google open phone platform

[Justyn Butler]

The base platform from OHA will be being kept open, under
Apache2, which means we will be able to make our open source
apps run on phones running that platform easily. This increases
the chance that our apps will be adopted by big companies on
their phones.

So this is good news for open source mobile software!

Also please remember that Apache 2 is "compatible" with GPLv3 (not
v2). See here for the Free Software Foundation statement about
Apache2:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/#apache2

And here for the FSF definition of "software compatibility".
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/compat.html

The compatibility is only one-way. So we can use bits of the Open
Handset Alliance code, which is Apache2, in our GPLv3 software. But
they can't use ours in there code.

Justyn

On 05/11/2007, Shawn Rutledge <shawn.t.rutledge at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/5/07, Dean Collins <Dean at cognation.net> wrote:
> > It was FIC's window 6-8 months ago but now when the industry stalwarts
> > are crashing at your door it's time to close up shop, sit on the beach
> > and think of the next coolest thing.
>
> I would not be advising FIC to give up yet.  A big consortium,
> especially one including the likes of Motorola, isn't likely to be
> moving that fast.  There's plenty of time for some cross-pollination.
> After whatever they have now has been fully revealed, I doubt we will
> see much change for a couple years.  Their new ideas can inspire some
> of our future ones, too.  The trouble is they work hard in secret for
> a couple years and then make a big splash, whereas in the free
> software world we make incremental small improvements more slowly (and
> take some steps backwards sometimes too).  The sneaking around is the
> annoying part - it's all about helping their bottom line and market
> perception rather than being "about" freedom.  If this plan were known
> before, it could have had some positive effects on this project.
>
> I'm guessing they just made some improvements to Java to improve the
> performance to the point that it could actually be practical.  No
> reason the new improved VM couldn't run on FIC phones.  And it helps
> that Sun's versions of Java are more fully open-source now.
>
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