Thanks for your reply, Jon. *shakes hands* Nice to meet you. =) Responses below...
On Mar 2, 2:58 pm, Jon Colverson <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mar 2, 10:12 am,Kurt<[email protected]> wrote: > > > I noticed that several excellent projects that are completely open > > source and could truly only further development on android have been > > relegated to the backchannels of apk distribution-- that is, off- > > site. > > Can you give some examples? A couple of the ones that most readily come to mind, the first of which spurred me to post this email: Android vnc viewer: http://code.google.com/p/android-vnc-viewer/wiki/faq "Also, none of us has yet ponied up the $25 to be an Android Developer :)" Amarok remote control: http://www.jsharkey.org/blog/2008/08/20/amarok-14-remote-in-android-using-dcoppython/ There are others. I can't help but think that, like me, they were turned off by the $25 dollar cover charge at the door-- the door behind which you can't see without paying. My personal opinion is that it feels to me that it sends the wrong message: "On a platform that's intended to be open to the world, you've gotta pay to contribute something you're planning to give away for free. We'll take from the community, but it's _us_ that's doing _them_ a favor, and if you're not here as a capitalist, guess you're out $25 bucks." Don't get me wrong, it's cheaper than Symbian's silly signing thing, but Android != Symbian, thank god, else I wouldn't have even bought my phone in the first place. One of the best selling points of phones running the android platform is the abundance of free applications (relative to the iPhone, their main competitor). Adding a barrier to entry into the market (and quite literally, the android market :P) for free application developers seems, at least to me, to be counterproductive to android's continued penetration into the mobile market. > > * boosts creative/innovative development (and allows teens without > > credit cards or college kids with maxed out credit cards--surprisingly > > large portions of extraordinarily good coders--to contribute to the > > market), > > I have difficulty imagining a person who can afford a $400 phone, but > not the $25 registration fee. > I'm one, for example. Then again, I'm kind of kooky like that, so I might just be an outlier. :P Several reasons: *Not everyone who develops for android buys or owns the phone. *The subsidized phone, the G1, is, at its lowest $179-- not $400. *Parents buying the phone for teenagers without credit cards/$25 bucks to spare (as already mentioned). They get it for $0. *Christmas gifts/bonuses (wink to google employees). They get it for $0. *Smart people, including programmers, are less susceptible to foot-in- door sales, which is part of the psychology behind "... for just $25 bucks more ...." *$25 dollars is an investment, despite a free, open source app developer clearly not intending to turn a profit on the software. *Kurt's Unspoken Rule of The Internet: if you want something to gain in popularity, make it free to people who aren't directly making money off of it, then revenue usually finds a way to follow popularity. Google usually follows that logic, and I'm actually more surprised that they chose not to when it came to the developer program. Was it a concession to providers? Something I'm not seeing? Dunno. With large amounts of pressure from competing platforms with market dominance (and no other android code competitions in sight), it's possible that the android's future is more tenuous than google perceives. Consider: the main, most plausible way to develop for the underlying operating system, itself, is to invest $400 for an ADP to get the whole shebang. That's a lot to ask of teenagers and college kids-- those, as summer of code has shown, that are seemingly most likely to develop great ideas. Thus, they're relegated to back- channel, potentially dangerous, unsupported hacks on subsidized phones (e.g., the G1). Combined with that, what incentive is there to make something really cool and end with a net loss of $25 bucks? You can justify paying $179 for a phone that's useful to you. It's hard to justify paying $25 dollars for your time and skill on something you're going to give away to others (source and all). On the other hand, assuming that doesn't slow development, the platform does maintain its growth, and the $25 dollar cover charge remains for developers of free, open source applications, I predict this is also very plausible: The number of 3rd party application distribution sites will increase, followed by one-to-rule-them-all (likely due to strong leadership and community), which will lead to the greater deprecation of the official market. Someone *will* streamline non-market app installation and firmware hacks (maybe their own "BlackMarket" app or something similarly catchy in name), and dangerous apps *will* become increasingly difficult to control from a provider's perspective. The official market will lose revenue to non-contractual distribution, which will lure shareware developers and some other demographics that would have normally simply stuck with the reputation and market share of the official market distribution platform. The main things that the official market has going for it are ease of use, omnipresence, contractual obligation, literal market dominance, and higher learning curve for the underlying operating system. Therefore, I believe that it behooves Google, its current and future provider partners, and adopters of the android os, to reduce incentive and demand for 3rd party application distribution by allowing free, open source code to populate without the constraints of the $25 door charge. It's already in the contract for developers that have agreed to its terms and paid the money, why not make it easier for people *not* currently accepting that non-compete contract to, instead, accept that non-compete contract? Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, again. Cheers =) -Kurt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. 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