Android is a free operating system. This is what many commit and what almost all of us know about Android and it seems that many wrongly associate the word free with free and also it is not known exactly what kind of freedom it has Android. Maybe the kind of freedom you have Android is not what many expect or think and we may even be wrong and Android is not free software.
The different distributions of operating systems based on Linux, like Android, are mostly free and are distributed under certain licenses that, to be honest, nobody reads and almost nobody takes them into account, but they do. It is very common to associate free software with free software, but this is not the case and it does not have to be.
We are going to begin to define a series of concepts that will help us differentiate what freedom of Android.
¿What is free software? According GNU, "it is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. " The users of the programs are free to run the program for any purpose, freedom to study how it works and change it to make it do what we want, therefore we must have access to the source code, freedom to distribute copies and freedom to distribute copies one modified by us, therefore we must also provide our modified source code. Free software must be free or at the cost of the distribution, although it is not mandatory that this be the case.
In addition to free software there is another type of software that we may confuse with this and that we think is the same, the open source. Next we will see that they are similar but they are not the same thing.
El open source Like free software, it requires a series of conditions or requirements to be included in this movement and that the you have here. The conditions are practically the same and apparently we could say that the most notable difference is ethical and philosophical. Open source understands this movement as a good for the code itself, when it is modified and reviewed by many people in theory it should be improved more and free software sees the distribution of software in this way as something beneficial for users and not so much for the code.
In addition to this previous difference there is one that makes it very different and is that the FOSS always guarantees freedom of access to the code while the open source no, the latter only guarantees it up to the current version that exists free but not in the future. In addition, software can be open source and have parts implemented a posteriori that are not and therefore not accessible to everyone.
However, both free software and open source are associated with certain types of licenses, which are the contractual authorizations that exist between the creator and the end user. There are many types of licenses including some well known and others less like licenses GPL, Apache, Creative CommonsEtc. ... Here you have quite a complete list.
Now we are going to define something else that is Android. Android is open source software that is distributed under the Apache V2 license.
Therefore, we would have to understand what the Apache license tells us to finish shaping the android concept as free software. The Apache V2 license gives permission to:
- use the software for any purpose, distribute it, modify it and distribute the modifications
- it is not copyleft so modified versions do not have to be distributed as free software
- GPL3 compliant but not older
- includes provisions for patent protection.
With all this we have in a few words that Android is open source software with which right now we have access to the source code of it, but third parties, such as manufacturers, can modify or add code and this does not have to be released. As we know, this is what both Htc, Samsung or Sony Ericsson or the rest of manufacturers do when creating the different interfaces and drivers for their devices, which are the property of those companies and do not have the obligation to share them.
Actually Android is as we have defined it before but without counting its kernel or Linux kernel which has a GPL license and what the Android kernel does if it is free software but the rest of the platform is open source.
I hope I have made something clear what it is Android and what can we expect from him and how far the attributions of Google go in terms of code and where do the operators or manufacturers begin. Android is free but not as free as some of us would like, although it may be the most interesting option that currently exists in the field of operating systems for mobile phones, although this mobile phone is already somewhat short when looking at the number of devices different in which it is possible to install Android.
Android, even without being free software, is the antithesis of other systems such as IOS 4, Windows Mobile or Symbian, systems where words such as freedom, cooperation, adaptation, source code, public improvements or community benefit are conspicuous by their absence.
NOTE: Symbian was released as open source on February 4, 2010 and is distributed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) which is not compatible with the GPL.
Thanks to bgtanet OpenSuse ambassador and ramonramon for clarifying some concepts.
