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Google, Stop! Just PERFECT It!

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tgm1024 said:
I believe that *is* Google's fault. They left the licensing far too open....that was theirs to control from the beginning. Open source or not, they own the brand, and they could have legally locked down whether or not phones conform to that brand.
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You don't understand how open source licenses work.

There is nothing wrong with infinite tailoring, (optional apps, etc.) but it should not come with arbitrary immutable stuff out of the box by manufacturers.
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Well, in a perfect world...
 
mikedt said:
Probably because NFL pays the manufacturer and/or carrier to embed their app on the phone. An agreement between NFL and Motorola, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T or whatever.
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Yep. There should be tighter control over that kind of nonsense: disallowing the trademark "Android" if certain rules were broken.

I think that's how Linux handles this:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/trademark
They require sub-licenses for having the name there, and can refuse them.

One I've come across recently is Facebook that can't be uninstalled, not without rooting. FB on a phone is useless here, yet it was draining the battery, using mobile data and lagging the phone.
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YIKES---What phone had that?
 
zuben el genub said:
That said - when a new version of Android comes out I wish that some reviewer would give you the whole picture. It's just usually how the "fluff" will work. I read rumors about ICS enabling you to get rid of/not run what you don't need. Never saw any comments about that, how it worked, etc. It does do what it says on the Nexus, but how about a branded phone?
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Unless you root the phone, you can't get rid of (i.e., uninstall) the bloat, but you can in ICS disable system apps you don't want running ever.
 
I had a European Galaxy 3 (bought unlocked) and the TMO SGS4G. Both had Facebook which you could not remove unless you rooted. I think it's the same with tablets. I've got stuff on wifi Acer that I don't want. And since the unlocked phones work all over the EU, FB had to be put there by Samsung.

FB was the first thing removed when I rooted. So you can freeze carrier bloat on rooted ICS phone? I thought that was why carriers were slower to update.

Android isn't the only one. I also had an unlocked Nokia. You couldn't remove it from that phone either. You can root a Symbian phone.
 
zuben el genub said:
I had a European Galaxy 3 (bought unlocked) and the TMO SGS4G. Both had Facebook which you could not remove unless you rooted. I think it's the same with tablets. I've got stuff on wifi Acer that I don't want. And since the unlocked phones work all over the EU, FB had to be put there by Samsung.

FB was the first thing removed when I rooted. So you can freeze carrier bloat on rooted ICS phone? I thought that was why carriers were slower to update.

Android isn't the only one. I also had an unlocked Nokia. You couldn't remove it from that phone either. You can root a Symbian phone.
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That would drive me bonkers. I can't stand the facebook app and it's invasive permissions.
 
tgm1024 said:
Yep. There should be tighter control over that kind of nonsense: disallowing the trademark "Android" if certain rules were broken.

I think that's how Linux handles this:
Linux Trademark Institute | The Linux Foundation
They require sub-licenses for having the name there, and can refuse them.
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Quite a few GNU/Linux distros don't even mention "Linux", unless one goes looking for it. E.g. Ubuntu Homepage | Ubuntu The Ubuntu operating system, no mention at all of Linux on the front page.

tgm1024 said:
YIKES---What phone had that?
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LG T500s bought in Hong Kong from 3. FB is blocked/censored in Mainland China, accessible in HK. Chinese people will often buy phones, tech and lux products in HK, because prices tend to be significantly lower there than in the Mainland.

What the phone's FB app seemed to be doing was trying to ping FB. FB is unreachable and it wouldn't take NO for an answer.

BTW one of the toughest customs I've ever seen is at Beijing airport with flights from HK, they search everyone and everything there. People smuggling iPhones mainly.
 
mikedt said:
Quite a few GNU/Linux distros don't even mention "Linux", unless one goes looking for it. E.g. Ubuntu Homepage | Ubuntu The Ubuntu operating system, no mention at all of Linux on the front page.
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If their trademark is mentioned anywhere as a component their product then it's got to be sub-licensed (and they follow the rules). I assume that would include things like their initial press releases, etc.

Doesn't matter in this case though, because "Android" is all over the place on the phones I've seen at stores.

Trademarks are completely different entities than open source agreements. I shudder at what would happen otherwise. Someone eventually selling "The NAZI Linux"....aye yi yi...
LG T500s bought in Hong Kong from 3. FB is blocked/censored in Mainland China, accessible in HK. Chinese people will often buy phones, tech and lux products in HK, because prices tend to be significantly lower there than in the Mainland.

What the phone's FB app seemed to be doing was trying to ping FB. FB is unreachable and it wouldn't take NO for an answer.
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Arrrrrgh! That's programing 101, and I've seen that mistake made many times in my life by even senior engineers. It's almost certainly from not testing your own software outside of the ideal conditions of the lab.
 
karandpr said:
@tgm1024
There is a North Korean Linux you know ....
Red Star OS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
North Korean Economy Watch Blog Archive DPRK’s Linux OS: Red Star

linux is just the kernel not the Operating system on it's own .
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I've heard this before. It's both true and not true, and I'm not up for that particular argument: I don't see the point. The usage of "operating system" with Linux is pretty clear.

Here: https://www.linux.com/learn/resourc...ere-an-overview-of-the-linux-operating-system

You'll also see it at wikipedia if you like that: Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But yes, you can see references to it not being an OS. The purists like to say Linux *and* GNU, and I couldn't care less. Do you really?

Mentioning Linux is like saying MacOSX should mention Unix on their homepage ...
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I think you may have completely misread what I said. I didn't say that they had to mention Linux. I said that if they did, they had to sub-license it. Look at the linux trademark sub-licensing link I gave you.

If phone manufacturers wanted to use the word "Android" (Most seem to), Google could have maintained control over the use of it and denied it to whomever didn't follow whatever rules they set up. I can only guess that it was in their interest to not establish certain rules. Entirely up to Google with who gets to use their trademark; Entirely up to Google as to whatever restraints they want. "Open Source" does not give away a trademark.

Please pay attention to Google's take on their Android trademark.
Android - Brand Guidelines
OEM's need permission to use it, but google also allowed people to use it as a "descriptor", so they left it unnecessarily loose in that particular regard. Up to them.
 
tgm1024 said:
Trademarks are completely different entities than open source agreements. I shudder at what would happen otherwise. Someone eventually selling "The NAZI Linux"....aye yi yi...
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There's Hannah Montana Linux.. :D
Hannah Montana Linux
Been around for a while apparently. Nice piece of Disney trademark and copyright infringement here one thinks. It's only a themed Kubuntu distro though.
hml.2.jpg
 
karandpr said:
@tgm1024
There is a North Korean Linux you know ....
Red Star OS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
North Korean Economy Watch Blog Archive DPRK’s Linux OS: Red Star
...
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There's also a Red Flag Linux from here in China.
Red Flag Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Red Flag Software Co.,Ltd
The People's Operating System. I've tried it, it's not very good.

Here's another obscure one...
Soyombo Mongolian Linux
Soyombo Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
:: OpenMN :: - ????? ??????
Open source support for Mongolian is actually very poor at the moment. To do anything practical with Mongolian, one must be using Windows.
 
mikedt said:
There's also a Red Flag Linux from here in China.
Red Flag Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Red Flag Software Co.,Ltd
The People's Operating System. I've tried it, it's not very good.

Here's another obscure one...
Soyombo Mongolian Linux
Soyombo Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
:: OpenMN :: - ????? ??????
Open source support for Mongolian is actually very poor at the moment. To do anything practical with Mongolian, one must be using Windows.
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Wow; it seems like there's either no interest in pursuing this, or no recourse for them out there. I wonder what the Linux Foundation's take on this is. Are overseas trademarks in Asia as dicey as they used to be? North Korea is a black box, and China's companies infringe on patents left and right, but I wonder of the trademarks.
 
tgm1024 said:
Wow; it seems like there's either no interest in pursuing this, or no recourse for them out there. I wonder what the Linux Foundation's take on this is. Are overseas trademarks in Asia as dicey as they used to be?
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Very much so, especially in PRC, Cambodia, Lao, Vietnam etc.

tgm1024 said:
North Korea is a black box, and China's companies infringe on patents left and right, but I wonder of the trademarks.
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Trademark and copyright infringement are rampant, live here for a while though, you soon get used to it.

BTW I've never actually seen a PC with Red Flag Linux on it, I've seen Ubuntu a few times though. China very much runs on pirated XP.
 
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