
Android isn't freedom, because Google is closed - caberus
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Android-isnt-freedom-because-Google-is-closed_id48751
======
AndrewDucker
It may not be 100% freedom, but they allow me to load apps from wherever I
like, unlike Apple or Microsoft, and so I will continue to use them.

If there was a popular phone platform that was even more open, while providing
the same levels of functionality, I'd be very tempted to give it a go.

~~~
caberus
Google has too much authority over Android Platform itself like Apple and
Microsoft :

While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android
compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the
Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android
platform—not a bunch of incompatible versions

source : [http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-
imp...](http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance-
of-compatibility.html)

~~~
AndrewDucker
Google offer the Google Platform to people who agree to certain things. But
anyone is free to fork Android at any point, if they choose - Amazon have done
so, for instance, as well as many Chinese manufacturers.

~~~
kevinh
They're free to fork the segment of android that google hasn't locked into
their own closed-source ecosystem.

Many AOSP applications have been abandoned by google in favor of their
proprietary applications.

~~~
fidotron
And the reasoning is most of those apps (for better or worse) depend on
Google's cloud services, so it makes no sense for them to be in AOSP.

There remains nothing stopping you replacing all the Google stuff on Android,
including the very parts that make them money.

One of the sadder, non obvious, parts of the way mobile has developed is it is
becoming synonymous with trivial front ends to cloud services, and not really
smart client apps at all.

------
apunic
More and more Anti-Android propaganda pops up since iOS' market share is
nosediving.

If Android is not freedom what is iOS then? No inter app communication, no
exchangeable launcher/lock screen/ keyboard, real multitasking came just since
this fall, no real resolution independency, no nothing.

~~~
nine_k
Maybe Firefox OS or Tizen fit the bill of a free mobile OS better?

~~~
fidotron
If anything, less so. Firefox OS could be viewed as an incredibly limited
subset of Android, and these things promote ever increasing dependence on
computing services not in the devices, which more than likely means closed
ecosystems in clouds. This is a worse situation than you have on Android
today.

The freedom problems with Android are more to do with driver support. Until an
app development SDK is self hosting it's a bad sign too, but none of the
mobile OS candidates has that right now.

~~~
rquirk
I haven't seen a detailed breakdown of the freedom problems with Firefox OS,
but it looks to be more or less the same as Android in the cupcake era -
really basic core applications and a phone that works, but not much third
party stuff. You have to rely on mobile web sites. The biggest difference is
that rather than have dalvik-based applications, they are written in
javascript. All the core apps are on your device locally, and you can write
code that is also stored locally too.

Then it promotes the whole "search" part. That seems to be links to websites
mixed in with applications, which does seem confusing and doesn't sit well
with having data independence. But that's just the same as using web sites on
Android.

On the positive side, I'd trust Mozilla to maintain their first-party code as
free software. The core phone apps are not likely to go proprietary, as seems
to be happening on Android.

~~~
fidotron
The killer cutoff is if it's possible to write server apps for the platform in
question. For iOS you can while the app is in the foreground, for Android you
can all the time, for Firefox or Chrome OS . . . nope, they are explicitly
designed to be clients to something else.

That may seem ridiculous, but the hooks are not there in Web APIs to do peer
to peer communication for example, let alone peer to peer based on discovery
of nearby devices. Chrome OS even lacks zero conf network support. Aside from
Mozilla (who seem overly attached to the support of carriers) the people
pushing the advancement of the web platform have zero interest in altering
this direction, and in fact would prefer we go further in it.

I would be far keener on FF OS or Chrome OS if they supported sandboxed
node.js on the clients, and worked on extending the API from node.js, not the
web browser model.

------
nemothekid
Whats the difference between Android/AOSP and RedHat/Linux, or
nginx.com/nginx.org, or DataStax/Cassandra? I believe the Android platform
itself is free, however the many components that Google provides that run on
Google's backend aren't, and understandably so.

~~~
pslam
The "open" variants of those you list can be compiled, installed and used
practically without significant compromise - they are genuinely useful. The
exception is AOSP.

There are very few devices where you can compile _and install_ AOSP and have a
genuinely useful result. Compiling alone is fairly useless if the binaries you
generate can't be used for any purpose. You may recall the maintainer recently
quit because it became an untenable position:

[https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...](https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURorE7g)

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laureny
> but the idea that Android as we know it is open-source and the ultimate
> freedom is absurd.

Nobody claimed that Android was the ultimate freedom, but it's the most free
mobile operating system that is successful in the market place.

Free software extremists like the author of that article can simply never be
satisfied.

------
djillionsmix
I don't know how someone types up the 1000th iteration of this article with no
acknowledgement of the 999 times people have written it before now or of any
of the responses or counterarguments anyone has made in response.

------
m458l387
[http://replicant.us/about/](http://replicant.us/about/)

"Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several devices."

~~~
caberus
yes, but as i can see there are no 2013 year's devices listed in supported
devices page

~~~
onosendai
Another option, which isn't 100% free but still manages to avoid the Google
Play Services layer, which is what the article focuses on, is running an
alternative ROM such as Cyanogenmod, skip flashing the Google apps package,
and install an alternate package repository such as f-droid.org which features
only FOSS apps.

Most alternative ROMs have binary drivers pulled from the official ROMs, but
it should be no worse than running a Linux distro with, say, non-free binary
firmware images which are loaded on demand for wireless cards, and you strike
a better balance between a fairly open system and the latest hardware.

------
ZeroGravitas
_" In the real world, if you want the best customer support, you're not likely
to find it in the Android ecosystem. If you're looking for specific
productivity apps like OmniFocus, you're not going to find it on Android. If
you're looking for the best integration of Microsoft services, you won't find
it on Android. So, how exactly is Android the "ultimate freedom"?"_

Who needs RMS when this guy is on the case.

------
flashfabrixx
Android isn't the problem, Google is.

The problem begins with the installation of every android device when you're
asked to register a Google account (same process with the Apple ID in iOS).
[Sure enough you can use the phone without a Google account or an iOS account
but your excluded from each ecosystem]. For me - as an iOS user - I got a much
worse feeling using the Google ecosystem than Apple ones because of one simple
fact:

Google can get much more value out of the data you're generating than Apple
does using it to later 'enhance' your experience for all other Google services
(Google Search, Gmail, etc.) showing ads. Knowing everything about my daily
behavior ('When is the user active? Was does he do? Where is he? ...') will
lead to a perfect profile to sell the right ads.

At Apple you at least got the change to opt-out even using the ecosystem of
the unique ad identifier. Correct me if this is possible using a Google
account on android as well.

~~~
Nerdfest
No, you're not. You can use any android device without any Google involvement
at all. Please stop spreading FUD. Look at the Kindle devices.

~~~
audunw
Kindle is a particularly bad example. Kindle forked Android, so are not under
control of Google. In principle, other manufacturers could also do this, but
in practice it's practically impossible because they'd loose Google Play.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-
on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-
controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

------
caberus
one thing i like about Apple, despite being closed, old devices get software
support, for example iPhone 4 released in 2010 and get the newest version of
iOS.

i bought my Android device 2.5 years ago it has only get 2.3.5 , initially it
was 2.3.3.

~~~
gbin
... and curiously Google is migrating stuff to Play services for this exact
reason : so you can benefit from its upgrades without upgrading the OS itself.

------
devx
Google needs to start treating Android and Google Edition Android like
Chromium and Chrome.

GE Android is Google's and they do whatever they want with it, and they
control and update it just like they do with Chrome, but Android needs to
become a little more open than it is (more like Chromium), and they need to
actually keep develop it, just like they do with Chromium.

I'd actually prefer a more Google-dominated Android _ecosystem_ than a Samsung
or some other Android OEM one, and I'd prefer to see more _standardization_ in
the Android ecosystem for both hardware and software.

My only concern is NSA or the US government starting to demand of Google to
spy all Android users through Play Services, or to be able to shut down their
phones at will during protests. I just hope Google will not be that stupid to
allow them without a fierce fight.

But I guess we'll deal with that when the day comes. Until then, yes, I want
Google to get more control of Android and fix fragmentation.

------
Zash
I sure look forward to Sailfish OS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone hitting the wider
market.

~~~
cuillevel3
I got a root shell on a Firefox OS phone, just started 'adb' and got
'root@android'.

We should call it by it's proper name "Android/FirefoxOS"

------
alayne
It's unlikely that Google will become more open now that they are working on
vertical integration with Motorola.

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linux_devil
waiting for firefox OS

------
torbit
I can change the design and layout my my android phone. Much better than the
other competitors.

