About a month ago, I installed a wonderful thing on my G1 called CyanogenMOD. Named after its developer, a man who goes by the pseudonym Cyanogen, CyanogenMOD takes the free and open source Android operating system included with the G1 and makes it run faster, look better, and save storage space. After installing it, my G1 barely ever felt sluggish, all of the space-hogging applications could be stored on my spacious 8 GB memory card, and the interface improvements made it so much more of a joy to use. I’m now happily using all of the Google services that make Google their money much more often than I had before, and my phone would be too sluggish for me to make Google money nearly as much if I had to go back. The 30,000+ people who have also downloaded and installed CyanogenMOD probably agree.
So, naturally, Google is showing Cyanogen their thanks for increasing the Google-use of 30,000 people by sending him a Cease and Desist letter. Wait, what?
Well, apparently some of Google’s applications aren’t open source, such as the Android Market (which allows you to give Google money indirectly by buying apps from developers, who then give a portion of their money to Google). Sure, you can easily download and install these apps yourself from the freely available developer repository, but Cyanogen had the audacity to save 30,000 end users the trouble of doing all that just so they could continue using Google’s products and making them money. That constitutes “distribution,” which only licensed developers who sent in $25 and the filled-out form from the back of the comic book work for Open Handset Alliance members can do. Never mind that there aren’t any alternatives to many of these applications, and they’re kind of essential for a lot of Android’s usefulness.
Admittedly, under the current Jurassic-era copyright law, Google has the legal right to do this. Cyanogen does not have the resources to license their software, thus he does not have the license to distribute it. But considering that Android, as a whole, is a free and open source operating system, and that Google has nothing to lose from CyanogenMOD and much to gain, this is a real dick move by the “Don’t Be Evil” company.
The Annoying iPhone App Process Was All Part of Apple’s Master Plan To Make Developers Build Web Apps
Robert Scoble just Sc-c-c-cobleized us with this post speculating that iPhone app developers, fed up with the App Store approval process, are abandoning apps in favor of websites that do the same thing.
That sounds like a really great idea, doesn’t it. You know who else thought so? Steve Jobs:
But then the developers were all like, “Nooooooooo!” and Apple was all like, “Fiiiiine!” in October 2007 and announced a way to build native apps. But submitting an app to the App Store and going through the approval process is annoying as hell for developers, so they’re getting around that by doing what Apple wanted them to do anyway in the first place.
That Steve Jobs sure is a crafty one.