Well most of us are familiar with Android as being an open source mobile platform, but i think its time to measure the extend of its openness.
According to an article in PCWorld by Katherine Noyes a study conducted by research firm Vision Mobile using an Open Governance Index created by them revealed that Android is the most closed (only 23% open) of the eight different open source projects which include : Android, MeeGo, Linux, Qt, WebKit, Mozilla, Eclipse, and Symbian
Now we know what open source is, a popular example of an open source OS can be considered as Linux and Android is built on the same Linux kernel. Upon having a closer look at how Android ticks we find that AOSPs (Android Open Source Projects) can be made for a variety of devices from readily available source codes, but it impossible to get complete functionality from a device without its own OEM specific codes. Which means unlike Ubuntu on your PC, your Android phone even though being open source requires some manufacturer specific codes to run at its full potential. It has also been observed that certain core android apps are closed source in nature. While all these so said limitations can be overcome with time and effort an average user wouldn't feel the difference, but still according to Conan Troutman at xda-developers the guys at Free Software Foundation (FOSS) are set to create an Android distribution that is free of proprietary code in all form and they have named the project as Replicant.
No comments:
Post a Comment