Linked by tessmonsta on Tue 16th Mar 2010 08:55 UTC
Today's mobile space is owned by the likes of Nokia, RIM, Apple, and Google. While some of these corporations have embraced some open source components, a full FLOSS solution has yet to gain traction. Why? Blogger Bradley M. Kuhn posts thoughtful analysis of the current state of Open Source in the mobile space.
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Member since:2007-02-17
"
Everything else resides under the hood and is something only developers for that platform and techies/geeks would notice and/or care.
Everything else resides under the hood and is something only developers for that platform and techies/geeks would notice and/or care.
No disagreements. But did it occur to you that maybe he referred to things like Ubuntu? Whose only recent innovation has been to change the color palette? At least from judging from the press attention. "
If the "no innovation" criticism was for Ubuntu, then the OP would have had a point.
The OP actually claimed, however, that "open source software" lacked innovation, which is a VERY easily debunked assertion.
Edited 2010-03-16 14:23 UTC
Member since:2005-11-18
The OP actually claimed, however, that "open source software" lacked innovation, which is a VERY easily debunked assertion.
Correct. There is plenty of innovation, especially if you consider that a fair share of academic CS work is made available as open source software.
The departments where open source software is clearly lacking is: usability, polish, uniformity, and marketing. The first three can make a random daily task of, say a Windows or OS X user, a hell on the average Linux desktop.
Android is doing so well compared to other FLOSS*- initiatives because Google took a cathedral approach and unilaterally decided on one API, mostly one user interface, and one bytecode to rule them all. The result is that Android is consistent and easy to use. A typical bazaar approach would give us 5 widget toolkit, 10 selectable 'surface managers', and at least as many ways to get and install software. Of course, this is totally uninteresting to the phone user that just wants to make phone calls, surf the web, and do occasional Twittering.
Open source systems can be viable, but they need to be rolled out in a controlled fashion. Or you will end up with the mess that is the Linux desktop (No, I can really not explain to family/friends/whatever that their sound stopped working because someone decided to rewrite the sound server.).
I used to be a big proponent of Linux on the desktop, but these days I just advise people to buy OS X if they want a usable UNIX desktop. Yes, it's evil, unethical, etc. But most friends rather care about doing their work and managing their holiday photos than to be pulled into philosophical discussion about why information should be free, and live with a broken system. That's how the world works, and Google understands it.
Member since:2007-03-26
No disagreements. But did it occur to you that maybe he referred to things like Ubuntu? Whose only recent innovation has been to change the color palette? At least from judging from the press attention.
It did - hense why I gave examples of open source that were innovating.
Edited 2010-03-16 14:59 UTC
Features
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Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.More Features »
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Member since:
2009-05-20
Everything else resides under the hood and is something only developers for that platform and techies/geeks would notice and/or care.
No disagreements. But did it occur to you that maybe he referred to things like Ubuntu? Whose only recent innovation has been to change the color palette? At least from judging from the press attention.
Edited 2010-03-16 14:18 UTC