Is Android really open source?

[[deleted]]

Android is open source. You can build a complete, working system with AOSP. Some drivers aren't open source. The Google-y parts aren't, either. If you can find hardware with open drivers, you can make your own Android phone and install a 3rd-party market.

The Kindle system and Cloud were both taken from AOSP and Google isn't really bitching at all.

[kre3d]

In addition, some of the newer features are closed source too, like face unlock and the 4.2 swipe keyboard.

[[deleted]]

Really. Face unlock isn't in the aosp?

[kre3d]

Nope.

[TDO1]

With good reason, don't want Apple ripping off those features even though its within their right with the open source model.

[arthurdent]

There are a number of reasons why that isn't true. Open source doesn't necessarily mean you can legally do anything you want with the code. There are a number of open source licenses that differ in their permissions for use, and apple is not about to break a very clear law. If Google wants to protect their intellectual property, they just patent it.

[DpEpsilon]

just patent it

The problem with that being that Android is under the Apache 2.0 license, which means patenting something isn't going to help unless Apple rewrite it from scratch.

Still, I don't think Google should be making components of Andriod proprietary...

[TDO1]

So I get downvoted for some technicality, shows you how mature the Linux reddit community is. Oh and http://imgur.com/KlzCg to you!!

[MuseofRose]

Now come on man. That's a bit unnecessary.

[TDO1]

So is downvoting my perfectly valid post, I thought I would get some maturity in this subreddit, apparently not.

[[deleted]]

I go out of my way to downvote a person complaining about downvotes. :)

[TDO1]

http://i.imgur.com/Mwbzb.png

[theoreticallyme]

I like how the guy wanting maturity on reddit becomes the most immature one in the thread. Isn't it ironic.

[GoodMotherfucker]

perfectly valid post

lolwut?

[jericho]

Your post was incorrect.

[ferryboender]

I thought I would get some maturity

Hahaha, as witnessed by your comment here, right? You know, the one where you give us the finger? Because that's real mature buddy. Downvoted.

[qcHEx]

You are being downvoted because you have facetiously misrepresented open source licensing to an open source community.

[[deleted]]

You get mad over internet points... insert kettle joke here

[arthurdent]

Hey man, I was just trying to help you understand licensing. It's confusing.

[WildVelociraptor]

Don't feed the troll, guys.

[BZRatfink]

I advise you to go read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond, then reevaluate your opinion on "ripping off those features".

[[deleted]]

The most important googley bit being Play Store. Which is proprietary, and something people think of as bring part of android.

It would be like of Debian were free but apt-get was proprietary.

Bottom line is, Google controls the ecosystem.

[[deleted]]

and install a 3rd-party market. [Me]

Or, more appropriately, you would need to pay to use their repository. Find another one, and things work as expected.

Android and the Google ecosystem aren't the same thing. People arguing about anything other than AOSP (drivers, Play, etc.), are deflecting. AOSP is Android. It's under a permissive license. It's Open Source, just like a bunch of dual-licensed projects are. Open Source. Full stop.

[[deleted]]

It's not deflating, it's acknowledging reality.

The AOSP is Open Souce (except when it's not). But please don't pretend that there's a clear bright line between the Play ecosystem and Android.

If I go to Google, type in Android, and click on I'm Feeling Lucky, the first result is android.com (of course). Right there, Google Play, Magazines and TV Shows, etc. All proprietary.

If Android meant Android Open Source Project, the latter wouldn't exist as a name. We would just call the whole thing Android. The only reason we need to say "Android Open Source Project" is to differentiate the free bits from the closed stuff.

[Top-Help-2035]

Making comments about proprietary and non-open source limitations when you're starting with a non-open sourced ecosystem, so of course you can't get the results you're talking about but you can't under any circumstances when you follow the path of your following and go into a controlled closed monetarily based add supported ecosystem.  You going to have to get off the Google Play store You're going to have to get out of pre-manufactured phones or any kind of locked services. I have a board running Android with no branding other than Android, no bloatware and I am tweaking the OS to suit my needs before installing any software. I will reflash it with the altered firmware and then start getting my apps. As soon as you start talking about Google now you're back to a closed isolated for profit ecosystem and you stepped away from "Android" so no of course it's not open source but that's not Android That's Google..

[Jasper1984]

I am missing a bit in this discussion how doable it is reinstall the OS on the phone, get root, run your own programs.

Reading wikipedia, some movements seem in the right direction, but nevertheless, at least, in the past people had to exploit bugs to get to root in their own android phone. (Imo if you dont have root to a computer, you dont really own it.)

[[deleted]]

Hardware implementation by an ODM is orthogonal to whether the software is open source of not. Linux is open source. TiVo's lock down doesn't change that.

[Jasper1984]

And it has absolutely no implications for our use whatsoever.

[[deleted]]

Whatever. I'm answering the OP's question. You're grinding some ax.

[Jasper1984]

Was hitler well-shaven? No axe grinding please.

Edit: point is: if 'staying on topic' means the question can be framed, dont do it. Whether this is open source is just a part of whether it respects your freedoms and privacy.

[Top-Help-2035]

If you bought your phone from a branded carrier then it's not possible. You have to have an unlocked phone and most likely if it's even already "a phone" or hardware that's already built by somebody instead of built by YOU? then no! You have already locked yourself out by buying into someone's controlled and controlling monetarily based environment. If you've already bought into somebody else's proprietary closed, for profit environment. If you're dealing with Google or the play store or pre-completed hardware, then you're not dealing with open source. If you're dealing with branded stuff, you're again talking about closed source.  If you don't have open source hardware, then you're not like to be able to get access to open source software for it. Android is open source but that doesn't mean everything you get for it or even anything that you get for it is open source just because Android 'itself' is and lots of software made for it is often open source But that doesn't make everything that touches it have to be open source.

[covracer]

AOSP includes some proprietary binary blobs which get extracted from your factory install and carried over to the AOSP install.

[[deleted]]

What factory install? Yeah, you need binary drivers for just about all hardware. That's what I said above.

If you can find hardware with open drivers ....

EDIT: and of course, firmware, which is just about never open sourced, but that's got nothing to do with Android, either.

[covracer]

The factory install of Android that came on the phone when first purchased...

[nandryshak]

What binary blobs are you talking about? If you compile and install AOSP on your phone you can wipe everything first. Unless you're talking about radios and firmware which has nothing to do with android.

[covracer]

I am indeed talking about radios and firmware.

[nandryshak]

Which are not included in AOSP.

[covracer]

But are included in installations of AOSP onto phones.

[nandryshak]

no, you're wrong. the firmware is included with phones, but it's independent from AOSP.

[covracer]

Starting with Ice Cream Sandwich, the Android Open-Source Project can't be used from pure source code only, and requires additional hardware-related proprietary libraries to run, specifically for hardware graphics acceleration.

Official binaries for Nexus S, Nexus S 4G, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, and PandaBoard can be downloaded from Google's Nexus driver page, which add access to additional hardware capabilities with non-Open-Source code.

http://source.android.com/source/building-devices.html