The Android SDK Is No Longer Free Software 535
New submitter tian2992 writes "The new terms for the Android SDK now include phrases such as 'you may not: (a) copy (except for backup purposes), modify, adapt, redistribute, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works of the SDK or any part of the SDK' among other non-Free-software-friendly terms, as noted by FSF Europe's Torsten Grote. Replicant, a free fork of Android, announced the release of Replicant SDK 4.0 based on the latest sources of the Android SDK without the new terms."
But Android is open (Score:5, Insightful)
Right?
come on! (Score:2, Insightful)
it is still more open than the iOS SDK, Blackberry and WP
Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of a sudden a new market opens for Ubuntu Mobile ;-)
Seriously, does that impact anyone? The thing is available for free anyway...
bad sign (Score:2, Insightful)
This looks like it only covers the SDK for now. We will see if this happens to android as a whole.
I was initially not sure if anyone would use Ubuntu on their phone. Now I am looking forward to the images for nexus devices in the next few weeks.
Re:But Android is open (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for "don't be evil" ;)
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It also might influence (in part because of the above) future developments in Andriod. Of course, I doubt it will make a large enough difference to matter to most people.
Re:The change is to prevent further fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullocks. Google could just use their trademark to enforce compliance, you know like OpenJDK does. They could simply only grant the right to use "Android" on distributions certified to be compliant.
Besides the fragmentation that people were complaining about were cause by Google themselves.
Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it is an evil thing.
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:4, Insightful)
All of a sudden a new market opens for Ubuntu Mobile ;-)
Seriously, does that impact anyone? The thing is available for free anyway...
Just because it is free today does not mean it will be tomorrow. The fact that Google changed the SDK from being free as in beer to non-free is indicative that they could just as easily change it from also being not free as in paying a fee. Think of it like Walmart moving into a new market -- they heavily undersell the competition until there is little competition left. Then the selection goes down and the prices go up. What is to stop Google from doing the same thing and if they did, where would people go?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If they did that Android would be forked. People who cared would move to the fork or Ubuntu for Phones or many other currently fringe options. Hell, it might inspire Samsung to make Tizen based superphones.
Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I'm not entirely the biggest Google fan but:
Google has long been willing to compromise on their "do no evil" mantra...
Evil?? Are you claiming this change to their terms of use is evil??
Wow. That word has literally lost all meaning, hasn't it...
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, does that impact anyone?
Certainly. Google is just getting around to reducing the fragmentation in the OS levels on the myriad of devices out there, and now there is going to be a proprietary (Google) SDK as well as a fully open (Replicant) SDK. This isn't exactly going to help thin the fragmentation herd.
Besides, Google has always prided itself in the fact that Android is open source. The new wording doesn't quite seem to hold the same theme as Andy Rubin's snarky twitter entry: "the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"
I like Android. I prefer it over the proprietary shut-up-take-my-money alternative but this is a stupid move by Google to try and keep Ubuntu/HTC/Samsung from gutting Android and creating a competing product.
Re:But Android is open (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that depends on your definition of "Evil".
Re:But Android is open (Score:4, Insightful)
Do I have to pay to use it to build apps? Free as in beer. Most people aren't looking to extract the ethanol to put in their windshield wipers.
Re:come on! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a little worse than summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
onto a mobile handset or any other hardware device except a personal computer
My N900 is for all purposes a personal computer.
Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I just wanted to point out that Apple actually did contribute a significant amount of code back. If BSD had been GPL instead they just would have used another operating system.
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
The church killed merely thousands? I've heard that claim before. It doesn't seem substantial to me. Do those low numbers include young women all through the first two millenia who were victimized by circumstances like the Salem witch hangings? "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live among you."
I strongly suspect that more than mere thousands were put to death in the Church's name. The native populations in North America didn't fare to well, at the church's hands. Smallpox blankets sent to reservations, for instance. Good "Christian" men taking advantage of the "savages" in thousands of different ways, like selling grain alcohol to the "ignorant savages".
But, go ahead, whitewash the numbers. The winners do get to write history, from what I'm told.
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, does that impact anyone?
Certainly. Google is just getting around to reducing the fragmentation in the OS levels on the myriad of devices out there, and now there is going to be a proprietary (Google) SDK as well as a fully open (Replicant) SDK. This isn't exactly going to help thin the fragmentation herd.
Besides, Google has always prided itself in the fact that Android is open source. The new wording doesn't quite seem to hold the same theme as Andy Rubin's snarky twitter entry: "the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"
I like Android. I prefer it over the proprietary shut-up-take-my-money alternative but this is a stupid move by Google to try and keep Ubuntu/HTC/Samsung from gutting Android and creating a competing product.
It's funny, when Apple released WebKit under that identical definition of "open", there was screaming from all corners until they opened up the whole process as well. Until you can download nightlies of Android and see the current bug list, it's not "open" source, it's "source available". Development is all in secret and you need to sign away all your rights to get anything before it's shipped to users, meaning that while the license is technically open you can't actually use that freedom effectively. Yes, it's more "open" than iOS, but that's not saying much.
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Its still free as in beer.
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:3, Insightful)
No one would give a shit. People buy phones because they like the software / hardware or they trust the brand. They don't care if it's "open" or "free".
Posts like this are really starting to annoy me.
Actually some people do care. They're called people who read slashdot. And the people who read slashdot don't really give a shit that 99% of the population does not give a shit. Do you know why? Because we are smarter, more educated and have longer attention spans. Our last 30 years of software experience has taught us that over time open licenses do matter, they do make a difference in the power we have over our own computing devices. Would Android even exist without the open license Torvalds gave Linux? No. You would be stuck choosing between a locked-down Apple phone or a locked-down "Windows" phone. It is because of slashdot-type people that the other 99% have much more choice. You are welcome, you ungrateful asshole.
Re:But Android is open (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for "don't be evil" ;)
Who ever REALLY believed that?
Come on. Google is an ad agency. They sell things. Their business model is selling your privacy. But first they have to sell themselves. Sheesh. And "Don't be evil" is a huge marketing ploy to sell themselves.
That doesn't make them evil, any more than any other huge multinational corporation is or isn't evil.
Just don't buy their self-marketing hook, line, and sinker.
Look at it this way: if they were called "Exxon", would you believe it? But because they're called "Google", you do?
Re:Ubuntu Mobile ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But Android is open (Score:4, Insightful)
Four legs good, two legs bad
Re:But Android is open (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this was quite a lottle bit evil. As were all the various anticompetitive practices they've been into recently. Many of those have even been directly trying to bring down open source competition, like deliberately polluting OpenStreetMap's data.
They're just so evil, I mean can you imagine how much better things would be if that stupid Android hadn't showed up?, we'd all be using phones made by Apple or running Windows, now those are companies you want to support, who on earth would want an Open Source OS to be relevant in a consumer market for once, that's preposterous.
And the OpenStreetMap data, it's so clear that this goes to the highest levels of the company.... oh wait.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/17/2714044/google-contractors-sacked-vandalism-openstreetmap [theverge.com]
Sometimes it pays off to have some fucking perspective, here's an obnoxious smiley face right back atcha *:)*
Re:But Android is open (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem I see in this case is that the founders are still completely in control of the company. Brin and Page control over 50% of the voting stock in Google thanks to their B shares being worth 10 times the vote of an A share. The Google founders don't have to listen to the stockholders at all and there is little the stockholders can do to change that.