The company revealed Thursday that it will delay publication of the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) source code for the foreseeable future – possibly for months. It’s not clear when (or if) the source code will be made available. The decision puts Android on a path towards a “draconian future” of its own, in which it is controlled by a single vendor – Google. The Ars link linked above is a pretty inflammatory editorial, so see also: Businessweek, GigaOM, The Register.
It would be great if Meego could take advantage of this but I doubt that will.
Edited 2011-03-25 15:11 UTC
I think it surely will. Those who prefer openness will be more eager to support Meego instead of Android.
Not without a good number of Meego handsets available, it won’t…
You need just one handset to be able to support MeeGo at expense of Android. Because, well, you will probably buy just one handset ever so often.
Yeah, but if its going to have the same limited carrier support that the n900 had .. we can’t really choose it. The n900 only worked for 3g on T-mobile with no subsidy available in the US. If Nokia can’t do better than that for a meego phone, than it wont be any more successful than the n900 was.
I can’t justify the additional cost for a phone thats just ever so slightly more libre-free than android.
Having no subsidy is good – that’s the only way not to get all that garbage and locks. T-Mobile used the right policy for plans – cheaper plans for non subsidized devices without a contract, and more expensive ones for subsidized and contracted ones. So getting a non subsidized saves money in the long run and doesn’t drag any restrictive contracts with it.
I wonder what will happen now, when AT&T plans to swallow T-Mobile which is the only sensible carrier in US. Other carriers are too greedy, and want to feed their customers devices more often, so they don’t provide a cheaper option for non subsidized ones.
Edited 2011-03-25 20:20 UTC
Well, here’s the thing it was much cheaper for me to do a subsidised plan on att than a non subsidised plan on t-mobile.
Android phones are now on every carrier. Having only one phone that only works on one carrier, just puts nokia in a really bad spot. Allowing users to choose the service they use for your phones is a much better business strategy.
Side note: the N900 isn’t offered any more on nokia’s USA website. Its only offers symbian based phones now.
I’m not sure why you think it’s not offered. N900 is listed here:
http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products/phones/nokia-n900#/main/landi…
May be it’s not available still – I didn’t actually try to buy it from there.
T-Mobile offers pretty good plans:
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/flexpayplans.aspx?direct=yes&typ…
$59.99 for 500 min, and unlimited Internet.
The problem is, they are hiding the fact that they have these. It might mean they are trying to get rid of them before they sell themselves to AT&T. AT&T doesn’t offer such good plans, but they might need to keep current users. So T-Mobile doesn’t want to attract new users to them possibly.
Edited 2011-03-25 22:11 UTC
Note the missing ” buy now ” button? Its not listed in the store. You can’t buy it from the website.
Compare that to the n8’s listing
http://www.nokiausa.com/find-products/phones/nokia-n8-alt
When you search for it in the store…
http://store.nokia.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/GOSPSearchCmd?stor…
I actually do pay less than that ( albeit for less data) with att, because of a discount through work. In any case, if the phone were compatible with another carrier this wouldn’t be a discussion. In any case the n900 had these conditions and Android wasn’t nearly the force it is today. Why would a meego phone fair any better?
I agree that being compatible with more carriers is good. The problems are carriers themselves, who aren’t eager to offer non contract plans.
Oh yeah, absolutely the carriers all suck. No doubt. Yet, samsung did something right by managing to get all of them to release the same basic galaxy S phone. If nokia were really serious about meego succeeding ( I really doubt the new management’s commitment to the platform), they’d do the same thing.
In Australia (and most other countries) phones can be bought unlocked and used on any carrier.
Any Android compatible handset should be able to support Meego. Just as the modding community sprang up around Android, I don’t doubt they could get Meego running on an Android handset (heck, they have Android running on an iPhone).
It would be an extra step to unlock the Android handset and flash a new Meego-based ROM, but I suspect that the people that value that openness would have no problems doing so.
The mass market won’t care either way, as long as things stay shiny and blingy.
Meh, who cares. All these mobile systems are developed in-house. They aren’t community projects.
Edited 2011-03-25 23:10 UTC
Well, there are parts that get code submitted from the community (like Qt). If that would no longer be… then, when you have a free/libre system, the community can start a derivate project whenever it’s needed :-), as the license allows you to see the source code of the program, study it, modify it, improve it, audit it, compile it, distribute it, etc.
Edited 2011-03-26 04:41 UTC
So much for “open” Android. Meh, Meego is much more open.
Wow, that Ars Technica article seems kind of biased and overdramatic. This is not the beginning of the end, it’s just a one time delay in a source code release. As long as Google adheres to all the relevant open source licenses, I don’t see the big deal. The source code of Android 3 will come, only after support for phones is finished.
As far as I remember google reimplemented number of core system components under a license that allows them much more than GPL would.
Kernel is one thing but that remained actually the sole component that may remain under community supersivion in the longer term.
Edited 2011-03-25 16:33 UTC
Actually, it is pretty bad.
This is the money quote:
This basically boils down to being unhappy with the vendor community around Android. They lack the controls and simply don’t trust the vendors to “read the readme” and not use 3.0 where it’s supposed to be used. To not test their hardware, and to ship crappy product with Androids name on it.
This a bigger rift than simply not releasing source code. It goes deeper than that to basic control over the platform.
As they say, “Freedom is letting others do things you don’t like”, but in this case it hurts the brand and becomes a tragedy of the commons as some shoddy vendors spoil the name for others that “use the same platform”.
As someone else mentioned, there needs to be an “Android Inside” or some other certification process in place to maintain the brand consistency, or less than stellar performers can make it a mess for the entire platform. But that will slow down adoption and increase costs.
At this point, the phone audience is still pretty unsophisticated. Android needs to build brand recognition above and beyond the handsets (something the cell vendors probably aren’t really keen on anyway). Depending on the marketing, a consumer that has a bad experience with an Android phone could well “blame Android” rather than the handset manufacturer.
Couldn’t they withhold use of the Android trademark? Wouldn’t that solve exactly this problem?
I agree. Google is merely delaying the release until it has polished the code sufficiently enough to let it work on myriad devices. And the big deal is?… People are impatient and quick to jump to (incorrect) conclusions. Just wait. It’ll come!
It is a big deal if you thought that Android is “open” as it being advertised. And as you can see it’s open as long as google want it to be.
I do not understand how i.e. Oracle publishing Solaris code after every major update is evil,anti-open source and this makes Solaris code-closed, but Big G doing the same thing with Android makes it open source software.
But I think it’s what happens when big corpos starts messing with open source community and projects trying to make them profitable for themselves using PR and advertising them as being open source cause it’s “feel right”, “feel open”.
While Android is doing very well, a lot of vendors have released “Android ePad/Google iPad” devices that have cut-down CPUs, bad screens, and no access to Android Market. Ars reviewed one:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ar…
The issue for Google here is that the Android name has taken a large hit due to crap devices being released in stores like Walgreens, KMart, or other avenues like eBay and Craigslist. These are usually devices with ~600Mhz devices that can barely run Froyo, let alone Honeycomb.
Putting the latest and greatest OS on hardware that truly does not reflect its capabilities will cause a negative perception of the OS itself. It would be like running the latest Ubuntu on a Pentium II.
In this case, I understand that they want to make Android look good by having devices from vendors that have great hardware (Motorola, Samsung, etc.) to market it.
That boils down to the Android trademark and logo usage licensing.
If these devices couldn’t be advertised and sold as providing Android ™ experience then the brand damage could be kept in check.
E.g. google could publish minimal HW requirements for devices that entail Andoid logo.
Speaking of Motorola, they are creating their own mobile OS to compete with Android. What stops them from using honeycomb as a starting point?
honecomb aside, here’s the real problem w/ Android openness (that not every Linux “newcomer” realizes):
This plays both ways. The community haven’t taken care of integrating google’s changes in mainline either.
If the danger of marginalising mainstream linux is real somebody should step in and do that with google consent or not. Especially if google changes carry some added value that could benefit other mobile linux incarnations.
Correct me if I’m wrong but actually the worst case scenario is that android’s linux fork carries changes that relate to Google owned patents. If these became part of the kernel/user space api, google would efectively bypass built in GPL2 protections and steal linux. Google could easily use that to fight off RIM for example.
AFAIK GPL3 is designed to prevent such a scenario.
Edited 2011-03-25 16:35 UTC
the kernel patches are gpl v2 and needs to be released upon distribution. The jvm stuff is apache license and changes does not need to be released when distributed. No?
Go GPL go!
Edited 2011-03-25 18:29 UTC
Ah, you see this is where I’d like to quote Lennart Poettering:
“So, get yourself a copy of The Linux Programming Interface, ignore everything it says about POSIX compatibility and hack away your amazing Linux software.”
http://www.osnews.com/story/24516/Choosing_Between_Portability_and_…
What goes around comes around.
So waiting to release the code until it is fully baked for all kinds of devices rather than the few tablets for which it has been “optimized” is supposed to be some major sin?
I don´t think so. The combination of google phones and google apps has made it possible for millions of business to get off the Windows/Exhange/Office trademill. That alone removes one of the biggest barriers to Linux migrations as Exchange was often cited as a show-stopper.
Now businesses are saving millions of dollars and enjoying really cool phones that deliver great productivity without the pain of having to maintain a huge server infrastructure. And who careso of gmail isn´t open source? You can download and backup your email just like you can download and backup your calendars. Without lock-in Google has to and competes on merit and quality of service.
Makes you wonder if this has anything to do with the existing lawsuits Microsoft are throwing around about Android devices!
You mean you honestly couldn’t see this coming somewhere along the line? Again, so naive…
Aaaa…. I see you trolling on Google again? Google has withheld Android releases multiple times. This is nothing unexpected.
…the post-PC era, should it happen as currently scheduled, would be a disaster of incredible range.
Seriously. They are evil.
Seems like a conclusion that could wait till after we have a better idea of why they decided to do this?
Maybe they are tired of watching others cripple their product? Maybe it is related to the Sun/Oracle lawsuit or the Microsoft lawsuit? There could be a bunch of things we have thus fair failed to speculate on.