John Gruber’s hypocritical and off-base Google attack

http://theorangeview.net/2011/03/john-grubers-hypocritical-and-off-base-google-attack/

by apress • 15 years ago

70 109 15 years ago

joebadmo• 15 years ago

I think the most annoying thing about Gruber is that he mixes fantastic insights with near-propaganda. He's also got a razor-honed voice.

Generally I tend to pay close attention to him when he writes about Apple products, eco-system, and culture, and ignore him when he writes about anything else, especially Google or Android.

mellis• 15 years ago

Openness is indeed a continuum and different degrees of it make sense for different people and different situations. The problems arise when you claim to be more open than you are or become less open than you were. Apple is clear that it offers proprietary platforms; Google claims Android is open but isn't acting accordingly.

nextparadigms2• 15 years ago

It's not so clear on Apple's side either. They can be even more closed if they want to, and they proved it recently with the subscription tax, which also wasn't in place since the the beginning when those developers made their apps for iOS.

DeusExMachina• 15 years ago

John Gruber is an Apple pundit and fan? Yes, we know.

His attack is hypocritical? Maybe.

Off base? I don't think so.

Yes, as the article says, Android is still far more open and customizable than iOS (and it's not that hard, actually).

Still there is another definition of open that matters to some people, and that definition applies less and less to Android, giving to all this a taste of bait and switch.

I know a lot of Android developers that believe in open software not on merely his advantage from a market point of view, but also from a philosophical one. These developers are all disappointed.

I am an iOS developer, I like Apple products, I agree with some of the arguments for a more closed system even if I disagree on a lot of Apple's decisions. I look at Android as a good competitor to iOS that keeps raising the bar and as a possible future market for what I do. I thought from the beginning that Android as a platform would have benefitted from a little more closed approach.

Still, I'm disappointed too, looking at Google's behavior. It angers me a little, even if I'm not an Android fan. Because I think about all those Android developers that now feel somewhat betrayed. This has a bitter taste not because Android is becoming more closed, but because this was not done from the beginning, luring people to the platform with different promises.

Am I an hypocrite too?

refulgentis2• 15 years ago

How is he hypocritical? The problem here is Google employees have consistently and constantly pushed that Android is open and thus inherently more pure than iOS (see Vic's behavior last Google IO, Andy Rubin's infamous 'definition of open' tweet). Apple has never claimed to be open or anything, Google has, and they're not.

ZeroGravitas2• 15 years ago

How is he hypocritical?

How about claiming he saw the bait-and-switch coming when he's a professional pundit and all he ever said while commenting on it was a) open is bad for consumers and b) Android isn't open.

Note that even a) and b) don't even make sense together, so the fact that he's revised history yet again to claim that he always thought they were open, but only so they could later become closed is even more laughable.

Pewpewarrows3• 15 years ago

Did you even read the article?

In last year's statement he says that there are different shades of "open", and this year he all-of-a-sudden decides that there's only one exact kind of open. Which conveniently happened only days after Google decided not to be as open just yet with their latest version of the Android OS.

Gruber changes definitions of terms to suit his pro-Apple and anti-Google agenda whenever he sees fit. It's dead obvious to anyone that isn't a blatant fanboy for either side (which is hard for many of the traditionally pro-Apple HN reader-base).

tptacek3• 15 years ago

Android is more open than iOS. It is less open than Ubuntu. We just saw a story today about Google playing favorites with access to early releases of operating system code; when you're shipping multi-billion-dollar SKUs based on that code, this isn't a minor detail. The fact is, Android is "open" to end-users, but not completely "open" to vendors.

It's frustrating to watch people try to reconcile this, because not only is everyone using different definitions of the word "open", but they change definitions from day to day.

Meanwhile: this is second-order punditry. It's a critique of a pundit. And it's a pundit who wears his bias on his sleeve. It's boring. People don't read Gruber for the unvarnished truth about the mobile market. If you want to right whatever wrong you feel is being committed because a gifted writer has overtly taken Apple's side (gasp!), write an excellent blog advocating for the Google ecosystem. But don't waste our time litigating against Gruber. Nobody cares!

raganwald5• 15 years ago

this is second-order punditry. It's a critique of a pundit. And it's a pundit who wears his bias on his sleeve. It's boring.

But... But... Someone is WRONG on the Internet!

http://xkcd.com/386/

tptacek3• 15 years ago

The annoying thing is, Gruber's not wrong. He's biased and he's going to adopt whatever findings of fact and findings of analysis are most favorable to Apple, but he's been doing this for 10+ years and he's not simply going to make things up. Which makes it especially dumb to get into a blogfight with him. Because it's never going to end.

There is still a case to be made for Android over iOS based on openness. People should make that case. But what are they saying when they make a case for Android based on Gruber? Is that the best they've got? That an Apple advocate is advocating Apple?

tvon2• 15 years ago

tangental, but the actual source of that comic: http://xkcd.com/386/ or http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

kylec4• 15 years ago

    Android is "open" to end-users, but not completely "open" to vendors

I think you have this backwards. With the exception of Honeycomb, vendors have a lot of flexibility to do what they want with Android, including skinning it and running it on custom hardware. And if they decide to forego the Google apps, they don't have to get approval to ship a device with Android on it. Conversely, users of Android-based products don't have the ability to update or modify the OS (beyond what the vendor allows) without 'rooting' the device, a process that most non-technical people are unable to perform.

tptacek3• 15 years ago

If they can't get the next revision of the OS on the same terms as their competitors, it's not open for them. I think you're glossing over the practical realities of shipping products that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to launch.

If you want to assert that it's not open for end-users either, I won't argue, but I'm not sold on that.

bad_user5• 15 years ago

And yet, there are devices sold that don't have to be rooted, which you can't say about iOS.

bmorrison• 15 years ago

"With the exception of Honeycomb..."

Which fallacy is that, again?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelming_exception

dman• 15 years ago

I think the word "open" is now just too overloaded. What does open mean ? Does it mean that I can read the source? Does it mean I can read the source in a timely fashion as soon as the product is available? Does it mean that I have the right to modify and execute the source? Does it mean that there are reasonably good chances that if I make a valid and valued change to the code it will be integrated upstream? While Gruber has a biased take on things, there is some truth to the fact that there are definitions of open by which Android is not an open system.

rbarooah17• 15 years ago

I find it hard to come up with a definition by which Android is an open system. It seems to pretty much boil down to:

Some of the time, some people can see some of the source, but some of those people may be restricted in what they can do by licenses'.

If that's what passes as 'open' we need a new word.

raganwald5• 15 years ago

I think the word "open" is now just too overloaded.

I agree with this. Some time ago, the word "free" became overloaded, so today we talk about "Freedom zero," "Free as in beer," "Free as in speech," and so on. I think there's a general understanding that the word "free" is not specific enough.

It seems we're at that place with "open" as well. Good call.

bergie2• 15 years ago

It is sad that many use it in open as in license terms, while true openness of a platform is a lot more:

http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/open_source-free_software-what_we_...

mturmon• 15 years ago

This is so true. "Open" has become a software-politics analog of "freedom" in ordinary politics. An undefinable, but very good, thing. (Freedom from taxes? Freedom from poverty?)

One point of clarity, however, regarding these recent statements is that Andy Rubin helpfully gave his definition of the term:

http://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429

This definition allows much less wiggle room! It's wiggle room that Google wants back now. ;-)

masklinn2• 15 years ago

> Android is "open" to end-users

Android absolutely isn't "open" to end-users. It's not as bad as iOS, but it definitely isn't good, and it's far more open to vendors (of all stripes) than to end-users so far.

Kylekramer• 15 years ago

Isn't this recent move about changing that around?

Psyonic• 15 years ago

If second-order punditry is so worthless, why are we content to spout third-order punditry here?

ajscherer• 15 years ago

So if I go read a couple weeks worth of daring fireball, I'm not going to find any posts disagreeing with something another pundit has written?

In my experience pundits spend the majority of their time explaining their agreement or disagreement with the arguments of other pundits, so it seems odd to define that as second-order punditry.

The author of the OP probably included some overdramatic language, but I thought the meat of the post was about why he disagreed with Gruber on a specific point. That may not be interesting to you, but I don't think it is categorically a waste of time either.

podperson• 15 years ago

The post begins:

'It is getting tiresome to hear Apple fans, having long bashed Google's Android because "open" was bad, now bash Google for being somewhat less "open."'

But Gruber didn't say "open" was bad, did he? He (and others) argue that "open" is used as a synonym for "good", a virtue of itself, but that in the end you don't get something that's either "open" or "good" for pretty much any definition of "open" or "good".

Open would mean I can do anything I like to the OS (update it, customize it, replace it). In most cases I can't.

Good would mean I can have the latest OS on my phone if I want it. In most cases I can't.

Open would mean I can easily get access to the complete source code for my phone if I want it. In most cases I can't.

Seriously -- for what values of open or good do we get a big fat green tick?

It's not like Gruber is biased and other people aren't. Everyone is biased. Argue the evidence.

recoiledsnake10• 15 years ago

>Seriously -- for what values of open or good do we get a big fat green tick?

Open and good in the sense developers don't have to go through a App Store with capricious restrictions and a forced 30% cut. You can either publish on your own or go to alternate stores like Amazon App Store which will try to attract you with better terms.

Open and good in the sense that subscription providers don't have to pay a toll of 30% to Apple for nothing. Even WP7 is 'Open' in this sense.

Open and good in the sense of the variety of hardware. Eg. If you like hardware keyboards on phones you have no choice in Apple land. Even WP7 is 'Open' in this sense.

Open and good in the sense you can install whatever normal apps you want without jailbreaking. (AT&T phones are locked to the Android Market, but Android apps don't have to go through an Approval process).

rbarooah17• 15 years ago

The whole 'more open' thing leads straight to Godwin's law.

bonch3• 15 years ago

If "open" is now a marketing term to be defined individually by each entity that's exploiting it, than Google and their supporters should stop using it, because it's ultimately meaningless.

The spirit of open source is supposed to be that you have access to the Android source at all times and can do what you want with it. However, it's not an open platform if Google retains final approval over source changes by licensees and is holding up phones that just so happen to use a rival search engine like Bing. It's not an open platform if they're withholding source except to their privileged partners who get early access while others don't.

I just don't understand why so much faith is placed in this multi-billion dollar advertising company. Google is not really an open source company--their core business is a closed source, proprietary content-indexing platform that just happens to be backed by open source software.

ryandvm• 15 years ago

John Gruber has a very specific audience: people that adore Apple products.

His narrative is extremely well tuned to please these people and to keep them coming back for more. I can't fault him for his success as a niche blogger, but his material is so predictable and formulaic that I stopped reading long ago.

guywithabike• 15 years ago

If you want a tl;dr of the article, take the last bit:

Both approaches have their merits and their failings. How about we focus on that instead of which system is open or closed?

What is he referring to when he says "both approaches"? He's talking about open versus closed.

wtn• 15 years ago

I think Gruber's point is spot-on. A lot of people prefer Android because they want it to be open and open-source, and Android companies market to the public on this specific point.

So I don't think it's off-base to point out discrepancies between the ideology and the reality. Gruber would absolutely like Apple to be more open. However, in this case, it is Google that contradicted itself with words vs deeds.

nextparadigms2• 15 years ago

That's not really spot-on. Most Android users would rather see Google put a stop to deep skins and doing gross things like the carriers are doing with the Android phones by not letting you uninstall their apps, or charging you for features already built-in, and so on.

rbarooah17• 15 years ago

Are you saying most Android users don't want it to be open?

alienreborn• 15 years ago

May be few percent of customers care about Android 'openness'. Majority of people just don't care. They see android is from a trusted brand called Google and believe in the product.

joeminkie• 15 years ago

It is getting tiresome to hear Apple fans, having long bashed Google's Android because "open" was bad, now bash Google for being somewhat less "open."

From my admittedly Apple-fanboy perspective, I always thought the argument wasn't that open = bad, just that that Google shouldn't use it as a marketing point if they're not 100% open.

And Apple makes just as big a deal about the advantages of iOS being closed as Google does about the openness of Android.

Right, but with Apple closed means closed. No one says that Apple is a "almost closed" and argues they should be totally closed. Google is half-assing their definition of open — which is fine, do what you want — but people are calling BS and rightfully so. The argument should be what is better: 100% closed or less than 100% open? This is where the shades of grey come in.

roc3• 15 years ago

> "I always thought the argument wasn't that open = bad"

That's my view of things as well. The closest the arguments got to "open=bad" was: open has an increasingly-poor track record as projects trend away from tools for technical users and toward products for average consumers.

And that's certainly not to say that all Open source projects are doomed or that Android couldn't succeed; it was just an observation of results. Something proponents of Open should be familiar with. (i.e. "closed source tends to be less secure")

isleyaardvark• 15 years ago

It is getting tiresome to hear Apple fans, having long bashed Google's Android because "open" was bad, now bash Google for being somewhat less "open."

From my admittedly Apple-fanboy perspective, I always thought the argument wasn't that open = bad, just that that Google shouldn't use it as a marketing point if they're not 100% open.

Here's my admittedly Apple-fanboy perspective: Apple took a "closed" approach which helped in quality control. Google took an "open" approach which allowed others to add or modify their OS in ways that did not benefit the consumer, or just plain sucked. This resulted in multiple products that either simply lack polish or just stink to use. Google found this out the hard way and is now trying to tighten their control, and Apple's approach is being entirely vindicated.

jokermatt999• 15 years ago

I agree partly, but not entirely. Some lock down is good, such as preventing the modifications from carriers that usually users don't like (from what I've seen, at least) and delay updates. However, allowing the user choice to apply their own modifications like custom homescreens and skins is a good thing, and has actually improved the default product for me. Some control is good, but I think Apple takes it too far.

inffcs00• 15 years ago

The problem here is that Google used the word "open" as a feature of Android and marketing term against iOS/Apple. But don't forget that a lot of parts of iOS are open source and several parts of Android are closed (Google branded apps). Does the percentage of opennes matter?

Gruber might be biased but that doesn't mean he is wrong or off-base.

roc3• 15 years ago

A fair observer might allow that "Android" is still an Open source project, but only inasmuch as they explicitly identify Honeycomb as currently a closed-source fork of Android. Honeycomb may become open, but to discount the facts of today involves assumptions about future.

If our hypothetical fair observer were to disregard the assumed future altogether, things lean more toward Gruber than Google.

Google has gone out of their way to disavow pre-Honeycomb releases on tablets, and is withholding Honeycomb to only those tablet-makers who sign their agreements. They're currently doing exactly what Gruber asserts will become SOP and what they're currently doing with Honeycomb simply doesn't fit any fair definition of "Open Source" development. Not even their own.

jinushaun• 15 years ago

Honest question: Why do people listen to and retweet Gruber? Everything I've read from him is pure biased hypocritical garbage.

koko775• 15 years ago

>Any fair observer would have to conclude that Android is still "open."

In my opinion, any fair observer would have to conclude that Android is still about as open as it always was. This isn't necessarily hypocritical; I have never viewed Android as "open".

Now, personally, I think that it's more customizable and flexible because it isn't mature enough as a platform to be able to afford to lock down APIs. Not that I think that the end result of an API should be to lock it down, but orthogonality in a SDK can be very beautiful, as it is with Cocoa touch.

rbarooah17• 15 years ago

Google: "We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other. That's why we created Android, and made its source code open."

The fact that they're now restricting and controlling the innovations of other industry players by keeping the source code closed seems pretty much like the definition of hypocrisy.

rbanffy9• 15 years ago

You are still free to fork any code that was previously released under a free license. All of the source code they release can be used.

JCB_K• 15 years ago

"The biggest joke is that the Businessweek article ends with a quote from Nokia CEO and former Microsoftie Stephen Elop saying that Android is no longer open and that's why he chose the more open Windows Phone 7. YIKES! Not good company, Mr. Gruber."

All good and well, but this is just guilt by association. Very bad way to end a fairly good article.

seanx2• 15 years ago

Gruber is an Apple fundamentalist, preaching to the choir. There is only one true way and all facts will be interpreted or ignored in favour of that way.

Dissension is not allowed in his church, if you disagree with what he says then do so elsewhere.

If you need an analysis of what Apple is doing, or where they are going then he might be good at that (I don't know, I don't care) but you absolutely cannot rely on him for unbalanced coverage on anything else.

Arguing about whether google marketing is deceptive is a waste of time. ALL marketing is deceptive. Go watch an Apple keynote for example.

Arguing about whether android is "open" is also a waste of time. Open is not a bool, it's a float. If Linux is 100% and Windows is 0% then Android is maybe 60% and ios is somewhere in the single digits.

In the past 14 months, I have used WM6.5, ios, Android and Win Phone 7. The only reason I could use Android is that it is open enough that it could be installed on my HD2, a WM6.5 phone.

bonch3• 15 years ago

You can attack Gruber's position as an Apple advocate if you want, but that doesn't really address his points about Google. The thing I've taken away from this is that Android advocates are now defining openness in terms of degrees. It's no longer about being open; it's about being "more open," a vague idea that only gets to be defined by Google, the gatekeepers of Android.

Requiring licensees to agree to "non-fragmentation clauses" that give Google final approval over source changes is against the spirit of open source.

seanx2• 15 years ago

Personally, I'm not an android, or open source, advocate. I don't use it at the moment and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone else. All the phone oses I have have used are flawed to some extent and picking one is a matter of deciding which flaws you can tolerate or not notice.

Gruber doesn't care about openness either, he uses an iPhone. His argument is is simply a way to bash android without addressing anything that is substantive to most people.

Last month he was trolling that android wasn't open because motorola hadn't provided a froyo update to an older phone, completely ignoring the fact that the comunity had already provided multiple updates.

Next month he will be complaining that android isn't open because google hasn't provided the source to something else.

To most people, it doesn't matter if android is 65% or 70% open. What matters is how well it meets their needs. If openness helps meet those needs then it's important, if it doesn't then it's irrelevant.

Finally, if Gruber was interested in openness, he would allow comments on his blog. Without that, he is just a troll with a pulpit.

rbarooah17• 15 years ago

"We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other. That's why we created Android, and made its source code open."

How is Google not restricting or controlling* the innovations of other industry players?

http://source.android.com/

nexneo• 15 years ago

Honeycomb isn't desert so named well by purpose -- Sweat honey is caged in honeycomb and protected.

bonch3• 15 years ago

Google exploited the buzz of open source philosophy, so it's fascinating seeing the open source community's reaction to their stricter control over Android. Personally, I always saw the trumpeting of "openness" as an unrealistic marketing ploy.

John Gruber’s hypocritical and off-base Google attack

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