Tag: Open Source
Learn to recognize your own preferences and understand how your brain works—but also remember that everyone’s neural networks work a bit differently. Then, as a leader, make sure you’re creating space for everyone by championing inclusivity, fairness, open-mindedness, and neurodiversity.
I wonder though what the exact purpose of such tests as the Myer-Briggs actually is? I feel the work Goldman etc is useful as a provocation, but what else?
From the archives: Android is open—except for all the good parts.
Marginalia
There have always been closed source Google apps. Originally, the group consisted mostly of clients for Google’s online services, like Gmail, Maps, Talk, and YouTube. When Android had no market share, Google was comfortable keeping just these apps and building the rest of Android as an open source project. Since Android has become a mobile powerhouse though, Google has decided it needs more control over the public source code.
Google’s real power in mobile comes from control of the Google apps—mainly Gmail, Maps, Google Now, Hangouts, YouTube, and the Play Store. These are Android’s killer apps, and the big (and small) manufacturers want these apps on their phones. Since these apps are not open source, they need to be licensed from Google. It is at this point that you start picturing a scene out of The Godfather, because these apps aren’t going to come without some requirements attached. While it might not be an official requirement, being granted a Google apps license will go a whole lot easier if you join the Open Handset Alliance. The OHA is a group of companies committed to Android—Google’s Android—and members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices. That’s right, joining the OHA requires a company to sign its life away and promise to not build a device that runs a competing Android fork.
Let’s look at the virtue of sharing: How could sharing shape our future, and what do we stand to lose if we refuse to share?
Many in the open source world are like Moses in that they speak of the Promised Land but will never set foot there. If I spend the rest of my life working and we don’t reach almost all websites being powered by open source and the web being substantially open, I will die content because I already see younger generations picking up the banner.