Well said. This is firing a bullet right into your own toes. No one is disputing Google's legal right to do this. It's about how fundamentally stupid it is to piss off your most ardent and technically savvy supporters. Unless Google reverses course here, the next few plays are pretty straightforward-- (1) cyanogen and other developers move to another platform (sucking air, advocacy, and momentum from Android's adoption) or (2) a serious effort gets underway to replace the proprietary .apks/apis with true open-source replacements-- a map app that uses openstreetmap (with turn-by-turn), a better IMAP client for gmail, an alternative market app like andappstore, etc. Eventually the IP-unencumbered alternatives will be as good or better than Google's offerings, and what will Google have gained? This is how it's worked with open-source since the beginning of time.
It is strategically unwise for Google to publicly advocate FOSS development, build an entire platform on FOSS codebase, promote FOSS philosophy to win market share and mindshare, then take a massive dump all over their burgeoning development community and fan base. (and if you don't think that's what's happened, read the comments on xda- developers, android blogs, or most of the Google apps in the Market) W On Sep 24, 8:08 pm, Josh Steiner <[email protected]> wrote: > This is one of the stupidest moves I've seen a company do in a while. > First, wait til an organic community developer group forms around your > product, wait til they release improved version of your free OS, let them > hype it to death for you... then C&D them out of existence until they all go > tinker with Maemo or Linmo (or iPhone or Web OS) devices. > > It doesn't matter if Google, Inc are legally correct, this is a boneheaded > business decision. > > -Josh > > > > On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:03 PM, schwiz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > So everytime I have seen someone ask about apps2sd for android, the > > response has been something along the lines of 'well if you don't like > > the space on the phone modify it yourself if its that easy' Someone > > takes this to heart and does it for free for thousands of users who > > are already supporting google and you shut them down? Now we have to > > pick between having space for apps on our phone -OR- not having the > > marketplace on our phone anymore so it doesn't even matter? I highly > > suggest if you are going to C&D cyanogen to give users who have PAID > > for a 'powered by google' android device to backup their google apps > > that they paid for. We have paid for the software we should be > > entitled to use it with any build of android we choose. Otherwise, > > you might want to try taking user requests a little more seriously. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
