Android SDK is now proprietary

http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/01/03/android-sdk-is-now-proprietary-replicant-to-the-rescue/

by Fletch137 • 14 years ago

152 70 14 years ago

blogs.fsfe.org

btian2• 14 years ago

What bullshit. Does requiring users to agree to GPL or LGPL license make a software non-free?

curiousdannii• 14 years ago

Users of GPL/LGPL don't have to agree to anything. Only distributors of GPL/LGPL software do.

reidrac• 14 years ago

Yes, that's true.

Most people misunderstand the license, being my favourite:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePos...

EDIT: just in case... "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program.", point 9 of the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

jpalomaki2• 14 years ago

Does not seem to be GPL, here's just one clause:

3.4 You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK.

You end up making quite broad promises (IMHO) by just clicking through to download the SDK.

marshray2• 14 years ago

If only Sun had thought to include those magic words "You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Java" in the JDK/JRE download web pages then Sun v. Microsoft and Oracle v. Google would have turned out differently?

If not, then what does this wording even mean in practice?

kryptiskt• 14 years ago

You don't think this kind of open-ended language makes it pretty non-free:

"You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK."

Any action? Promoting? Does this mean that I can't write a blog post about developing for Kindle Fire? Hell, can I even buy a Kindle Fire and not break these terms (or install Cyanogenmod) seeing that it is just "including but not limited to" the SDK itself?

Tyrannosaurs• 14 years ago

You don't have to agree to the GPL to use the software - it explicitly states this - just to redistribute or modify it.

marshray2• 14 years ago

Somewhere long ago someone raised the point that the GPL doesn't actually give you the right to use the covered software.

Is it conceivable that a company could offer source via GPL yet demand a separate license for the right to use it?

jpalomaki2• 14 years ago

At least I'm having problems accessing the site. Page from Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LPBhLpm...

aioprisan• 14 years ago

so if you build something based on Android and want to expose some functionality to that system but customize it, you can't do it on top of the Android SDK?

codeflo4• 14 years ago

At first I thought this is hyperbole, but there's an anti-forking clause in the license agreement:

> "3.4 You agree that you will not take any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android, including but not limited to distributing, participating in the creation of, or promoting in any way a software development kit derived from the SDK."

IANAL, but this seems to be designed to prevent projects like the Kindle Fire from building their own ecosystem on Google's code. Good for Google I guess, but no longer in the spirit of open source.

untog• 14 years ago

"Google's code" is a little vague, though. You can use the code for Android (which the Fire indeed does), you just can't use Google's first-party apps.

codeflo4• 14 years ago

Are you sure? This license covers the SDK, not the first-party apps. At the very least, this agreement could prevent them from adding any Kindle-specific extensions to the API.

(This point is a bit moot because the Fire codebase was presumably forked from an older version of Android without this license change.)

mvanga• 14 years ago

What does such a clause might mean to projects like Cyanogenmod?

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

We have been through this many times before here. This is meant to prevent forks that break compatibility. Like that chinese company that made their "own" phone OS. That was just a fork of Android, but not perfectly compatible with the Android SDK. It causes fragmentation in the sense that it forces developers to rewrite apps for it because there are differences in the SDK.

Amazon, Cyanogen, OUYA etc are all fine.

codeflo4• 14 years ago

I'm sure that's a good thing for the Android ecosystem. I'm not against that on priciple (that is to say, I'm not an open-source zealot). I'm just saying that a having single entity with the sole right to change the API is essentially the definition of a closed system.

revscat• 14 years ago

I'm sure there are justifications for this clause, but that doesn't change the fact that you can no longer fork the code, and that API changes are under the control of a single entity.

This is almost the textbook definition of closed software.

lnanek22• 14 years ago

The whole point of free software, though, is that you can fork it and customize and use it as you like. If someone wants to fork Android to run on stoves, and they have to break compatibility to do that, if it was free software it would support and allow that. Instead you aren't even allowed to use the SDK or let developers use the SDK if you do so. You can't really claim Android is open or free anymore now, just that it uses a few free pieces, which are being taken away wherever possible.

Zigurd• 14 years ago

> This is meant to prevent forks that break compatibility. Like that chinese company that made their "own" phone OS. That was just a fork of Android, but not perfectly compatible with the Android SDK.

I don't see a distinction between what Aliyun is doing and what Amazon, OPhone, and Cyanogen are doing. Aliyun was, after all, accused of making Android apps available for Aliyun without the developers' OK. So Aliyun is as compatible as Kindle Fire.

There might be some reason Aliyun is different, but, so far, nobody has actually shown such a difference.

What's bad about this is that Google is putting a fence around code they have made available under the Apache license.

yock• 14 years ago

I wonder if that's why we're seeing stories like this? http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/01/03/samsung-con...

Samsung has amassed quite a history, in a very short amount of time, of heavily customizing Android for their devices. That might at least partially explain why they seem willing to gamble on their own in-house OS rather than continue with Android.

spiralpolitik• 14 years ago

Could you blame them ? The writing started to appear on the wall when Google started selling the Nexus 7 and 10 at cost making 90% remaining Android tablets (including most of Samsung's tablet line) dead in the water with the Nexus 4 being another nail in that coffin.

cma• 14 years ago

Umm, the Nexus 10 is made by Samsung...

hexagonc2• 14 years ago

Android SDK != Android. Not saying whether this move by Google is good or bad, just pointing out an important difference. You can still fork the Android source code to your heart's content, you just have to write your own toolchain for building and developing with it.

barik2• 14 years ago

This is an important but nuanced point that seems to be getting glossed over. There is Android SDK [1] which has the terms and conditions. There is Android Open Source Project [2], from which you can easily download the source using git, and is licensed under the Apache Software License 2.0.

This is not all that different from what many open source providers do (e.g., RedHat). If you want their official binaries, there are sometimes additional restrictions, but you are welcome to compile the source on your own or find a third-party who will provide you with unofficial builds (in this analogy, CentOS).

[1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

[2] http://source.android.com/index.html

codeflo4• 14 years ago

Maybe you can, but the way the license is written, you essentially agree not to ever do that:

Now, IANAL and maybe that doesn't mean what I think it means. To me it sounds like you're signing a non-compete agreement just by downloading the SDK.

tarkin22• 14 years ago

What if you fork it, and do NOT call the project anything related to Android?

That way, you won't be fragmenting Android - you'll be creating something new.

Then, should Android even stagnate, someone could take the source and create a new mobile platform, similar to, but not a different version of, Android.

What is and what is not a fragmentation of Android seems to be the key here.

marcusf• 14 years ago

That's in the Android SDK right? So you don't need to agree to that, and you can still fork off the Android code and build your own toolchain?

hexagonc2• 14 years ago

These terms do not apply to the Android source code, only the "Android SDK". This is like the difference between the JDK and source code to the Java standard class library. The SDK only contains tools for developing Android applications, like a compiler of the Java-like Android source code into Dalvik bytecode, a debugger, Eclipse plugin, etc. You can still get the sourcecode here: http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html without accepting the license you quoted.

mikehotel• 14 years ago

From the terms and conditions:

3.3 You may not use the SDK for any purpose not expressly permitted by this License Agreement. Except to the extent required by applicable third party licenses, you may not: (a) copy (except for backup purposes), modify, adapt, redistribute, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works of the SDK or any part of the SDK; or (b) load any part of the SDK onto a mobile handset or any other hardware device except a personal computer, combine any part of the SDK with other software, or distribute any software or device incorporating a part of the SDK.

3.5 Use, reproduction and distribution of components of the SDK licensed under an open source software license are governed solely by the terms of that open source software license and not this License Agreement.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

Hold on a minute.

While the Android SDK terms have changed over the years (most notably with the recent "anti-fragmentation" clause), that's not what the post is talking about. Instead, the post is identifying the Android SDK as non-free because you have to agree to Google's Terms and Conditions in order to use it at all. That's absolutely correct, however...

As someone who downloaded the original SDK in 2007, I can tell you that this was true from the beginning. Sadly the Wayback Machine is having trouble retrieving their first crawl of the terms (February 2009), but here's a crawl from January 2010 that shows that the offending clause has been there for at least 3 years: http://web.archive.org/web/20100111025451/http://developer.a...

A more accurate title would be: Google's Android SDK has always been proprietary, but I only just noticed.

Edit: Based on the date at the bottom of the wayback page, the linked version of the agreement dates back to April 2009.

taeric• 14 years ago

The point may be that agreeing to their terms and conditions previously did not result in one losing any rights.

Not sure, though.

fpgeek3• 14 years ago

One of the problematic sections others in this thread have mentioned dates back to at least April 2009:

"3.3 Except to the extent required by applicable third party licenses, you may not copy (except for backup purposes), modify, adapt, redistribute, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works of the SDK or any part of the SDK. Except to the extent required by applicable third party licenses, you may not load any part of the SDK onto a mobile handset or any other hardware device except a personal computer, combine any part of the SDK with other software, or distribute any software or device incorporating a part of the SDK."

Here are some more rights you were giving up back then:

"4.3 You agree that if you use the SDK to develop applications for general public users, you will protect the privacy and legal rights of those users. If the users provide you with user names, passwords, or other login information or personal information, your must make the users aware that the information will be available to your application, and you must provide legally adequate privacy notice and protection for those users. If your application stores personal or sensitive information provided by users, it must do so securely. If the user provides your application with Google Account information, your application may only use that information to access the user's Google Account when, and for the limited purposes for which, the user has given you permission to do so.

4.4 You agree that you will not engage in any activity with the SDK, including the development or distribution of an application, that interferes with, disrupts, damages, or accesses in an unauthorized manner the servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Google or any mobile communications carrier."

At first glance, I don't think 4.3 or 4.4 is unreasonable (3.3 is more complicated), but those terms are clearly non-free. Free means free to use for any purpose (including trying to invade people's privacy or taking down cell networks) because different people will reasonably disagree about what purposes are and aren't legitimate.

yk• 14 years ago

" 3.3 You may not use the SDK for any purpose not expressly permitted by this License Agreement. Except to the extent required by applicable third party licenses, you may not: (a) copy (except for backup purposes), modify, adapt, redistribute, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or create derivative works of the SDK or any part of the SDK;"

The part about not being allowed to reverse engineer seems to be the part of the license, which is most against free software principles. So IANAL, but actually understanding what a software does is, IMHO, the core of FOSS.

lnanek22• 14 years ago

Another interesting step in this direction is that Google stopped listing third party SDK add-ons in the Android SDK manager. They have to be added manually as a URL now, which means far, far fewer developers will ever use a third party SDK add-on.

It's sad, but I think it really hurt Google that they pushed tablets so hard and so long and pretty much failed at that market where amazon kicked ass. So business reasons seem to have forced them to kill Android as open and free. Reminds me a lot of this recent post about all the platforms closing up to try to squeeze more money out of mobile as web revenues dry up: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/29/unnatural-acts-and-the-rise...

Google's bread and butter has always been web ads, and it is losing that with the mobile revolution. Now amazon came along and customized Android, and took a large share of the mobile money that Google was expecting. I do really hate the new Google Play. It is constantly showing books and movies and music in my face when I want apps and app search results directly. You can tell they are being pressured to deliver revenue at the cost of user experiences and pushed out a poor man's clone of amazon business model.

vetinari• 14 years ago

Not true. I recently installed Android SDK on a new computer and the SDK manager had bunch of third-party repositories already added. Heck, the hardware acceleration of the emulator under Windows requires Intel's repository for the HAXM installation and x86 images.

TallGuyShort• 14 years ago

As far as I can tell, Android has always been proprietary except for the parts they were required to release under the GPL (like the kernel). Their GUI libraries were closed source (at least when I was tinkering with Android), and clauses like this have been in their terms for a long time. Sure, they look more open than Apple, but Android is a long way from being as open as the desktop Linux distros and BSD systems.

zurn• 14 years ago

Parts of the graphics/GUI stack are closed source, mostly the lower level parts like the OpenGL implementations. Also codecs, camera sw etc are closed source.

rst• 14 years ago

Not correct. AOSP source code has always included full source for android.view., android.widget., and so forth. Which are, by the way, Apache-licensed, not GPL. If you'd like to look for yourself, it's here:

https://github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base

in the "core/java" subdirectory.

In recent releases (4.x, a/k/a ICS and later), some of the low-level GPU drivers are included as binary blobs, but the GUI libraries built on top of them remain, at the very least, source-available.

capo• 14 years ago

Google's blogpost about vendor compatability: http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-imp...

happywolf• 14 years ago

Sorry to sound like a troll. But I am always confused by this movement on free software. Make no mistake: I totally respect choices of certain individuals whom contribute to free software like Linux, they have made the software a better place, just like those philanthropists out there whom make the world a little bit less cruel. However for those who decide not to, I don't see the reason to demand for anything, even in this case Google which may have changed its decisions. All effort will need money, and I really don't see there is free lunch in this world. Am I missing anything?

barraponto• 14 years ago

What does this mean for Cordova/PhoneGap?

ecopoesis2• 14 years ago

Very amusing. Didn't Google just fight, and win, a court case with Oracle about forking Java into the Android SDK?

So it's not OK for Oracle to prevent Java fragmentation, but it is OK for Google to prevent Android fragmentation.

Apparently "don't be evil" is more nuanced then I thought.

wmf3• 14 years ago

Google didn't use Oracle's code, and I guess you can fragment Android as much as you want as long as you don't use any of Google's code.

Dylan168072• 14 years ago

Uh I think you got the words "SDK" and "API" mixed up.

Also preventing fragmentation is a goal, not an action. Oracle did legally abusive things, google hasn't.

ecopoesis2• 14 years ago

Both Oracle and Google are trying to protect their IP from fragmentation. Google changing the SDK license is just as much of a action as Oracle suing Google over their copying of the API. We're just earlier in the process with Android.

olleicua• 14 years ago

All the more reason to back Ubuntu on phones.

neya• 14 years ago

Oh boy, I can't wait to see how this would be purposefully re-written and bastardized by TechCrunch (or by MG Seigler himself) saying how iOS is much better in the end, because both of some random reason.

JohnFromBuffalo• 14 years ago

>ActivityManager.isUserAMonkey() >>Log.WTF()

Android SDK is now proprietary

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