If you thought open-source meant one big happy community, joining hands no matter the platform, think again. Google’s Rich Miner has called the Symbian Foundation “misleading” in their openness, after Symbian Foundation director Lee Williams described Android’s “open source” credentials as simply marketing.
According to Williams, who heads the newly-formed Symbian Foundation tasked with creating one unified platform out of the various proprietary Symbian OSes, Android is at its heart a Google project and not one led by the community.
“Android is not open. It’s a marketing label. It’s controlled by Google. It’s a pretty label but I don’t think the use of Linux is synonymous with open and they may have made that mistake of assuming it is” Lee Williams, director, Symbian Foundation
Meanwhile Miner, who co-founded Android and is currently Google’s VP of mobile, has dismissed claims, highlighting the fact that Google have not kept back any technology within the mobile platform from their competitors. As for the Symbian Foundation’s own open-source position, Miner points to the annual membership fee – $1,500 – required to join the Foundation, and as well as the fact that membership isn’t open to individuals:
“If you’re talking about a platform and the source code isn’t completely available for that platform, I would say it’s misleading to call that platform open” Rich Miner, VP of mobile, Google
Symbian Foundation is to be the OS for a number of handsets announced at Mobile World Congress last week, including the Sony Ericsson Idou.
FYI, having a commercial entity backing up an OSS project is very typical. In fact, this has proved to be a great model for many, putting a solid product in users hands for free, and bread-n-butter on OSS developer's table. I've been an active member of a quite visible OSS project team for 4 years now myself, so believe have some credibility on the matter
Of course, there are numerous successful OSS projects which are self-organized, without any company supporting them. And guess what - nothing wrong with that, just a slightly different model.
So, at the end of the day, folks, keep your BS filters on
,Michael Martin
Google And Blog
I just love how these execs toss their companies into the open source arena for 10 seconds and then start trying to talk as if they have been with the cause all along.
Williams must not have read all of the memo: Nokia is the major entity in the Symbian Foundation and Google the major one in the Open Handset Alliance. So is there really a difference? Oh wait, there are about 1500 differences that greet members every year
A: Because So many Component and Drivers are HTC Propritory Codes even some Media Codecs are Propritory so you have to add that Precompiled codes into you Compiled Android Code then only you can run it on OS. Opensource Android does not means that it Ready to Compile and use. Just like Linux is Open Source but if you Motherboard Vendor dont have Driver and you say why Linux is not Working.
Q: About Symbian
A: I think William should get him self Admited to any Tech University and Learn the A B C again and then only sud open his Stupid Mouth. Symbian is Dead, low on Security and aging old man Compared to Android which is very Stable, Finest in security and Anti Piracy Technology. and Brand new Dalvik Virtual Machine and a Good SDK which can develop almost major things from Scratch. Just See What Nokia 5800 Express is doind with Symbian and What HTC G1 can do with Android. Now stop Claiming tall claim and Concentrate how can you make Syjmbian Back on Track only Sony Ericsson and Samsung Joining Symbian Foundation is not required they are also member at OHA (Open Handset Alliance) which make Android.
Does being truly open source include the ability to have root available to the end user? Why not? If it's open source surely we could have the choice of getting root easily? A simple tick box in settings?
Does being truly open source include the ability to have root available to the end user? Why not? If it's open source surely we could have the choice of getting root easily? A simple tick box in settings?
Of course, any DRM in an open source platform is inherently flawed because everyone has access to the source.
I feel like the general public has a huge misconception about the term 'open source'. An example that immediately comes to mind is from back before the G1s release there was a huge discussion here about whether or not android will be secure because it was 'open' which of course is ridiculous.
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BTW if any one knows plase inform me! Do you need a Dev phone to be able to install and run apps from the sdcard? Or can you do it on the JF rc33 v1.41?
As to the open-source nature of the phone, so ok it's not 100% open, there's money involved when it comes to voip and stuff like that, and it's hard to see through the closed doors to see what Google is up to... but having said that you've got access to a lot of code, great APIs and as a developer you can interact with that phone in ways that weren't possible on other platforms. I'm a developer myself and looking at Android, there's simply no way I would have gone for another platform. The whole nature of OpenSource is to be able to modify things and redistribute them, to develop and reuse components... here we have great documentation, great momentum, access to a lot of APIs and there's definitely room for developers to have a lot of fun.
Clem
Dreamcast was a great system!
BTW if any one knows plase inform me! Do you need a Dev phone to be able to install and run apps from the sdcard? Or can you do it on the JF rc33 v1.41?
,Michael Martin
Google And Blog
,Michael Martin
Google And Blog