is free software here to stay?

„This will be the year of Linux on the desktop“

The Netbook backdoor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ASUS_Eee_White_Alt.jpg

The Netbook backdoor

DENIED BY USERShttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ASUS_Eee_White_Alt.jpg

http://www.zazzle.com/i_love_smart_phones_hat-148564865729429126

Android: 36%

Symbian: 27%

IOS: 17%

RIM: 13%

Microsoft: 4%

Others: 3%

Smartphone Market Share Q1 2011

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1689814

Android: 10%

Symbian: 44%

IOS: 15%

RIM: 20%

Microsoft: 7%

Others: 4%

Smartphone Market Share Q1 2010

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1689814

Hardware

Software/Apps

Operating System

●Completely proprietary (besides some parts)●That's it

Operating system

Dev tools

●iOS SDK: Developer program fee ($99/year)●Xcode (Objective-C)●Mac only

Apps/Ecosystem

●Only on Apple's App Store●Not GPL-compatible („Usage Rules“)●The Usage Rules are very scary for every Free Software developer●Open Source software exists nevertheless

Apps/Ecosystem

Fun fact: The Developer Program license agreement does explicitely forbid you to use the location services API for fleet management.

Operating system

●First proprietary, then open, then proprietary again●Source code not available●No political backing by Nokia anymore

Symbian

Operating system

How many points out of 100 do you think Android would score in a test auditing its openness?

Operating system

●Most parts licensed under GPL (Linux), LGPL (WebKit) and Apache License (Android specific components)●Trademark owned by Google●Source code released „at will“ by Google●Officially maintained by Open Handset Alliance which is not a legal entity

Operating system

●Development behind closed doors●Linux kernel forked without merging back (who's to blame here?)●There exists a Contributor Agreement though it is highly unlikely that many 3rd party contributors exist●Very good documentation●No public Roadmap●Closed apps like Gmail and Market

Operating system

Fun fact: Android scored 23 out of 100 points in the Open Governance Index

http://www.visionmobile.com/research.php#OGI

Dev tools

●SDK: Can be freely downloaded, source in repo only●Win, Mac, Linux●ADT plugin for Eclipse●NDK: For C or C++ development

Apps/Ecosystem

●Android Market: central app repo●Installation of apps directly is possible (easily)●Market is GPL-compatible

Vendor ecosystem

●HTC: Sense UI is now (probably) open source●Motorola: Proudly presented by Google●Samsung: Unlocked bootloaders? Hired Cyanogen

==> All in all, vendors have not much to say

Patent craze

http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/index.php/mobile-patent-suits-graphic-of-the-day/

http://esearch.oami.europa.eu/copla/design/data/000181607-0001

http://esearch.oami.europa.eu/copla/design/data/000181607-0001

Is there a way towards truly open smartphone OSes?

Not as long as patent and related laws are revised

categorically!

A Free OS needs to be governed by a community of users,

developers and vendors; not by a single company

The Web is the only truly open, device-independent platform

Browsers in smartphones are very powerful (in terms of

performance)

Access to phone functions

●Accelerometer/Orientation => DeviceOrientation (W3C)●Location => Geolocation API (W3C)●Camera/Audio => HTML Media Capture (W3C)●3D capabilities => WebGL (W3C)●Offline apps => Offline web applications (W3C)●...

Most probably 50% of all native smartphone apps could very well be implemented as Web

Applications

Mozilla is one of the most important driving forces behind

this

What are the major barriers for a wider distribution of web apps

instead of native apps?

●Finding apps●Launching apps

Enter Mozilla's Web Apps spec:

https://apps.mozillalabs.com/

Allows devs to let the user install their website into his

browser

The Web is the future of mobile Free Software!

Think about it when starting your next mobile software

project...