Open Source and Google Android
I am currently an iPhone user and have been thinking about switching to an Android phone as the technology looks very interesting and as a supporter of Open Source, I would like to put my money where my “mouth” is. I visited the Android site at https://www.android.com/ which led me to the Android Developer area for people looking to create Android applications (https://developer.android.com/index.html) as well as the Android Market where I can find applications for my Android phone.
As a starting point, I looked at the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement from Google at https://www.android.com/us/developer-distribution-agreement.html and read the fine print. This agreement allows developers to distribute their products via the Android Market and gives Google nonexclusive licenses to leverage your product to promote and distribute via the Android Market. The contract also links to the Android Market Developer Program Policies, https://www.android.com/us/developer-content-policy.html, which govern the content policies for the applications. As for the content, there is no requirement that the applications be open source other than statements that you are the owner of the IP for the application.
I next visited the Android open source project home at https://source.android.com/ to see what the licensing for Android looked like and how users could contribute. Android is primarily Apache 2.0 licensed except for certain portions, which require other licenses, for example the Linux kernel is under GPLv2. There is also plenty of information on how to submit patches to the system as well as bugs.
So, the base Android operating system for the phone is truly open source while the applications can be proprietary in the same way that iPhone applications are. In fact, I did some more searching and was able to find both iPhone and Android applications that are open sourced; however both are not listed as such in their individual marketplaces. Thus, do I really need to move to an Android phone to satisfy my open source support needs? As the applications for both platforms are proprietary thus dispelling the idea that Android is a complete open source solution, I am not sure that switching gives me the open source kudos I was expecting. What are your thoughts? Do open source supporters really need to have an Android phone to support the general movement? I am interested in your thoughts.
