Google's Blunder
Google won't release Android 3.0, Honeycomb, until it has made it 'better.' This has ticked off pretty much every open-source professional out there.
Mon, April 18, 2011
Computerworld — I don't say this very often, but some days Google (GOOG) is stupid. Until recently, Google's biggest blunder was Google Wave . But now Google has announced that it won't release Android 3.0 , the tablet version of its mobile operating system, until it has made it "better."
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In a statement, Andy Rubin, head of Google's Android group, said, "Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites. ... While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types, including phones." In other words, Google will release the Honeycomb source code as soon as it's ready. Just don't ask when that will be.
This has ticked off pretty much every open-source professional out there. Android is under the open-source Apache Software License 2.0 , which requires that the source code be released when the executable programs are released. That usually means they're released together. But the license doesn't insist on that.
Historically, Google has played games with the ASL's terms by letting big hardware manufacturers, such as HTC, Motorola (MOT) and Sony, have an early look at Android source code. Smaller vendors, developers and open-source purists have been unhappy with that "some animals are more equal than others" approach in the past, and now Google is stretching the gap between private release and an open-source release even further. Some would say it has stretched the gap to the breaking point.
I know Google doesn't want vendors rushing half-baked Honeycomb tablets out to the public. But you know what? I'd rather see tiny companies trying to make a fast buck by selling not-ready-for-public-consumption tablets than a big company playing games with open-source licensing.
Google already has enough intellectual property troubles, with Oracle suing over Java , Microsoft creeping toward a suit , and an an assortment of open-source-related copyright claims . Does it really need to alienate the programmers? I think not.
What really troubles me, though, isn't Google playing fast and loose with the ASL. No, what bugs me about this, and what makes it one of Google's all-time dumb moves, is that the whole point of open source is that you might make your life easier by sharing the code. Right now, all of Honeycomb's development rests on a relative handful of in-house Honeycomb developers. The big OEM developers will be spending their time adding gewgaws to the base code. They're not going to help get Honeycomb out the door.
