[numbers25]

This is Andy Rubin's response to Steve Jobs rants about Android not being Open.

Twitter / Andy Rubin: the definition of open: "m ...

I think Steve just got "owned"

[Maflynn]

Yeah, I saw that. Only geeks got this and appreciated the tweet. It definitely misses the mark in trying to respond to Steve's rant

[-Q-]

No, Steve did not get owned. I think on a certain level Rubin actually supported SJ's point.

[MacinTommy]

Does anyone here drink their coffee black?

[mattyb]

From Wikipedia :

Linux compatibility

* Android's kernel was derived from Linux but has been tweaked by Google outside the main Linux kernel tree.[133] Android does not have a native X Window System nor does it support the full set of standard GNU libraries and this makes it difficult to port existing GNU/Linux applications or libraries to Android.[134] However, support for the X Window System is possible.[135]
* Google no longer maintains the code they previously contributed to the Linux kernel as part of their Android effort, effectively branching kernel code in their own tree, separating their code from Linux.[136][137][138] This was due to a disagreement about new features Google felt were necessary[citation needed]. The code which is no longer maintained was deleted in January 2010 from the Linux codebase.[139] However, Google announced in April 2010 that they will employ staff to work with the Linux kernel community.[140]

Licensing

With the exception of brief update periods, Android has been available as open source since 21 October 2008. Google published the entire source code (including network and telephony stacks)[31] under an Apache License.[32]

With the Apache License, vendors can add proprietary extensions without submitting those back to the open source community.

[-Q-]

Originally Posted by MacinTommy 

Does anyone here drink their coffee black?

Yes. Although I've not had mine yet, so perhaps that's why I'm missing your point?

[OreoCookie]

Not really, because to most users, it's not open, because very often you depend on the device's manufacturer to release OS updates, for instance. In some instances, the carrier adds `useful' apps that cannot be removed so that they can add `their value.' Is that open?

The fact that you could in principle install the source code and compile it doesn't really help. Even if you know what these cryptic words and symbols mean, only a tiny percentage will actually do that.

And besides `open' doesn't mean `better' (or `worse' for that matter).

[MacinTommy]

Originally Posted by -Q- 

Yes. Although I've not had mine yet, so perhaps that's why I'm missing your point?

Just seeing if other people from Georgia drank coffee black.

[-Q-]

Originally Posted by MacinTommy 

Just seeing if other people from Georgia drank coffee black.

So I shouldn't expect you to drop a mug by the office, then? Pity.

[MacinTommy]

Originally Posted by -Q- 

So I shouldn't expect you to drop a mug by the office, then? Pity.

If you can wait 3 1/2 hours while I drive up from Statesboro and pay for my gas I'll make you a fresh cup of 8 o'clock coffee.

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by MacinTommy 

Does anyone here drink their coffee black?

This girl does.

Airplane the Move: "I take it black... like my men."

[ort888]

What's funny is that while I'm pretty sure this is an anti-iPhone comic, at the end of both strips neither phone user has actually accomplished anything.

I have a few Apple-hating Android-luvin super nerd friends and they really do act like this. It's not far off. They get mad because they want to spend days messing with the boot directories of their phones in order to modify keyboard input lag or something and I just want to live my life without ever messing with any of that stuff.

What they fail to realize is that both Android phones and iPhones accomplish 99% of their core tasks in a functionally identical manner. The interface may be different, a few of the small details may be different, but we're both checking restaurant reviews, looking up a restaurants menu online, we're both using GPS to get to where we want to go, we're both getting email at the restaurant, we're both checking RSS feeds, both listening to music in the car, etc...

I get so sick of the uber-nerd conception that the iPhone is this status symbol/child's toy smartphone for morons. It's a bunch of hogwash.

[MacinTommy]

Well put... When it really comes down to it, To each his own. It's all a matter of personal choice/opinion.

[olePigeon]

The comic could've had the iPhone guy jailbraiking his iPhone, telnetting to the device, changing his root password so he doesn't hacked, installing X11 on the iPhone, then running a port of the app the unemployed guy put on SourceForge.

[ort888]

The comic should have featured the iPhone guys going outside and doing things.

[Hawkeye_a]

I'm sure Rubin is far more intelligent than I am, but i think Steve was referring to the licensing model of Windows, not the "open source" openness of it.

WIndows is more "open" because Microsoft licenses it to OEMs and other companies to distribute, like Android.

The "open source" silver bullet had it's chance IMHO and considering the fact that even after 10+ years on the "market" no consumer desktop class open source OS has taken any significant share away from non-open sources ones is probably what Jobs was referring to. With with i agree.

IMHO, Open source has it's place, and appeals to the techies....beyond that, not so much. IMHO, it's potential to deliver compelling products to end users has been grossly over rated.

"Open Source" and "Consumer" don't go together(yet).

[ort888]

Here's the thing, you can show that string of characters to 100,000 people and you'd be lucky to find 1 or 2 who know what it means without any context.

If you put that in an Android TV ad it would make sales go down.

[Spheric Harlot]

@Hawkeye:

No.

Steve Jobs' point was actually that "open" vs "closed" is a completely useless argument, because the "openness" of Android is primarily resulting in manufacturers and telcos warping/modifying it, or even locking it down to make it even MORE closed than the iOS.

This results in virtually EVERY version of EVERY phone on EVERY carrier potentially being its own distro, with its own compatibility issues, hardware specs, and exclusive or excluded content.

THAT is the point Jobs made.

…and thanks to the openness of the system, manufacturers can even lock down their devices to reset to unrooted status every restart should you have tried to root it and actually make it "open".

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

I'm sure Rubin is far more intelligent than I am, but i think Steve was referring to the licensing model of Windows, not the "open source" openness of it.

WIndows is more "open" because Microsoft licenses it to OEMs and other companies to distribute, like Android.

The "open source" silver bullet had it's chance IMHO and considering the fact that even after 10+ years on the "market" no consumer desktop class open source OS has taken any significant share away from non-open sources ones is probably what Jobs was referring to. With with i agree.

IMHO, Open source has it's place, and appeals to the techies....beyond that, not so much. IMHO, it's potential to deliver compelling products to end users has been grossly over rated.

"Open Source" and "Consumer" don't go together(yet).

I disagree. Open source and consumer have been going together for years, this very page was rendered via a smorgasbord of open technologies.

What users get in software is often not one monolithic thing, but the sum of many parts. Those individual parts often work well when open sourced.

I agree that self-contained open source *applications* and consumers don't go well together yet, but those applications often cannot exist on their own without the open compilers, tools, protocols, frameworks, and other similar pieces that help build these apps, make them talk to the world, make them tick...

These pieces are traditionally where open source has a great reputation - less so with monolithic, self-contained apps.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

@Hawkeye:

No.

Steve Jobs' point was actually that "open" vs "closed" is a completely useless argument, because the "openness" of Android is primarily resulting in manufacturers and telcos warping/modifying it, or even locking it down to make it even MORE closed than the iOS.

This results in virtually EVERY version of EVERY phone on EVERY carrier potentially being its own distro, with its own compatibility issues, hardware specs, and exclusive or excluded content.

THAT is the point Jobs made.

…and thanks to the openness of the system, manufacturers can even lock down their devices to reset to unrooted status every restart should you have tried to root it and actually make it "open".

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Google steps in and comes up with new legalize/licensing clauses to prevent this sort of garbage from happening.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by -Q- 

No, Steve did not get owned. I think on a certain level Rubin actually supported SJ's point.

That's hilarious!!! But no, I don't think it directly answers the question. Sure I can download Android, so what? Why would I WANT TO if I'm just going to use it on a handheld device?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by finboy 

That's hilarious!!! But no, I don't think it directly answers the question. Sure I can download Android, so what? Why would I WANT TO if I'm just going to use it on a handheld device?

Are you a developer?

Non-developers don't benefit directly from open source. Isn't that sort of obvious?

[Railroader]

I like my iOS devices even more after all of this.

[hyteckit]

So does it mean MacOS X is open?

Or only parts of MacOS X is open just like Android?

[Spheric Harlot]

It means the only people who care are people who are completely irrelevant to the market.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

So does it mean MacOS X is open?

OSX as a platform is open in so far as you can develop and publish an application for it, closed in the sense is that we do not have access to the code that makes up OSX.

Once upon a time apple had released darwin as open source though I think they pulled that a while ago.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Are you a developer?

Non-developers don't benefit directly from open source. Isn't that sort of obvious?

Not for Android. Yet.

But the iPod development setup seems to work much better than it would if it were MORE open - Jeebus, we've got too many fricking iPod apps NOW, just imagine what it would be like if we were the Wild West again.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

It means the only people who care are people who are completely irrelevant to the market.

I don't think I would characterize it this way.

I'd say that non-developers don't really know why they should care because it doesn't benefit them in an obvious, direct sort of fashion. However, it can be argued that openness has an indirect benefit to all customers in certain ways.

Sometimes openness can have political/power balance sort of consequences too which can also have indirect effects, such as making a voting system open vs. proprietary. Some of this exists in technology and has indirect effects as well.

I'm sure the same sort of thing exists in the design of car and other things too if nothing more than the notion that there are features which are over the heads of their customers, but carry indirect benefits and consequences.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

OSX as a platform is open in so far as you can develop and publish an application for it, closed in the sense is that we do not have access to the code that makes up OSX.

Once upon a time apple had released darwin as open source though I think they pulled that a while ago.

We have access to some of the code that makes up OS X, a very significant and notable part being Webkit. There are other pieces too, such as those here: Mac OS Forge , Apache, Samba, OpenSSH, PHP, and other open source tools and libraries that are bundled with OS X. Again, with this we get back to the whole direct/indirect thing. A user may have no clue that "Web Sharing" enables Apache, or that Windows file sharing utilizes Samba, but these pieces are still all important to those that rely on them.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by finboy 

Not for Android. Yet.

But the iPod development setup seems to work much better than it would if it were MORE open - Jeebus, we've got too many fricking iPod apps NOW, just imagine what it would be like if we were the Wild West again.

I think that a lot of people are missing the point, no offense.

Stuff that is open means more than just "free apps". Applications are just a part of the picture, and often not the best representation of the upside of open source.

What is more important about open source, IMHO, is the politics and licensing stuff. Having open formats, protocols, and tools are very, very useful.
There is also the whole support thing.

For instance, wouldn't it be grand if the Microsoft Word file format was open so that we could change those files freely without having to worry about having the right version of Office? Wouldn't it be great if people could develop MAPI email clients so that Mac users that need to connect to Exchange servers can do so without missing anything the Windows Outlook users do? This is all political stuff...

It looks like Lion will introduce some sort of protocol for working with the App Store. This will need to be documented well enough so that all of those special case scenarios are accounted for. Opening something up allows people to address all of those special case scenarios so that we aren't dependent on a single developer or development team. I don't know if Apple will do so, but I'm sure they will make the protocol pretty transparent (and I believe the OS X guy mentioned today that this will indeed result in a new protocol?)

Protocols may be the most obvious benefit to open source. Could you imagine if you needed to pay somebody some sort of license to use TCP/IP, DNS, http, SMTP, GCC (or whatever compiler they are using now, I think something developed with Sun/Oracle?) or any number of other protocols? You'd have everybody trying to control this, and perhaps shutting out a lot of startup developers from making good apps. There is a reason why tools like XCode are free downloads - it is a benefit to Apple to make these sorts of tools strong, a pleasure to work with, easy to download, and freely available. I'm pretty sure Microsoft does the same thing with their dev tools.

Also, there is the issue of support. If you are developing apps on OS X and are paying to use XCode, you are going to want to make use of the support that you paid for, right? Maybe this is too costly or impractical for Apple? Granted, simply making the software free could justify not having to provide support, but my making it open source you enable developers to actually look at the code and trace problems.

So, there are many, many indirect benefits, consequences, and effects of going open vs. closed source. I'm not saying that they are all positive or that one is superior to the other, but it seems like nobody seems to ever talk about the other virtues of open source. It always seems to be about debating the quality of open source apps vs. proprietary apps.

[Shaddim]

Well, if you wanna tinker and fiddle with your phone, mess with it down to it's guts, Android is for you. If you want something less twitchy, more polished, but less flexible, you go iOS.

When it comes to computers, I tinker. A lot. I won't bat an eye at building a custom monster, installing Win 7 and OS X on, and then overclocking the sh*t out of it. But, with phones, I'm pretty conservative. I just want them to work and give me voice, email, web, and some music/video and make it smooth and easy. So, I have an iPhone. A friend of mine has an HTC EVO 4G and it really does a lot of neat stuff. Very impressive, but it's almost like it's become his second job. I just can't see investing that much time into my mobile phone.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Well, if you wanna tinker and fiddle with your phone, mess with it down to it's guts, Android is for you. If you want something less twitchy, more polished, but less flexible, you go iOS.

When it comes to computers, I tinker. A lot. I won't bat an eye at building a custom monster, installing Win 7 and OS X on, and then overclocking the sh*t out of it. But, with phones, I'm pretty conservative. I just want them to work and give me voice, email, web, and some music/video and make it smooth and easy. So, I have an iPhone. A friend of mine has an HTC EVO 4G and it really does a lot of neat stuff. Very impressive, but it's almost like it's become his second job. I just can't see investing that much time into my mobile phone.

I'm the same way. I don't even like talking on the phone, so I find it sort of funny that when I look for my next phone the actual ability to take and receive calls will probably be further down my list of priorities than most, but I don't want to fuss either...

Actually, I'll probably stick with a dumb phone for a while... I'm in front of my computer often enough that paying for a data plan seems silly. I'm looking forward to the day when data plans are just a standard part of cell phone service that doesn't cost extra. The ability to tether is sort of a draw though, I've been putting off looking for a provider that doesn't require a data plan to be enabled constantly so that I can setup a data plan plus tethering for when I take trips. This is veering off topic, but while I'm rambling does anybody know a provider that will allow this?

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

We have access to some of the code that makes up OS X, a very significant and notable part being Webkit.

OSX or applications for OSX? I was under the impression that Webkit was used only for safari and apple doesn't use Webkit for any operating system components.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

OSX or applications for OSX? I was under the impression that Webkit was used only for safari and apple doesn't use Webkit for any operating system components.

Webkit is used all throughout the OS whenever it is necessary to render HTML... It is used in Mail, and probably iTunes as well.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Webkit is used all throughout the OS whenever it is necessary to render HTML... It is used in Mail, and probably iTunes as well.

I was unaware of that, I thought Webkit was only in safari.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It always seems to be about debating the quality of open source apps vs. proprietary apps.

No, I get what you're saying about upside. I'm just all about standardization, and standards, for that matter. Making it too easy dilutes the whole "brand" in many respects, not just for Apple but for everyone. I see advantages to standardized or umbrella developer and EU LAs, too, where the ultimate enforcement agency isn't necessarily the small developer (should that come to pass) but the agent that monitors the entire platform at once, and who has the resources to go after bad guys.

But, you're right, most of us just think "cool, free apps!"

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by finboy 

But, you're right, most of us just think "cool, free apps!"

Which I suppose is understandable, when you think about it, as computing is so incredibly abstracted these days. We take for granted that there is a standard that fetches a web page or delivers an email... Still, developers can sometimes get away with not really understanding the abstraction of the tool they are using, somebody has to create these abstractions, and sometimes developers *do* need to be able to peel back the onion layers to find out what is going on.

I used to work at a job where we managed Cyrus email servers. When stuff wasn't going right we could do all sorts of tests, tracing, even look at the Cyrus source code if we wanted to to figure out what was going on. Ditto with Sendmail which we used as well.

Contrast this to the Exchange team that worked in another group. When something went wrong there it was basically just try all of the Microsofty admin tricks, and then if that came up short, call Microsoft. I always thought that it must be frustrating to have to call some phone center to get help to be able to do my job. It was frustrating enough having to call various numbers for hardware support, but needing software support would at times probably get old (although, perhaps it times it would nice to be able to pass the buck along).