{"id":1661,"date":"2009-09-26T12:39:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-26T16:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2009-09-26T12:39:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T16:39:21","slug":"why-im-not-a-fan-of-googles-cease-and-desist-letter-to-cyanogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psychocats.net\/ubuntucat\/why-im-not-a-fan-of-googles-cease-and-desist-letter-to-cyanogen\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m not a fan of Google’s cease-and-desist letter to Cyanogen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you who follow my blog<\/a> or are Ubuntu Forums<\/a> members may know that I often come to the defense of Google. There is a lot of Google-bashing out there. It seems to now be the cool thing to do. I almost laughed out loud when there were blog posts framing the Apple rejection of the Google Voice app as “David and Goliath” with Google being the Goliath! <\/p>\n

I generally like Google because Google generally favors open source and open standards, and even does quite a bit of funding for open source. They have not, in the past, engaged in any of the vendor lock-in practices that Microsoft and Apple have. It is annoying if you have a Hotmail account and can’t use a regular email client like Thunderbird with it. It’s annoying if you can’t install a Google Voice app because Apple tells you what can and cannot be installed on your iPhone (and, unlike in Android, the iPhone doesn’t have an override option to say “I understand the risks of installing this third-party unapproved app but just want to do it anyway”). <\/p>\n

I have a rooted Android phone. The term rooted<\/i> in this case is a bit misleading. It isn’t a regular Android installation that has somehow been modified to allow me root access (so I can install apps like wifi tethering<\/a>). It actually is a special rooted Android ROM I had to replace my regular Android installation with. <\/p>\n

The folks who make these ROMs are volunteers who just want to make the most of what Google has advertised as an open platform. One of the most famous is a developer who goes by the nickname Cyanogen<\/i><\/a>. I tried a few ROMS and Cyanogen’s was definitely the best. <\/p>\n

He thought he was being careful.<\/a> He thought (I’m paraphrasing here), “Well, I’ve modified the open source components of Android. The Google proprietary binaries (YouTube app, Google Maps app, GMail app, etc.) I haven’t modified. I’m redistributing these only to people who already have Google-branded phones. It shouldn’t be a problem.” <\/p>\n

Well, apparently, he was wrong. Google thought it was a big problem, despite the fact that only a few tens of thousands of people were using Cyanogen’s ROM. Google sent him a cease-and-desist letter, claiming he did not have the right to redistribute Google’s proprietary apps in a modified ROM. <\/p>\n

Is Google within its legal right to do this? Certainly. <\/p>\n

Is this a good idea for Google to do this? Absolutely not. Here are the reasons why: <\/p>\n