I've been an Android fan boy from day one. It was very exciting for me to see a new Open Source mobile OS running on a Linux kernel.
But today I understand Richard Stallman's stance on Free Open Source a lot more than I used to.
Even if the product you are using is Open Source, you aren't free at all unless it's FOSS. In fact, you are not any better than with a closed source system like iOS or Windows Mobile.
A couple of days ago I started getting a space notification warning. My phone was getting bloated. Fine so I decided to clear some space and removed the apps I don't use. So far so good.
But even after removing most of my apps, I was still low on space. This was mostly due to my emails, which I can't remove because I need them for work.
Then I saw the facebook app .. hm I never use it and 1.88MB for something I don't use is considerable space. So I try to uninstall it, only to discover that I cannot uninstall facebook app. My blood was starting to boil.
A quick Google search confirmed my worst fear: I need to root my phone and thus void my warranty to get rid of it. Even worst, now twitter is also part of the uninstallable "native apps".
smervincle: WTF... seriously? i can't remove Facebook from my Nexus One? that really pisses me off! ... :-( ...
...
BryanNexus1: Just don't use it.....whats the big deal?
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smervincle: @Bryan the big deal is that the choice is no longer mine whether or not a third party app on an "open" phone can be removed. It's like a contradiction. Besides being incredibly annoying to see every time I go to share something, it's just not right. Now I don't have a choice but to tolerate it until I eventually root my phone, lol
...
BryanNexus1: Smerv...I guess the choice is removed from selecting Android as a mobile OS because you have to use Android platform native apps like Clock (man I hate that thing its so annoying) and Google Voice....What is that?
Its not a contradiction as much as its a contract with social media partners that are successful. I apologize if you and Ferg are in the minority and don't want to use the apps. But therein lies the solution...CHOICE....open platforms have choice right...so choose not to use whatever app you don't want, and relax a little. Want to root your phone, go for it....
Ferg...Cluttering up the menu.....who actually uses the launcher menu rather than customizing their screens...hardly an issue....
Oh no...not a scroll gesture, you might hurt your finger.
I suggest you both customize your home screens and find it hilarious that you like things like Twitter and Google Buzz but all of a sudden Facebook is a horrible social media monolith. Interesting indeed.
Personnaly my problem with this isn't limited to the wasted space or the cluttered menus, it's about privacy.
Prior the Android 2.1 update I did uninstall the facebook application without any problems. Now it's back from nowhere and even thought I never agreed anything, this app has the permission to collect data about:
And of course it has the permission to modify/delete SD card contents, prevent phone from sleeping, write sync settings, control the vibrator, etc...
And all this shit even if 1) you never agreed to any of these and 2) you are not a facebook user.
For me, the "just don't use it" argument is a farce. This is clearly a privacy invasion imposed on anybody using an Android phone.
And as a Canadian I find this terribly scary. If the U.S. authorities wants to spy on Canadian citizen they don't even have to go through the usual legal channels anymore, they just have to subpoena Facebook, which has no choice to collaborate since it's based in the U.S.
Welcome to 1984.
To preface, I want to say the I agree with many of your concerns towards Android applications and the security settings they request from the operating system. That being said you have made a few comments that I feel need to be corrected.
Primarily I believe you are mistaken in where you are pointing your frustration towards the inability to perform tasks such as remove an application from your Android phone. The reason you are unable to do this is not due to a lack of control or freedom over the operating system itself; in reality the functionality is being taken away from you by the vendor of your Android phone.
Due to the amount of freedom allowed by the Android operating system a phone vendor has the freedom to manipulate and create their own version of the operating system and distribute that to their customers. It is that redistribution of a now-manipulated operating system, one that has revoked the ability to remove an application, that is frustrating you.
To summarize, you are using an Android operating system that (due to the freedom allowed by Android) a company has chosen to remove functionality from. Therefore your complaint is with your vendor, not with Android as a whole.
-BrokenRadix
P.S: I believe you made a note on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/l66al/android_and_the_false_promises_of_openness/) about rooting one's device and the legality of it. You stated,
"You must root your device, something that void your warranty and will most likely be illegal soon"
I wanted to inform you that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has successfully pushed to make rooting your Android phone legal in the United States, which has the potential to set a powerful legal precedent internationally.
-BrokenRadix
I have to agree that my carrier is more to blame than Google or Android. After all, the facebook app isn't in the android source tree. It was introduced and locked in by my carrier.
My grippe is more about Android being touted left and right as a the first Open mobile platform while when it reaches the end user it's been locked by the carrier.
But indeed, my diatribe should have been more targeted to my carrier.
I know. But I also know that carriers aren't happy with this decision and they will do whatever they can to make it hard or illegal for their customers to root their phone, either with technical or legal means (ex. with lobbying).
I suspect the Android source licensing terms allow carriers to close-source their customized distributions and that's what is causing this kind of problem.
Interestingly enough, iOS doesn't have this problem. There is no bloatware installed by default.
What you are experiencing is not Google or Android's fault. It is the fault of your phone's manufacturer, because you buy a phone from a company it means that they have the self-given right to add bloat-ware, just like when you buy a PC from a brand.
If you want a completely clean Android system, there is literally nothing stopping you from grabbing the source code, looking at it, learning from it, changing it, compiling it and distributing it. That, and that alone is what defines open software.
@Vishnu: iOS isn't open. Not even close. Not even a bit. I think I'd run out of space in this textbox before I finished enumerating the ways iOS isn't open.
This has gotten som attention on Reddit and HN. Which only proves that aggregating channels doesn't work. Due to the fact provided by BrokenRadix above, I think that this whole article (and especially its title) is based on a crucial factual error, and should be updated to replace "Android" with the name of your mobile phone manufacturer. This to prevent casting a shadow on Android as a platform which, in this case, has nothing to do with your concerns. I have a default (non-rooted) Nexus S and was in fact able to uninstall the Facebook app right now. I installed the FB app again, and was properly asked about permission to access my data.
It's worse.
On my Android (A Motorola Milestone), "low space" means you can no longer receive SMS messages (Persumably becuase there is no space left to store them).
You need to free quite a lot of space just to get rid of this message...
It is still because of a problem with Android. I mean the android licensing.
@Krish Ashok: I'd love to get rid of Stocks, Game Center, YouTube, Weather, and other assorted apps that I never use and will never use.
It's very convenient to blame the device maker in this argument as it continues to support the position that Google is blameless and Android is open. Neither is entirely true.
Google should stipulate that this sort of modification to Android is out of bounds. Google should mandate that the user is always in control of the install apps.
Google leveraged their dominance in the web advertising to start to build a mobile OS that would presumably help them become the dominate mobile OS provider. Google, the advertising company, wants to collect your data (arguably anonymously) to further power it's advertising engine. Your basic needs as a user are second to that. Your primary interface for user issues is your carrier who also has to answer to the device maker, not Google. If that's what open is to YOU, so be it.
Are you sure rooting your phone voids your warranty? I'm not sure about Canadian consumer laws but that sounds dubious, to say the least. Even if that's what the phone manufacturer tells you they may need to honor warranties anyway. (Also, you could just un-root it before sending it in.)
You really need to have administrative capabilities if there should be any point of using an open operating system. One step further is to use an openly developed firmware such as Cyanogen but that's probably even more problematic warranty-wise. I can recommend it however.
@Jim Google can't stop manufacturers (or anyone) from doing what they want with Android source, it's freely available to anyone (you might say that is it open?).
Google is not open, and devices made by third parties are not open, but Android is open.
If you want to buy an ugly open source hardware phone or tablet, do it. Then checkout Android, and compile it for a few hours. Then you get the fun job of debugging everything until it works (yay, more compilations and all sorts of driver fiddling I have no idea about!). After all that fuss you still won't have the Google licensed software (G-mail, calendar, market etc) so you have to steal that from somewhere on the internet...
The alternative is to buy a Nexus phone direct from Google, they will still be keeping tabs on you but that's why god invented tinfoil. If you get any other non "vanilla" Android phone, unfortunately you lose the right to complain about open because it isn't really Android any more. Too many fingers were stuck in the pie before you got to take a bite and now its gross.
The Nexus One is built to Google specs --so it isn't an ordinary Android phone-- if your phone doesn't let you delete Facebook, it's not the carrier or manufacturer that set that restriction, it's Goigle.
You can always change the ROM and install CyanogenMod. The best ROM for Android ever created. Using Open Source software you have the freedom to change every single bit in the device and the software that runs in the device. Changing those things results in voiding the warranty and that is because Google cannot handle what people do with their devices!
Bryan sounds like a pro state troll :))
There is much more about Android that does not meet open source definitions than having to root your phone to get rid of apps. 1. They don't provide all of the source and never have. In the case of Honeycomb they provide none. 2. They allow no contributions to the source.
3. The handset manufacturers and carriers dictate what is on the phone and interface. Google doesn't care. 4. Saying all you have to do is root your phone and violate your warranty is ludicrous. Thats fanboy territory there.
Android is the most closed "open source" project in history. Google doesnt care about anything but sending you ads and monetizing your activity. You are the product. You are not the customer.
But hey you can get a smartphone really cheap or even free so i guess that makes it worth all the above..
Nexus 1 = "Pure Android"
Replicant is a distribution of Android that is 100% Free Software.
Most of Android is licensed freely under the Apache License 2.0. The Linux core is mostly Free Software under the GPLv2. However, there are numerous components of the default software stack on the devices that are proprietary software. Most notably, nearly any component that touches the hardware directly is proprietary software.
We are not experts in embedded devices; we are just enthusiastic hackers that are giving a try.
Currently we have this blog and a Trac instance, both graciously donated by OSU-OSL.
Replicant was born from a collaboration between activists of Software Freedom Conservancy and LibrePlanet Italia.
http://replicant.us
I cant uninstall it on my phone either. wtf?
This is really disappointing. Especially that i like Google :-(
Removing or uninstalling regular Android apps is quite easy but when it comes to system apps, the process does not work the way it does for regular apps. That's why i think that your apps which you are trying to uninstall must have some common file with system files. Fortunately, there is a direct way of removing / uninstalling system apps that involves deleting their files directly. Try this may be it will helps you.
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