"Noah O'Donoghue" <[email protected]> writes: > On 19 December 2014 at 10:24, Ben Finney <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > The advantage of Android, as contrasted with iOS, is that it's quite > > straightforward to never use Google Play, and there are plenty of apps > > available from non-Google app stores. > > Ben, it sure doesn't seem that way.
What in particular are you disagreeing with in what I wrote above? > eg > http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ That article makes very good points: the non-free, vendor-locked-in Google Play apps are much more attractive in terms of features than those in the Android OSP. Further, Google's terms for app developers are increasingly prejudiced against developing apps which respect software freedom. But there's a stark difference between “can get the device functioning perfectly well without lock-in to services from the OS vendor”, versus “there is simply no option at all to use the device without lock-in to the OS vendor”. With Android, there are many devices where the former is true. A prospective owner can shop for devices supporting AOSP, find them for sale today, and a device owner (or their technically competent delegate) can quite straightforwardly remove Google services from the device and Google Play will never be contacted again. The students that receive devices so configured will have in their hands a device that performs a huge range of useful, networked functionality, without ever contacting Google Play. With Apple's tablets and handhelds, for every such device they have ever sold, disabling the Apple services would cripple the device beyond any useful purpose. Students cannot receive such a device without it being far less useful than the Android device. You seem intent on dismissing these differences. They are huge in terms of increasing, and maintaining, software freedom for the device owners and users. -- \ “Not using Microsoft products is like being a non-smoker 40 or | `\ 50 years ago: You can choose not to smoke, yourself, but it's | _o__) hard to avoid second-hand smoke.” —Michael Tiemann | Ben Finney _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list [email protected] http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb Free Software Melbourne home page: http://www.freesoftware.asn.au/melb/
