What would it take to build a better mobile phone?
A commitment to openness, a shared vision for the future, and concrete plans to make the vision a reality.
Why is it different?
The Apache license allows manufacturers and mobile operators to innovate using the platform without the requirement to contribute those innovations back to the open-source community.
11 comments ↓
is desicion to use apache licence a sign of being evil?
So in your view, Google picked the wrong open source license for one of their products, and that makes them evil? Like the Apache foundation, the BSDs and a huge swath of other open source projects are evil? The kind of hardcore dogmatism displayed in your post saddens me.
Yes that sucks.
public Happyness software() {
openmoko++;
}
For a sufficiently narrow definition of “evil,” yes.
Wouldn’t that imply Apache is also evil?
Wonderful. It encourages investing. In short time it will fly circles around opensucky++.
Sheesh, the Apache license is prefectly fine. It’s about claiming your better because your open and closed.
Why did you pick the Apache v2 open source license?
Apache is a commercial-friendly open-source license. The Apache license allows manufacturers and mobile operators to innovate using the platform without the requirement to contribute those innovations back to the open-source community. Because these innovations and differentiated features can be kept proprietary, manufacturers and mobile operators are protected from the “viral infection” problem often associated with other licenses.
Yes, really. Thank you for the “viral infection”. That term from Google looks like a PR fault.
I dont know about evil but misguided – yes
Microsoft for one will be able to swipe any useful functionality they come up with.
If they were sensible they would base the libraries on LGPL which is also business friendly yet gives them more protection
Also I dont like their use of the word viral – GPL is about share and share alike so calling it viral or cancer is very obnoxious. LGPL is not viral so they really need to check their facts
But at least its an open platform and we need more of these…
Xav, that wording is stupid and should be dropped, but a PR guy going a bit overboard hardly makes Google evil.
For goodness sake, they are developing a phone and releasing all the source code in the open, and people accuse them of being evil because they release the software on a license that is ‘too open’ because it allows _other_people_ to do anything they want with it, including creating a closed source derivative.
GTK is using LGPL which is at least “as evil” as the Apache license.
So please stop whining and let us hope they really try to drive the mobile sphere to a more open world where not only the Neo1973 (plus very few others) exists as a device.
Otte, how on earth does choosing the Apache license make Google evil?
“It’s about claiming your better because your open and closed.”
And what does THAT mean?
Bizarre.