Google Releases Source Code For Android

[mali]

Not really Here in Germany they suggested in the news, not to use Chrome, because it is known to collect various data from the user. Google wants to establish a system, where you access programs through internet, and you don't need them on the local PC anymore. The possibilities of collecting data is enormous.
You attend the birth of a new online Microsoft. So switch to oppositon sooner than later, and don't hype every open source thingy, just because you think it's cool

sounds like a conspiracy to me


Conspiracy is completely different thing
Googles garage days are definitely over, and anyone can look at the current situation and extrapolate further development. There is more than enough money, and an already monopolistic situation as search-engine, that ensures safe advertising revenue. Buying youtube and starting projects like Android, are logical steps to get a broader base. It's just market economy, you know? I don't know, when the point will come that it turns from oh so friendly open source presents into power abuse.
My last experience with that kind of thing is Paypal. It was free, you got presents if you used it, and now eBay made its own bank an obligation of attend, if you don't want to lose your shop

As long as some open source lovers thankfully complete Googles next money making machine for free, profits couldn't be higher.
Open source is the ideal Trojan Horse
/rant

 

[kloplop321]

I would rather Google take over the computer market with open source linux than worrying about a monopoly.
A monopoly is seldom times good as it can be bad in almost any hand, but in the right hands it can be great, and I think Google has clean hands.
I think it is much better than if Microsoft or Yahoo took over youtube, and personally I see youtube getting much better now.

 

[mali]

I would rather Google take over the computer market with open source linux than worrying about a monopoly.
A monopoly is seldom times good as it can be bad in almost any hand, but in the right hands it can be great, and I think Google has clean hands.
I think it is much better than if Microsoft or Yahoo took over youtube, and personally I see youtube getting much better now.

Worst argument ever heard :blink:
Fascism could be the cure for all problems of mankind, in the right hands.....not :huh:

 

[Kyo]

Damn it, they may be an evil corporation, but this is good. Google making open source software is yet another step on the way to open source dominating.

Hooray

Also, we'll get android apps on the pandora

 

[OrR]

I would be scared if this wasn't open source, like the iPhone or Google Docs, Gmail etc. It IS open source, though, so I see little to worry about. You can pick the code you need and in turn improve their code, it's only fair. What we could use is Dalvik and it looks like a pretty good present by Google to me.

i'm not really very interested in android. uses linux, but the phones expect signed images, so android open source doesn't really mean anything.

you can only use java... really boring

That's not a reason to not be interested in Android, it's a reason to not be interested in those crappy closed phones. Pandora and Openmoko Neos won't be expecting signed images.

 

[sindbad]

Yeah, dalvik is probably the best thing that happened to the crapness that is java. It's much better than traditional JVMs and hopefully we will get some decent languages for android as well.

Also, people have been able to run C programs on android, it's basically just a linux distro with a custom UI. If you have physical access to an android phone, you don't need no signing.

 

[javaJake]

Yeah, dalvik is probably the best thing that happened to the crapness that is java.

Please cut the Java flaming before I drive this topic off-topic with my pro-Java arguments.

 

[DesktopMan]

Since Android applications are nothing more than slightly modified JAVA apps, it would be more sensible to create a wrapper to run them under the Pandora's OS rather than have a full Android installation. The OS itself is nothing special, it's just getting hype because it's the first "open" OS for smartphones.

If by slightly modified you mean entirely different. The Dalvik VM has no compatibility with Sun's JRE. You could probably port Dalvik to run on whatever Linux is running on Pandora though. I'd still like the entire thing to be honest, Android is already optimized for smaller systems with touchscreens and hardware keyboard. More options = good.

 

[OrR]

As far as I understand it, Dalvik runs most Java apps. You need to convert them, first, of course. Slightly modified sounds about right to me.

 

[AireTamStorm]

If Google ends up ruling the world, we'll have much more freedom than if Microsoft did. Thats for damn sure.

 

[mali]

If Google ends up ruling the world, we'll have much more freedom than if Microsoft did. Thats for damn sure.

Actually I didn't want to respond to this, it's off topic and such, but I can't restrain myself.
If you don't know, what you are talking about, don't talk.
Microsoft sells Software.
Google sells information.
I know, there are people who don't care about privacy, that's their problem.
Microsoft won't hurt you by selling software.
But google might hurt you, by selling your data profile.
Google makes OSS to spread. They don't make money with software, but with the users data.

 

[Nilsiboy]

I think Android's JVM should be enough, we'll have at least 2 UIs to choose from at launch anyway, and they will be optimized for small devices too, obviously

And to the whole Google discussion I'll just say that I trust Google more with my information than any other provider of the same services (search, mail, docs)... true, their business *is* selling information, but they won't sell my address book or email history

 

[DesktopMan]

As far as I understand it, Dalvik runs most Java apps. You need to convert them, first, of course. Slightly modified sounds about right to me.

"Runs most Java apps", could you be more vague? It does not run Java bytecode, as it's Dalvik, not Sun JRE. This excludes all existing compiled Java packages from executing.

As for existing Java source code, the actual language is the same but the class libraries aren't necessarily complete. Google uses Apache Harmony (http://harmony.apache.org/) to provide the somewhat standard Java class library, but may chose to omit or change whatever they want.

 

[Chip]

As I said, the OS itself is really nothing special. Running Android on the Pandora would give you access to Android apps, but it would not be able to run anything but Android apps. Creating a Dalvik VM for the Pandora would allow use of Android apps while maintaining access to everything else Pandora.

 

[AireTamStorm]

As I said, the OS itself is really nothing special. Running Android on the Pandora would give you access to Android apps, but it would not be able to run anything but Android apps. Creating a Dalvik VM for the Pandora would allow use of Android apps while maintaining access to everything else Pandora.

Agreed. Porting the VM would be a better idea, because you could run Android applications in addition to applications from the main repository / Pandora archives.

 

[OrR]

If Google ends up ruling the world, we'll have much more freedom than if Microsoft did. Thats for damn sure.

Actually I didn't want to respond to this, it's off topic and such, but I can't restrain myself.
If you don't know, what you are talking about, don't talk.
Microsoft sells Software.
Google sells information.
I know, there are people who don't care about privacy, that's their problem.
Microsoft won't hurt you by selling software.
But google might hurt you, by selling your data profile.
Google makes OSS to spread. They don't make money with software, but with the users data.

Actually by having a functional monopoly, Microsoft practically force you to use their software, which hurts quite a bit. Your points about Google are still valid, though.

As far as I understand it, Dalvik runs most Java apps. You need to convert them, first, of course. Slightly modified sounds about right to me.

"Runs most Java apps", could you be more vague? It does not run Java bytecode, as it's Dalvik, not Sun JRE. This excludes all existing compiled Java packages from executing.

It does not "run" Java bytecode directly. However, there is a translator program that translates all Java bytecode into Dalvik bytecode which then runs on the VM. As I undestood it, this does not work if the Java program relies on using Java bytecode from external files at runtime as Dalvik can't translate that code at runtime. I'm an amateur so I haven't got much of a clue about this stuff so if you really want to know it, go watch the one hour Dalvik Google I/O talk on YouTube.

 

[AireTamStorm]

If Google ends up ruling the world, we'll have much more freedom than if Microsoft did. Thats for damn sure.

Actually I didn't want to respond to this, it's off topic and such, but I can't restrain myself.
If you don't know, what you are talking about, don't talk.I'd like to think I know more than a doomsayer. h34r:

Microsoft sells Software.
Google sells information.
I know, there are people who don't care about privacy, that's their problem.
You don't have to utilize their services.

Microsoft won't hurt you by selling software.
No, but they will hinder the progress of worldwide software development with their monopoly. They've slowed down major hardware advancements, let alone the adoption of standards at every bend in the road. A rather mild example: Consumer-grade 64bit processors have been out for over 5 years now, why are we still running 32bit software when 95% of computers sold today are packing 64bit chips?

But google might hurt you, by selling your data profile.
And what exactly could they sell that might hurt me? I bet you can name a whole list of things that plenty of other organizations have access to, that people have said the exact same thing about. Try Ebay, PayPal, for example.

Google makes OSS to spread.
Hey, it works. I can do what I want with their software, unlike microsoft's software. I'll take their software, thank you.

They don't make money with software, but with the users data.
You just need to calm down, and think within reason. Then, ask yourself: "Where do they get this data from?"

 

[mali]

If Google ends up ruling the world, we'll have much more freedom than if Microsoft did. Thats for damn sure.

Actually I didn't want to respond to this, it's off topic and such, but I can't restrain myself.
If you don't know, what you are talking about, don't talk.I'd like to think I know more than a doomsayer. h34r:

Microsoft sells Software.
Google sells information.
I know, there are people who don't care about privacy, that's their problem.
You don't have to utilize their services.

Microsoft won't hurt you by selling software.
No, but they will hinder the progress of worldwide software development with their monopoly. They've slowed down major hardware advancements, let alone the adoption of standards at every bend in the road. A rather mild example: 64bit processors have been out for over 5 years now, why are we still running 32bit software when 95% of computers sold today are packing 64bit chips?

But google might hurt you, by selling your data profile.
And what exactly could they sell that might hurt me? I bet you can name a whole list of things that plenty of other organizations have access to, that people have said the exact same thing about. Try Ebay, PayPal, for example.

Google makes OSS to spread.
Hey, it works. I can do what I want with their software, unlike microsoft's software. I'll take their software, thank you.

They don't make money with software, but with the users data.
You just need to calm down, and think within reason. Then, ask yourself: "Where do they get this data from?"

You are right, thanks for your help.
Now, send me the sourcecode and I'll port it to my head.

 

[Chip]

Take off the tinfoil hats and get back on topic.

 

[Hohlraum]

The VM is not enough to run android apps. You need the android environment as a whole including all the other processes running on the machine to run android apps. People have already been asking the same questions over on the official android lists, you can read about it over there.