On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 8:11 PM, Stefan Monnier <[email protected]>wrote:
> > I'm not arguing that. Ultimately all this backlash towards Android and > even > > iPhones is unwarranted and pointless. Do you think if they went away the > > smartphone segment would suddenly be free? Do you think any smartphone > > platform or hardware provider cares whether you tether your phone, or use > > voip? If you are worried about user freedom or people not having control > > over their own devices, your wasting your time complaining about the > > platform or even the phone providers. They are not the gate keepers. > > In the case of the iPhone and the iPad, the gatekeeper is clearly Apple. > But you're right that it's not the only problem. Other smartphones are > just about as bad, for example, and phone companies have a long > tradition of being control freaks. > > The point is that most people don't realize it, so we have to make noise > around those issues, and the iPhone is a good target since it's very > visible and it claims to be open. > This is only going to go in circles, but again, complaining about Apple won't change a thing. What are you going to tell people? Move to another smartphone that doesn't allow tethering and voip? What are you actually going to achieve by trying to educate people about Apple? > > >> > The firmware does not have anything to do with Android, only the phone > >> > makers. Google/Android doesn't control the phone makers, and a phone > >> > maker is free to make the device as hackable as they like. > >> At least Google makes no effort to keep the end products free, > > In what sense? > > In the obvious sense. In which sense have they made efforts to keep the > end products free? > Which end products? Android, Chrome? What exactly is it you want, search? If it's obvious then you can give plenty of concrete examples. > > >> and even actively supports freedom-adverse features such as the > >> ability to remove apps remotely. > > Again this is specific to apps installed via the Android Market, not apps > > installed from any other source (which unlike the iPhone, is trivial to > do). > > Doesn't make much difference. The fact that the backdoor is present for > one probably means that it could (technically) be used for other things. > It's still the basic issue: *they* keep ultimate control over your device. > But you can choose not to use the market and instead install an app directly (or even start your own market). The market itself is simply a service and isn't a specific or mandatory part of the platform. There have been a couple articles claiming Nokia is creating there own Android marketplace for China (I have no idea if this is true). I don't see how you can dismiss a whole platform based on a service that isn't a mandatory part of the platform. If your point is that even if you never sign into the phone, or even if the entire market place can be removed from the platform, the platform is compromised, then really there is no point in us discussing this any further. > > > I don't know if it has been used, but recently there was a phishing app > put > > on the marketplace. Be that as it may, if you sit down for a moment and > > think about it, you'd realize that any company (specifically one with a > lot > > of cash flow) offering such a service has to provide a kill switch. That > is > > the sad reality. > > I definitely don't buy that argument. Maybe they can use it to protect > their ass if/when they mess up, but then so what: they could do so in many > other ways as well. It's not a valid excuse. > Well then I doubt we'll ever agree on this particular point. I will say that if this didn't exist, and Android did take off, there would be a lot of people arguing about how insecure Android is because of the random viruses/trojans/phishing that can be found in the marketplace (which has no barrier of entry). > > >> So it's not really true that it's all the fault > >> of the phone makers rather than Google/Android's. > > I'm not sure what you expect of Google/Android. Can you give a concrete > > example? > > They could have used a license that would make Android code only > distributable in such a way that the firmware can be replaced (no > tivo-ization). They could have not written the backdoor code to remove > apps remotely. ... > But then no one would use it. Your insisting that this is a problem with the platform providers, when it's clearly not. You can protest every platform provider/phone maker in the world, but it won't change a thing due to the current underlying system. > > >> Of course, none of this is a big surprise: Google has always been very > >> supportive of Open Source but not of Free Software. > > I think this is redefining "Free Software". > > No, it's just insisting on the difference between Open Source and > Free Software. > So clearly I meant this regarding Android, but what part of the Apache 2 license is not Free Software? Free Software has nothing to do with a remote kill switch, or forcing handset providers to use open firmware. I may be being pedantic, but you can say that many of the individuals involved care about such issues, however that is not the same thing. Regards, Jared Brick > > > Stefan > _______________________________________________ > mlug mailing list > [email protected] > https://listes.koumbit.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mlug-listserv.mlug.ca >
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