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Comment by turing | Hacker News Reader

downvotes don't change the truth of the observation. Android is no longer meaningfully open, other than a years old core of basic functions.

The problem is that your observation isn't true. Here are some of the under-the-hood changes in just the most recent releases of Android:

  -OpenGL ES 3.0
  -Bluetooth low energy/Bluetooth AVRCP
  -restricted profiles
  -VP8 encoder
  -new DRM framework
  -SELinux
  -various other optimizations and APIs

Yes Google is moving some functionality to Play services. Yes it is worth discussing how this may impact the future of Android as an open platform. No, that does not mean that Android is no longer "meaningfully open", especially not in the matter-of-fact way you are presenting it.

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I agree. I worked for a company that was building their own TV platform on top of Android. From their (and my) point of view, Android was meaningfully open.

You don't need Google's closed services to have a working and meaningful platform. You also still benefit from the large developer mindshare and identical APIs compared to Google's Android.

You don't have the added benefit of the content discovery & delivery platform Google provides, nor of any of the closed Google API's. Depending on your use case, that may make it "meaninglessly open", but I would definitely argue that this isn't a universal statement.

I also have multiple Android devices that don't have access to Google Play (a set-top box and a system-on-a-stick) and I really don't mind that they don't have access to Play.

Like most things open source is a continuum of subtle differences rather than a category.

In my opinion the following software is much more open than Android:

Linux, Apache, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GCC, clang, and generally most open source products developed by the community.

In my opinion the following software is less open than Android: C#, OSX, iOS, and generally most software developed by major corporations.

The real keys are that your Android device is locked down, fixing it voids your warranty, and development does not take place in the open, rather every few months a major patch is released and there is no way for the community to contribute to the project in any meaningful way.

> The real keys are that your Android device is locked down, fixing it voids your warranty

As it should. There's nothing in open source that requires a warranty. Here's a snippet from the MIT license, generally considered open:

"THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT."

And from the GPL, also open:

"THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW."

When manufacturers go out of their way to lock down a device, I agree that's a jerk move. But I also don't think it's reasonable to expect them to agree to replace your device if it bricks after you've hacked the firmware. Obviously, the device may be bricked for reasons entirely unrelated to whatever you've hacked, but I don't begrudge manufacturers for drawing a line in the sand and not wanting to expend resources beyond it.

Perhaps you shouldn't have to modify a firmware to install your own OS on an 'open' platform.

IBM somehow figured out how to do it on an IBM 5150 back in the early 80s and my Raspberry Pi supports it on ARM systems.

I'm happy to use my iPhone which doesn't allow firmware mods under warranty, however, I've never heard Apple talk about the iPhone being an open platform. Google's stance on the openness of Android strikes me as disingenuous.

Apple talking point # 3124: we never claimed our platform was open so we can be more hardline than RMS when critiquing Android.

Yeah, that one never gets boring.

Apple requested Google call it GNU/Android? Must have missed that one.

What are you talking about? The android userland is not provided by GNU (and is not even GPL to begin with).

That's #3125. #3124 is "We are sexy and we know it."

What part of Android requires keys to install?

Oh, you mean the _hardware_ is locked down? Guess what, I can't install Ubuntu on an Iphone either. I guess that makes Ubuntu non-open then?

You'll find very similar disclaimers in nearly all licensed, closed-source software as well.

anyone can make a license that is both open source and providing warranty btw.

open source licenses generally don't provide warranty because they don't have to and devs, providing free stuff, certainly do not want to bother with warranties. Companies could.

Sure, they could. But it would be insane. (at least at the current prices)

Just compare how much an insurance costs that covers damages caused by yourself (being negligent) as opposed to those covering only damages caused by hardware/software defects.

> The real keys are that your Android device is locked down, fixing it voids your warranty

That's not an issue about Android though, it's an issue with manufacturers.You are free to release an Android device that is not locked down.

thats effectively a distinction without a difference to consumers, to run android you still need an android device.

There is tons of open hardware you run Android on. It's just not phones. https://www.google.com/search?q=android+arm+computer

Just curious, what are the pros and cons to Android manufacturer to lock down a device? Are these Android manufacturer each trying to create its own platform based on an open OS?

Mostly carriers demand it. There is no reason to lock the bootloader otherwise.

Of course a more cynical mind can see a reason in planned obsolescence - if you stop updating a device after an year you will buy your next sooner.

You mean manufactures like Google themselves?

It seems to be an issue with 'Android' as no one, including Google, makes an Android phone on which you can install a modified version of Android without voiding the warranty.

Geeksphone (the same folk that do a Mozilla phone) do.

Looking at www.geeksphone.com I don't see any phones available for purchase.

Although "meaningful" is very subjective, one can use Google's rhetoric under which Android was initiated as a touchstone: http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/press_110507.html

Of course when you do that, the current level of openness is not just "no longer meaningful", it's bordering on parody.

Could you explain? Looking at the document you cited, I'm not sure what you mean. For example, the document says that Android would give "mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products" and that "Handset manufacturers and wireless operators will be free to customize Android in order to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost." Both of those things seem to hold true, even with the changes being made to Google Play Services. Am I missing something?

Well, the new DRM framework definitely isn't open, and essentially all the things you list are stuff that's too low-level to be implemented as part of Google Play Services. Basically, if they could put it in the closed source Google Play Services, they have - including relatively core functionality like improvements to the location APIs and push notifications.

Android is partly open source. It's neither open nor closed in the same way as gray isn't black or white.

Google has all the right to change the openness of it's software, but generally should be truthfull in their marketing. I haven't lately found them promoting Android for being open source, so all we need to be aware of is that Android, iOS, WP, BB are not open and are of course made to create profit for their companies from their users.

The key problem here is that it's open source. The meaning of that term has become very vague, not that OSI's definition is unclear but rather since many people apply the term to so many things. Open source is usually applied for marketing and convenience now days rather than actually showing that this software provides the essential freedoms for the user.

"Open source" has always been about marketing and convenience. If you're looking for "freedom", you should join the "free software" movement instead, which is a distinct one.

Back in the days, people argued that free software will not survive if they keep being idealistic. Instead, people argued that free software should market more, and compromise more with proprietary software. Well, here is the result.

Please put "Free Software (c)(tm)(r) FSF" or some appropriate similar notice. Otherwise people not familiar with the overloaded meaning of "Free" used by FSF would get a wrong impression that they are actually free to do whatever they want with it.

You are free to do whatever you want with the software. The only real restriction under the GPL is that you are not allowed to distribute modified binaries of GPL software without releasing the corresponding source code.

It's just as restrictive as any commercial license, except that instead of being prohibited from releasing the source, you are required to do so.

That is not 'free to do whatever you want'.

All of the commercial licenses I've dealt with have prohibited distributing the software, hypothetical modifications thereof, and any and all hypothetical source code.

The GPL speaks for itself. You are free to modify GPL-licensed software and distribute your modified version with the caveat that you make the source code available. Thus you are in fact free to do whatever you want to the software. The restriction is on the distribution of the software, not the modification you make.

Why does that one restriction cause so much distress?

The GPL arguably has close to the minimal level of restrictions - it allows you to 'do whatever you want', except where that 'whatever you want' prevents someone else from doing whatever they want.

I know the story behind it. I agree with you though, here's the result of open source and it ain't pretty.

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