Dan Gillmor in Salon, about what telcos are doing to handsets running the ‘open source’ Android OS:
The emboldened carriers have started loading all kinds of “crapware” — apps from partner companies that can’t be removed in standard configurations and that can slow down the devices. (For that matter, Google itself has done this with the Nexus One and Android, by putting unremovable apps into the operating system updates.)
Then there’s this complaint on The Consumerist:
What I am writing about is Verizon’s deplorable, and borderline unethical, inclusion of scads of bloatware and adware applications on this device, which in and of itself is a disgusting practice by an OEM, be it smartphones, desktops, laptops or any other related type of device, but made all the more unacceptable by the fact that there is no possible way of removing said applications. Dare I remind you that these devices we purchase from you are our property? To do with as we see fit?
But Open Source software’s Achilles heel has always been distribution. As long as the software relies on intermediaries for getting into the hands of the general population, its very open source nature leaves vulnerable to being meddled with – in ways not exactly beneficial to the ‘end user’.
Back in July last year, I’d written about open source projects:
- Commercial entities, each with its own USP will pick, modify and integrate portions of the project into their own products. This is what’s happening with Firefox… its best features and technology will probably find their way into more popular commercially-backed browsers…
And/or the vanilla Open Source product will have adware/spyware/stay-foreverware/bundleware tacked on to it. This is what’s happening with Android.
And it’s too much for most folks to get rid of stuff like this – ‘jailbreak’ your Android phone, download ‘plain vanilla’ updates – not the ones from your carrier, and suchlike. Even for the tech geeks, it’s a fight, and it’s annoying. There’s no easy way out of this – whether closed-source (Windows Mobile, RIM) or open-source, whether PC or mobile – new devices have always shipped with unsolicited rubbish. BUT
A smart carrier will very soon have an opportunity to endear itself to vast numbers of Android refugees by simply not loading crapware. By golly. What things have come to.