AOSP Maintainer Quits 221
In a post on Google+, Jean-Baptiste Quéru, long-time maintainer of the Android Open Source Project, has said he'll no longer be working on it. "There's no point being the maintainer of an Operating System that can't boot to the home screen on its flagship device for lack of GPU support, especially when I'm getting the blame for something that I don't have authority to fix myself and that I had anticipated and escalated more than 6 months ahead." Quéru is referring to the recently-released Nexus 7 revision, for which Google has not provided factory images of Android 4.3. This seems to be because GPU maker Qualcomm is refusing to release the blobs necessary to boot the device.
Much Noise, No Change (Score:3, Interesting)
Quitting AOSP doesn't solve the problem. It makes it worse.
What we can do, is start a campaign of "name and shame", that starts asking key questions of Qualcomm spokesdrones, why?
And here is the real bits that should concern people, I rather doubt there is anything all that special about the blobs of code needed, or even the underlying hardware. Further, given the Copyright and Patents that SHOULD be protecting the "intellectual property" of Qualcomm, there is NOT A SINGLE REASON to release the code.
Even if the Lawyers want to be involved, how about writing a waver for AOSP so they can include the blobs needed, or the APIs to code themselves what is needed (probably showing up the crappy programmers at Qualcomm) etc etc etc.
There are plenty of ways around this issue, but if Qualcomm won't play nice, then it is time to start playing hardball. Believe me, a very loud "name and shame" Campaign would work. Here is just a one suggestion.
1) Android Apps detect if the device is running a Qualcomm chip (of any kind) and simply puts a blurb up that says "Your device is using Qualcomm Chips. Qualcomm doesn't fully support Android Open Source Projects, so please consider as part of your next Android Phone/Device one that doesn't use Qualcomm chips. Thank you.
Re:Well, I guess that settles that (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. I'd be willing to pay considerably more, and would consider it a major point of sale feature. It would mean I wouldn't be at the mercy of the device maker for firmware updates, at the very least. (A vanilla build of android from source is practically garanteed to work if all device drivers are in mainline kernel. If push came to shove, I could roll my own damned update.)
At this point I seriously wonder why there aren't people clamoring to produce fully open hardware SoC solutions for this market. Even lower powered devices on obsolete fab processes would be very desirable given the lockouts presented by the major players. A shiny toy is worthless if you can't actually use it.
The only thing I can come up with for why this hasn't happened is the employment of thermonuclear patent portfolios. Again, refusal to hold a patent bomb would further influence my purchase choice. Combined, i'd be willing to pay over 200$ more. (But I must have BOTH features. Mainline support, and peace of mind for not supporting the patent madness.)
Seriously. Show me a device that does both of those things, and can actually fit in a pocket, and I will buy it.
Android is deprecated (Score:4, Interesting)
Read between the lines.
Queru is gone. Rubin is gone. The Chromecast, whose original and main purpose was to get Android devices connected to external displays, ran Android in prototype builds but was released with Chrome OS. Look who runs the Android group now... The head of the Chrome OS group, who is still the head of the Chrome OS group.
I'd give it no more than 2 years before the Nexus & Motorola products are released with Chrome OS and Android is 3rd-party device only with all Google services removed.
Face it, Google just isn't getting what they wanted out of the platform.
Re:Google can fix it with a hammer. (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents do not preclude open source, and really, they work with it quite nicely. To get a patent, you need to publish your ideas rather than rely on trade secrets. Really, copyright law applies more to the source code, but it is still protected.
Re:One odd thing... (Score:4, Interesting)
The enemy is everywhere, and it is YOU. (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking at the submissions lately for AOSP and finding out just how pissed off I am about recent events including this one, which just made my day.
Something to consider while you dine this evening:
1) Increasingly Handsets and anything that shows video is being locked out.
2) This post is just one example, but I can cite others if you can't google about the whole sickening GPU/DSP issues in the industry which just keep getting worse with everything that is LINUX.
3) The convergence in my mind, that it just so happens that governments are ape shit over knowing everything you do. Further, if I may point out, the huge contracts cellular providers are getting behind the scenes to make this happen from DARPA.
Which to me, makes me wonder if the idea of knowing exactly how the video and camera hardware work is something by design, is not something your local friendly cellular provider wants you to know.
Think of the hardware GPU/DSP on your phone as partitioned as sorta "that room" you never go into while working at your local friendly Time Warner NOC for example.
I mean, wouldn't it just be dandy if the DSP/GPU hardware is BLOB'ed and secret so that the NSA/CIA can turn it on any time, preferable in a manner other software on the phone knows nothing about.
Think about that next time you AOSP a compile and include those nice little BLOB's.
-Hack