No, you got me wrong in some points. I was talking about Picasa, Google Earth and the other Google software.<br>The android SDK is widely open source, so there's nothing wrong about it. They don't have a chance to push a proprietary SDK out, because nobody would ever use it as there is no product yet.<br>
But the SDK is only an SDK - it does not and will not contain new drivers that the vendors use for their hardware. It will not be used to deploy a kind of distribution or images like Openmoko (OpenEmbedded) does. It is a SDK to deploy your applications on the platform, be it closed (and you can be sure there: it will be in a wide area) or not, in the terms google or the vendor likes.<br>
With the effort I meant, that android uses GPL only where it is absolutely necessary (linux kernel and so) and use own commercial licenses (at least for now, but the promised to release them under an OSS license, believe them or not) and licenses with far less restrictions (MPL, BSD and so on) that allows the vendors or deployers to keep their stuff based on it closed.<br>
<br>On the other hand google is really supporting FOSS-software. Best example is of course GSoC what is a really good thing (even if it's clear that it also has a purpose for google, but that doesn't matter in the end) and may not be left out of this discussion.<br>
<br>All I want to say: Android is _not_ an alternative to Openmoko - at least not for people that care about absolute openness and freedom.<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 7:53 PM, Robert Taylor <<a href="mailto:robtaylor@tinsputnik.com">robtaylor@tinsputnik.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Wow, I didn't know that.<br>
<br>
Google does contribute to various open source projects, but they sure as<br>
hell don't seem to drink the punch.<br>
<br>
Thanks for the info, that completely defines my view of Android.<br>
<br>
And they use WINE to run android dev stuff on linux? My god - that<br>
beggars the imagination.<br>
<br>
- Rob<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
Rahul Joshi wrote:<br>
> +1<br>
> Just the kind of thing I want to hear.<br>
><br>
> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Robert Schuster <<a href="mailto:theBohemian@gmx.net">theBohemian@gmx.net</a><br>
</div><div class="Ih2E3d">> <mailto:<a href="mailto:theBohemian@gmx.net">theBohemian@gmx.net</a>>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> Hi.<br>
><br>
> thomasg schrieb:<br>
> > And for those who think android will bring hardware support for new<br>
> > devices to the FOSS-world: forget about it.<br>
> > Google doesn't care about open source if it's not used to save<br>
> costs.<br>
> > They didn't even release their own from-scratch-software as<br>
> opensource -<br>
> > hell, they use _wine_ to run it under linux.<br>
> > Android isn't about freedom. It's about saving license fees, nothing<br>
> > else (and they did some effort to make it as easy as possible<br>
> for closed<br>
> > source and vendors).<br>
> Thats it.<br>
><br>
> Regards<br>
> Robert<br>
><br>
><br>
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