate some evasive corporate-speak when
you see it. E.g.:

    
    
        Rubin: What amazes me is that even though the quantity and breadth of Android 
        products being built has grown tremendously, it’s clear that quality and consistency 
        continue to be top priorities.
    

What does that even mean? Why are your priorities so amazing to you?

I think there have been some legitimate gripes about Android's openness lately
(like manufacturer favoritism) and I was hoping for something more direct out
of Google.

~~~
patrickaljord
> I think there have been some legitimate gripes about Android's openness
> lately (like manufacturer favoritism)

Android has always done that, it did it with the G1, nexus1, nexus S and now
xoom. In some case it took them a month to release the source, other cases two
months. In this case it will take a bit more (probably 4), so what? Big deal,
Android is Apache license, this is completely fair game and as for
manufacturer favoritism, here is the list of manufacturers who already have
access to Honeycomb source:

* Motorola

* Samsung

* LG

* HTC

* Acer

* Toshiba

* Asus

* Dell

* Archos

Sure Motorola got it first, but the same happened with every Android release,
again, big deal. Sounds like FUD to me.

~~~
mycroftiv
I always thought "open source" meant that I, the user, got access to the
source code, and I was able to make changes and share them. I don't like
seeing the meaning of open source progressively reduced to nothing. We already
have a category for "corporate manufacturing partners can pay to access the
source" - that's proprietary software. It's not OK to use openness just as a
marketing term and claim that a product being distributed now is still open
just because the source will be released at some unspecified time in the
future.

~~~
patrickaljord
> We already have a category for "corporate manufacturing partners can pay to
> access the source" - that's proprietary software.

No, even stallman approves of selling source code. Free software and open
source have never been about price, it's about being able to get the source:

> Commercial software is software being developed by a business which aims to
> make money from the use of the software. “Commercial” and “proprietary” are
> not the same thing! Most commercial software is proprietary, but there is
> commercial free software, and there is noncommercial nonfree software.

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html>

~~~
mycroftiv
You are misconstruing my statements and ignoring the context. I am well aware
that you can sell free software for money. However, if I purchase a Xoom with
Honeycomb, I have been given a copy of the Android software, and I will not be
given a copy of the source code if I request it. That is the issue here, and
the general issue of charging money for software is not relevant. If you are
linking and quoting from gnu, you are surely aware that free software is about
the user of the software being able to access the source code, modify it, and
redistribute it. None of these freedoms (which are also part of the open
source definition) are currently given to purchasers of Honeycomb tablets.
Your attempt to conflate the issue of access to source code by users with that
of a distributor charging a price for software is either disingenuous or the
result of a misunderstanding.

~~~
Schmidt
But, Android (except for the kernel) isn't free software, it's mainly Apache
and BSD licensed, neither of these licenses requires source to distributed for
compliance.

Google is doing something bad, but it is not against the license.

~~~
Locke1689
He never said that it was illegal, just that it's wrong (while continuing to
claim that Android is "open").

------
beej71
I guess I fail to see what the big deal is here. Everyone agrees that Google
is going to release the source code when it's "done", and that this is going
to be some time in the relatively near future.

Terms of open-source licenses have been adhered to.

It sounds like they probably incurred some code debt rushing this out, and
they want to clean it up before people start running with it. They themselves
have said it doesn't even run on phones--to appreciate why that's bad, just
imagine what Gruber would have written about it.

~~~
greattypo
I agree with what you said, but I don't think that's the part that has people
most concerned. It's more about stuff like this:

    
    
        According to the BusinessWeek report, Google has been using its 
        exclusive control over timely source code availability as leverage
        to block vendors from making customizations that don't align with 
        Google's business interests. For example, the article says that
        Google attempted to block Verizon from shipping an Android 
        device with Microsoft's Bing search engine.

~~~
blinkingled
Hmm. They did? Is there a proof to that? Because at Dive into Mobile
conference last year Rubin said something totally different on that topic - to
the effect of we don't care if some VZW phones are shipped with Bing and the
market will sort it out - people will flock to the best experience.

~~~
gonzo
That was before Facebook and Amazon became threats to Google's hegemony.

