It is a sad irony that open source communities get hoodwinked by large corporations who want the marketing buzz of open source, but don't really want community involvement. The fact is that Google has and likely always will control the Android project to its own benefit and not that of the community while paying lip service to the open source credo.
Any Google employee regurgitating that Android is open source and is thereby giving the community a stake in the project through contributions and collaboration is simply drinking the corporate coolaid. If Android were truly an open community project, the proprietary elements such as the marketplace application would be open source and therefore open to extension and enhancement by the community, for the community. This is not the case, and is only one small example of other similar issues regarding a lack of documentation and transparency. The continued excuses of "we know the documentation is lacking and we are working on it" is clearly subterfuge meant to string the community along while Google directs the project where they want it to go. On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Disconnect <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 2:10 AM, Romain Guy <[email protected]> wrote: > >> the patch has been received on July 31st, after an internal milestone. >> > > Thats great, but how do submitters know when these milestones are? > Especially given the lag between internal and external trees, and how often > the external tree is flat broken, knowing the deadlines is somewhat > essential to making any submissions.. > > > >> This patch will not go in Donut, as some of the patches I would have >> liked to add to Donut. It is at this point to late to add features to >> Donut. And unfortunately the same goes with Eclair. Some engineers >> internally clearly expressed their enthusiast about this feature. >> Being an Open Source project does not mean "check in code for new >> features whenever we/you/the community feel like it." We understand >> the frustration and we are sorry for that. >> > > Er, being an open source project DOES mean publishing the constraints, > requirements and milestones that coders must adhere to before they > contribute.. (or at least, it does if you include "accepting external > contributions" in your definition of "open source".) > > >> > I just hope the attitude of "stop asking for something and submit a >> > patch" will stop. Patch or no, it doesn't matter. There's no community >> > involvement at the platform level. >> >> It does matter. I would love to see the community be involved and I've >> > > ..see above. > > > >> been monitoring the Android groups since they've been created. I can >> say for instance that the community did not show any interest at all >> in opening discussions about the UI toolkit for instance. There have >> been, it's true, numerous discussions in other areas though. But >> again, this does not mean we do not have constraints, they will simply >> not go away because you wish it was easier without them. >> > > Next time you get a feature/enhancement assigned, I challenge you to do it > using only the open source tree. (Assuming its not google-product-specific > and applies to released hardware of course.) Not "open tree with our newer > bins", not "open tree but I know what deadlines I have". Just "public > information".. if you manage to get it done and not get fired/reprimanded, > I'll buy you dinner. (With a reasonable feature of course, spelling changes > don't count :) ..) > > >> We do not ignore this feature and there have been (long) discussions >> about it in the open. We clearly stated what our reservations on the >> matter are and an appropriate solution as yet to be defined, at least >> to my knowledge. >> > > (for the record, thats what I said too :) ..) > > >> The core Android team does not have control over decisions made by the >> manufacturers. Yes we understand that some people really want to have >> the ability to install apps on the SD card. And yes we agree it would >> be a nice feature to have, but we want to do it in a safe and robust >> way. >> > > ..but here it kinda slips, since that implies "we publish no minimum or > suggested storage requirements and have no influence on what is sold" and > that is obviously incorrect. > > In the meantime, if you have any patch related to the app framework or >> the UI toolkit or the Home screen I will be happy to review them and >> merge them to the appropriate internal code branch when they get >> > accepted. >> > > FWIW (not my code) the additional-panes patches in some of the community > roms seem pretty decent. Haven't looked at the patches, but its got passable > UI (fixable) and works "as expected".. > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
