Poll - Would you pay a premium for Android updates

[GreatBigDog]

Unless we are running Linux on our home PC's we are stuck paying paying either Microsoft or Apple for the privilege of updating our computers to the latest and greatest version of their OS's.

Would you be willing to pay a premium for OS upgrades if it meant that the Manufactures / Wireless providers would continue to provide them for as long as your particular hardware could support it?

 

[mjschmidt]

I would pay up to $20 per update, but only under the conditions that:

1. it not include a manufacturer UI (unless that UI was not a part of the OS, and could easily be removed)

2. it not include any carrier pre-installed bloatware/crap unless it can easily be removed.

3. the update is available to us within 3 months of release from Google (6 months AT THE MOST!)

4. It does not block root.

 

[drifter136]

I assume we're talking official updates here, performed in a timely manner (within 2-3 months) to the Vanilla release of a new version...then yes I would. Being that Android is an open source platform and custom versions will always be available, the price has to be kept in the "no-brainer" territory for this type of business model to work, not to mention substantial scaling back of manufacturer and carrier customizations, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[nicracine]

There are two conditions for me to pay for updates :

- that they are not available for free elsewhere. If Google decides to charge for updates, sure, I will pay. However, if Rogers decides to charge for them while the rest of the world does not, there is no way in hell I will pay for it. I would rather donate to Cyanogen than pay Rogers for an update.
- that we are talking about major update, from android 2 to android 3 for example.

In your example, GBD, yes we pay for Windows updates, but not for service packs. There's an important distinction here.

Nicolas Racine

 

[GreatBigDog]

There are two conditions for me to pay for updates :

- that they are not available for free elsewhere. If Google decides to charge for updates, sure, I will pay. However, if Rogers decides to charge for them while the rest of the world does not, there is no way in hell I will pay for it. I would rather donate to Cyanogen than pay Rogers for an update.
- that we are talking about major update, from android 2 to android 3 for example.

In your example, GBD, yes we pay for Windows updates, but not for service packs. There's an important distinction here.

Nicolas Racine

You are correct, I would equate the windows "Service Packs" with the E911 update that we received or even last years 1.5 security update. That is the manufacture fixing their crappy coding errors, not feature updates.

gbd

 

[kaput]

I'd pay up to 20$ for a major update 1.5 to 2.x etc but that is only because of the current state of the market. Being a Linux user i don't pay for OS upgrades and i don't pay for different flavors of OS like home edition or office edition where the code is in but you pay the UI to toggle some options. THAT and community support is the appeal of open source. (give it a try)

Android is open source (based on Linux) which means the manufacturer doesn't pay for it and can modify as they wish. They do spend money to develop hardware specific code like drivers, but that should be accounted in the hardware cost and develop some cool UI, thats marketing costs. Rogers (and other providers) pay to add their logos, and brand to it and mostly to lock us (the phone) on their contract. So THEY should pay for the extra work involved in updating branded OS. Sadly us paying may be the way to get it faster.

 

[cezegg]

isn't paying for open source completely against the premise of open source?
i'd have no problem paying like.. 10 bucks, or maybe like a certainly yearly dues to participate in the downloading and installing of properly scheduled, REAL updates (not crippled rogers roms, not roms fixing the mistakes of their old roms that'll need to have other roms to fix those mistakes, and so on.), punctual updates, and... free cookies.

and our membership would have to come with a card!
and... maybe a secret knock.

 

[kaput]

isn't paying for open source completely against the premise of open source?

Actually, no you can sell open source programs as you wish, i don't know all rules of open sources licences or Free software licences free as speech (there are many) but the big picture is, you are free to copy distribute and modify for free or a fee as you wish as long as you give credit for the codes you didn't write yourself and make any modification available to the community. that is why you have Red Hat sold to business mostly and Fedora available for free. They are mostly the same OS.

Android is part open source (OS) and part proprietary (apps). Cyanogen mod can freely distribute their version of the OS, but had to reach an agreement with google for their apps (market, maps etc)

So charging for ROMS is within the rules, but locking up the phones so you can't flash is a bit on the Evil side in my opinion.


Licenses by Name | Open Source Initiative

 

[MagicAndroid]

I'd pay 20$ per update for the work time needed to push out the updates not the updates itself. But see if that was the case i'd expect a 99.9% bug free OS within a month of Googles release. Waiting 6 months is more along the lines of a free service.

 

[thewhitewizard]

Considering the OS is open sourcei find it unpalatable to pay for updates. But if lines had to be drawn somewhere and we had to pay some kind of premium, then it naturally follows that it should implement similarly to desktop OS's.

If you bought XP, you know that Microsoft would update XP throughout its lifecycle. This included all the service packs. Having bought XP didn't entitle you to a free copy of Vista.

Android should start using their numbered versions as the termination point for 'UPGRADES' <this is the word id use to jump from version 2 to 3>. 'UPDATeS' would constitute all the incremental 2.x updates within the version number. All of those should be free.


*edit - just noticed gbd and nicracine touched upong this earlier.