The irony is if Cyanogen hadn't released new Market prematurely, Google most likely would not have sent a C&D letter to him and everything would have been chugging along as normal with all the "ROM cooks" continuing to distribute those proprietary apps with unspoken permission. In a way the C&D letter was a good thing, because it is catalyzing the creation of several methods to cook and distribute skeleton "ROMs" legally. Metaphorically it's like a car accident that forces city government to put a traffic light in a blind intersection.
Official statement from Google regarding the Cyanogen controvery
- Thread starter blueheeler
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That's just asking for trouble.
Easy as it seems to most of us to do things up until now, think about all the issues that such an attempt will bring. XDA would become unuseable (just like a good many phones after being bricked).
The only good side of that would be the irritation it would mean to T-Mobile and the other carriers.
As long as the kitchen doesnt make the files to flash the recovery, spl and radio then no harm can be done. If the kitchen is made right you can even pick and choose your components kinda like nLite or vLite for android with various kernal options. Even if this is done right there is a good chance I will go back to winmo, at least their lawyers are quiet. I would go for an iphone but I want 3g and im not switching from tmobile.
Perhaps, but keep in mind who is responsible for the blind intersection in the first place. Therein lies the reason for many people's anger right now. To keep the metaphor going, Google sat and watched accident after accident occur and only stepped up to do something when it became inconvenient to them.
My feeling at this stage, and I'm not likely alone, is that I wonder what hurdle or legal shenanigan is coming next. The android phone as a gestalt right now is a mess of open, closed, and in between. You start to wonder which licensor (is that a word?) is going to jump out from behind a bush and say "Aha! I caught you breaking my license!" and mod development grinds to a halt once again.
Cyanogen at least is trying to find a workable solution to this, which is more than you can say for Google's legal team. But he must be starting to feel a little like Sisyphus by now.
Now that is an awesome idea. At first I was thinking "no way could Cyanogen pay what companies like TMobile pay to license the apps." But if Google would cut him a break (maybe that would upset other partners, though) and if we all donated a little bit, maybe it is possible. If people were going to donate for legal fees, why not instead donate for licensing fees?
I really like this idea.
Does anyone with the relevant business/legal experience know what it would really take and if it is viable?
While this might work for Cyanogenmod, what about all the others? I think it would be a much better investment of time and money to reimplement all the closed apps/drivers/etc that are needed to create a device-ready ROM. That way everyone can benefit rather than just cyanogen.
It is not Illegal when you can DOWNLOAD THESE APPS FROM THE MARKET FOR FREE!!!! At least the goolge maps and the google voice. Google search isn't all that great anyways.
Except for the part where it would never happen? What kind of message do you think Google would be sending to its carrier partners if it basically put it stamp of approval on an unstable third party "ROM" meant for carrier devices? For that matter, Google would be breaking its own copy protection system by allowing Market on a device without a root jail.
Exactly. It may be different for developers, but from an end-user perspective the closed-source google apps and the android os, and the device it's installed on are all part of the same deal.
Google should have made clear from the beginning that they're not and that though the os is open source, we're actually paying licensing fees for use of the google apps. Instead, they've always suggested everything is open source.
They may be right legally, but it's not very sane to prohibit one developer from redistributing their apps, if his build is only going to be used on devices which came with those apps bundled (eg. the end-user/carrier has already payed the licensing fees).
This is why the argument that it's hurting their business is simply flawed.
if 1/10 of my customers just stopped coming to my store, i'm pretty sure i would notice that my business is at least definitely less, but definitely not hurting. so..... +1 for this one
they're a BUSINESS... do they really care what you do as long as they get their money that they feel they're losing thanks to XDA?
lol
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Maybe because everybody use his work
So they think they save time by only warning the source of developpement
So they think they save time by only warning the source of developpement
Cyanogen is really the only one who has been explicitly told to stop the distribution. Legally speaking, they all should stop. But now Google has set a sort of precedent. Since they tacitly approved distribution of those apps until now, you could argue that you thought it was only Cyanogen who had to stop.
Probably wouldn't stand up in court, I don't know, IANAL.
Wouldn't it just be easier to download say, the ADP version of a ROM (from google), and then extract the needed Google apps from it. Then install a bare-bones Cyanogen ROM, then re-install the Google Apps from the phone using an application installer (like appsinstaller or astro)?
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