Re: Mobile OS

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Hi!

On 15:47 Sun 11 Oct     , Niamathullah sharief wrote:
> oh micheal. You are saying that Android is not an open source?I am
> confussed. Forgive me if i am wrong..

Parts of Android are. Parts of it are not. The hardware is as locked down as
traditional phones. It provides copy protection for applications. You cannot
connect it to your PC to share the internet connection. You cannot flash it to
install your own firmware unless you buy either a crack it like a game console
or buy a "development edition", which costs a lot more. Even if you do that,
you are not really free to do whatever you like - see
http://androidandme.com/2009/09/hacks/cyanogenmod-in-trouble/

Note that Android does not use X11 or even glibc. It is all reimplemented in
java. Normal applications do not run on android and android apps not run
anywhere else. That is unless people do lot of pointless work to reimplement
existing open source applications using the "proprietary" Android environment.

The only reason why Android exists is because Google thinks it can bind people
even more to their services. They put in lots of money and "open-source" is
mostly half-true marketing. I think most people who take the "open-source"
approach seriously are involved in the openmoko project. It is a basically a
"normal" Linux, which can run "normal" Linux applications if they have an
appropriate GUI. The shell is not something which you have to crack open, it
is an important part of the system. However, it is still a bit experimental
and needs more volunteers.

	-Michi
-- 
programing a layer 3+4 network protocol for mesh networks
see http://michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com


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