The Story
While that video might be taking things a little far, it does reflect a sentiment which a lot of people have right now.
Once upon a time (read: earlier this week), there was a little ROM that could called CyanogenMod. Basically, it is Android as it should be. It’s faster, works better, and has a whole slew of features that Google just didn’t build in. For example, you can’t run applications that are stored on an SD card with the standard build of Android, despite the small size of the on-board ROM. CyanogenMod doesn’t have this problem.
But Cyanogen, the developer behind the mod, recently received a cease and desist notice from Google. Essentially, despite Android’s being open source, many of the applications in it such as Gmail and Google Maps are closed source and can only be distributed by an entity licensed to do so. In those advertisements for “<insert Android handset name here> with Google,” the with Google bit indicates that Google applications are on the phone.
And We Will March On
Cyanogen recently updated his site to to say that development on CyanogenMod would not cease, but it would be slowed down a bit. Future releases will be “bare bones,” meaning that they will only include the open source bits such as the core components of Android and the applications which allow you to make phone calls and SMS messages. If you want to actually use your Android phone as a smartphone, you’ll first need to back up the applications you legally obtained with a separate tool, one which Cyanogen is developing. So eventually CyanogenMod will start coming out regularly again, though it’ll take a while to get things up to speed.
Taking The ‘Open’ Out Of Open Source
In my last post on this, I talked about how, unfortunately, this is well within Google’s legal rights. But really, Google would have been wiser to ignore that.
Google’s new stance on who can do what with Android places a massive barrier in the way of real open source projects. One of the reasons why Android seemed so cool initially is because it’s a prominent project from one of the most well-known tech companies in the world, and it’s open source. Or so we thought. Technically, parts of Android are still open source, but the experience users have come to hold in such high regards is certainly not. Thus the evidence has shown that Android is not open source.
Don’t Be Stupid
I don’t want to talk about whether or not Google is being evil, but rather say just how Google is being really stupid.
The first part is that Google has just burned up a ton of social capital. Even though we in the tech world are coming to see Google as the super-corporation which is slowly but surely taking over our lives, there’s still good will towards the company. Now a lot of that is gone. Android was supposed to be a fully functional alternative to the eternally closed platform that is the iPhone. It’s almost as if Google had turned us around just long enough to stick a knife in our backs.
And it’s not like that social capital was spent on anything good. Basically, Google came down on someone who was doing something good for them. CyanogenMod had one of the most rabid fanbases of any Android project out there, and rightfully so. The product was damn good, to the point that many people went out and bought their own Android handsets just so they could get in on the awesome, modified operating system. Now modders and developers across the world can’t make anything like that anymore lest they want to face the same legal threats that Cyanogen saw.
There’s not much Google can do to win back the community. Sure, people will keep using Android, but not with that same wide-eyed excitement. The simplest course of action would be to create a separate status for entities like small modder groups so that they could distribute Google’s closed applications. That way, development could keep going strong and Google would still have legal authority to take action if a major handset maker violated a licensing agreement. Unfortunately, it is rare for a major corporation, even Google, to change its position.
[Thanks for the tip, Dmonzel]
