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by vibrunazo 4909 days ago
We have been through this many times before here. This is meant to prevent forks that break compatibility. Like that chinese company that made their "own" phone OS. That was just a fork of Android, but not perfectly compatible with the Android SDK. It causes fragmentation in the sense that it forces developers to rewrite apps for it because there are differences in the SDK.

Amazon, Cyanogen, OUYA etc are all fine.
4 comments
lnanek2 4909 days ago
The whole point of free software, though, is that you can fork it and customize and use it as you like. If someone wants to fork Android to run on stoves, and they have to break compatibility to do that, if it was free software it would support and allow that. Instead you aren't even allowed to use the SDK or let developers use the SDK if you do so. You can't really claim Android is open or free anymore now, just that it uses a few free pieces, which are being taken away wherever possible.
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drzaiusapelord 4909 days ago
>The whole point of free software, though, is that you can fork it and customize and use it as you like.

No one is stopping you from writing your own SDK. Reverse engineer the API and off you go. Fork your own android. Make your own play store. Its not a violation of "freedom" because something is inconvenient.

Its like when people complain about Linus ignoring their patches. Sorry, but its still free software, its just done under terms you don't appreciate. Fork it if its such a huge problem for you.

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raganwald 4909 days ago
Your argument doesn't make sense to me. You're replying to a post that says the SDK is not free. Writing your own SDK if you don't like it is agreeing that the SDK is not free.

The next bit about Linus makes no sense at all. We are not talking about Google ignoring your fork of Android or your fork of the SDK, we're talking about being prohibited from forking the SDK or using it to fork Android.

The SDK is not free. It is not inconvenient to fork it, it is prohibited. Android may be free by your definition, but the SDK is not.

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DannyBee 4909 days ago
You don't need to reverse engineer anything, the source is still available, it's still almost all apache2.
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DannyBee 4909 days ago
Actually, this is false entirely.

The SDK sources are still Apache2, and you can build your own SDK with them if you wanted.

You just can't take the Google-built SDK binaries (except as allowed by a third party license, such as Apache 2), or non-open source pieces, and use them to do it.

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microtonal 4909 days ago
The SDK sources are still Apache2, and you can build your own SDK with them if you wanted.

Actually, the Apache 2 license does not disallow you to impose further restrictions. So, if you agree to a EULA, that is valid.

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DannyBee 4909 days ago
What you say is somewhat true but irrelevant. The EULA applies to the SDK binary download, not to the sources. If you go grab the sources, there is no EULA on them. They are straight apache2/etc. You can grab the sources, and build your own SDK, without ever involving this EULA. The binary SDK has a bunch of non-open source parts in it (they are clearly marked, AFAICT), so you'd have to deal with that, but otherwise ....

Even if you did agree to the EULA, again, the EULA applies to the binary download of the SDK.

If you want to try to claim that one of the clauses binds you otherwise, it's an interesting claim to make (though the clause is clearly written to talk about the SDK), but one i think is wrong.

FWIW: I'm an IP lawyer specializing in open source licensing

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mkopinsky 4909 days ago
So it sounds like what we need isn't someone to reverse engineer or even fork the SDK, we just need someone to publish the binaries for download with an EULA, right?
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DannyBee 4909 days ago
Well, you'd have to build your own binaries from source, and then ship those. It won't entirely match the SDK, the SDK has non-open source components.
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darkarmani 4909 days ago
Why can't you compile from source that is under Apache 2?
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codeflo 4909 days ago
I'm sure that's a good thing for the Android ecosystem. I'm not against that on priciple (that is to say, I'm not an open-source zealot). I'm just saying that a having single entity with the sole right to change the API is essentially the definition of a closed system.
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revscat 4909 days ago
I'm sure there are justifications for this clause, but that doesn't change the fact that you can no longer fork the code, and that API changes are under the control of a single entity.

This is almost the textbook definition of closed software.

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DannyBee 4909 days ago
You can fork the open source parts of the code, even the open source parts of the SDK code. The SDK code is not the same as the SDK download.
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Zigurd 4908 days ago
> This is meant to prevent forks that break compatibility. Like that chinese company that made their "own" phone OS. That was just a fork of Android, but not perfectly compatible with the Android SDK.

I don't see a distinction between what Aliyun is doing and what Amazon, OPhone, and Cyanogen are doing. Aliyun was, after all, accused of making Android apps available for Aliyun without the developers' OK. So Aliyun is as compatible as Kindle Fire.

There might be some reason Aliyun is different, but, so far, nobody has actually shown such a difference.

What's bad about this is that Google is putting a fence around code they have made available under the Apache license.

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