Friday, January 23, 2009
why android was open-sourced
Android is now released in the market and the first google phone is available. But what is the benefit that google is getting by making in open source. Till now I haven't come across a convincing answer to this. Google gets its main revenue from advertising in the internet. The only reason that could be is that, by making android open source it tends to increase its revenue in the mobile internet users market. Only time will tell what its strategy is... advertising on mobiles ??? :-)
apache license for android
I read a few blogs on why google chose apache license for android. It mentions that if android were to use gpl license then nobody would then adopt android, because any properiatery software that are pluged-in to android would have to be made open source. Even though it would lead to more openness and faster development, many would like to avoid it. It has even chosen bionic libc just to keep the gpl license out of user space. It would be a nightmare for developers if everything that they develop were to be made open source. So apache license does make sense...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
brew and android
Android is released after Brew so you can expect all the advantages of brew to be incorporated in android.
One of the best features of Brew is that you can write extensions. i.e. plug in components of the applications and introduce new features into the application. This feature is almost non-existant in any other software platform. In other platforms such an application can be created only by native application developers. In android, there exists no difference between a native developer and third party. So anybody can write such applications even if the feature is non-existant.
In Android, this feature is implemented in the form of AIDL. You can write one application which provides a specific service to another app. (this is as good as an extension). Since this is developed as a new applciation it can be shipped later.
Another striking difference between the two platform is that brew supports only CDMA mobiles whereas Android supports GSM, UMTS technologies. Since Android is open-source you can expect it to support CDMA in the near future.
One of the best features of Brew is that you can write extensions. i.e. plug in components of the applications and introduce new features into the application. This feature is almost non-existant in any other software platform. In other platforms such an application can be created only by native application developers. In android, there exists no difference between a native developer and third party. So anybody can write such applications even if the feature is non-existant.
In Android, this feature is implemented in the form of AIDL. You can write one application which provides a specific service to another app. (this is as good as an extension). Since this is developed as a new applciation it can be shipped later.
Another striking difference between the two platform is that brew supports only CDMA mobiles whereas Android supports GSM, UMTS technologies. Since Android is open-source you can expect it to support CDMA in the near future.
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