Google is guilty of cooperating with carriers but has done a good job of destroying free software myths by getting it into people’s hands. No one can say that “open source” is difficult to use, unfinished, buggy or anything but excellent. That’s a good first step.

Google has a lot of good things to say about “open source” but does not seem to understand free software. This page in particular is alarming but may not represent the full or final company opinion. Specifically, they say:

The companies that have invested in Android have done so on its merits, because we believe that an open platform is necessary. Android is intentionally and explicitly an open-source — as opposed to free software — effort: a group of organizations with shared needs has pooled resources to collaborate on a single implementation of a shared product. The Android philosophy is pragmatic, first and foremost. The objective is a shared product that each contributor can tailor and customize.

This is why most Android phones are jails and that is sad. Their compatibility model and trademark control would work just as well for a free software Android as it does for one that strips users of their rights. The problem must be that Google’s customers insist on jailing users.

What comes next that matters most. It is important to notice that the brand really being built is not Android, it’s Google. Android without Google would be about as loved as ATT. Google can pretend that it’s good corporate management that makes their software good or give credit to the community that provided them with Linux and other tools, such as the gnu tool chain that are indispensable to everything they do. Efforts to liberate spectrum, like TV white spaces, can be a real game changer. When people finally demand spectrum justice, Google can decide to ride the reputation they have built or work with the free software world. They might not have a choice because people obviously prefer devices that restrict them the least.

The biggest barriers to software freedom are still spectrum allocation, non free monopoly networks and other government interference like software patents. Without these, the established software and telco monopolies would quickly collapse and people could follow the path of least restriction. Developers, those who know best, still overwhelmingly use the GNU/GPL and many argue that it provides business stability as well as user freedom. It is only a mater of time before the rest of the world reaches the same conclusions about copyleft.

open source overshadowed free software. that’s not a virtue. it’s something bruce perens lamented one year after co-founding OSI when he left. open source has always been freedom-lite.

when happens when we have open source lite, and finally even that is obscured?

this isn’t just karma, it’s a problem that open source will ultimately have to face. you helped expand your image by saying “hey, people that don’t care about user freedom can jump on our bandwagon and support something kind of sort of like it.” well, now they’ve piggybacked on open source, and diluted their image in turn.

lots of people were using gnu/linux (“linux,” free software) without knowing what free software was. lots of people will use ubuntu (open source) without knowing what open source is, and more people will use android without ever knowing about open source, let alone free software. the problem’s growing.