By: Narender

Narender — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:07:29 +0000

I strongly desagrie with your opinion that Android isn’t free software, especially on the handset side of things. (Relating to the oh my good, it’s so ugly but i have tha deadline but if i commit the code then everybody will fork from it and i’ll never ever being able to clean that mess again fiasco of Android 3.x. But even on that, it’s been fixed)Taking all your reasons and reasoning I could also say that Linux in general, but Debian in particular isn’t open source because a particular device that I own is locked on a particular firmware that I can’t upgrade, or modify.Android is open source because from day one of their commercial release (again, except for versions 3.x), you would have been able to make your own Android version that run on any arm/x86 board.Android is open source because many silicon vendor have been able to use these sources to make PoC version of android running on weird mips or arm architectures that Google didn’t want to waste time on.The openess of Android allows for those VMs, on meego, Windows and iOS that allow Android apps to run to exist.As proven by the position the Linux kernel team took on the GPLv2-v3 debate, software open-source is still (sadly maybe) compatible with locked hardware.With that in mind, you freely choose your handset. The points you make about the accessibility of the bootloader is an important one, and was a major decision in choosing my current phone, a Samsung one. Charts comparing hackability of various Android handsets are all over the web.Most Samsung phones use a service protocol (and a leaked windows utility that is found almost anywhere) so it is easy to switch between various firmwares.For example, disappointed with the state of Cyanogen for my particular phone, I kept using (more recent) Samsung roms from another countries, one that isn’t branded. I’m rooted, and that allows me to uninstall any program that I find useless or redundant. Also, being rooted allows me to use that backup app that can upload even your apps and system settings to Dropbox.Don’t blame Google choices SonyErricson made. Android enforce a layout with multiple partitions, that allows upgrades without altering user data and programs, if the manufacturer takes the time to allow that feature.Running your own kernel on most Samsung Galaxy phones is as simple as to compile it and to push it to the phone. It’s the same for any Google developer phone and for that ZTE Android phone I also have. Both ZTE and Samsung have released sources for the pre-installed version of the software within weeks.While some rooting methods on some Android phones require security exploits, all was ever done on iPhone was done fighting against Apple. Maybe it’s because (apart from their developer phones) Google doesn’t directly sell hardware, but like for any embedded linux distribution, how much permissions are allowed to the user at runtime is- and always has been, a variable easy to set at compilation time.

By: Keiwan

Keiwan — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:45:24 +0000

Great cmmoon sense here. Wish I’d thought of that.

Comments on: Android VPN Service

By: Narender

By: Keiwan