Mark Murphy wrote: > Al Sutton wrote: > >> I'm sorry, but if you keep saying there wasn't time to do things >> > > There is never time to do everything. hackbod addressed this in her message. > >
Totally agree about not having time for everything, but I see a big difference between including additional features like camera zooming because there wasn't time, and not providing an API to functionality in use by bundled apps because there wasn't time. Coding new features takes time, providing an API to existing features isn't anywhere near as difficult. >> you have an update released within days of the release date >> > > First, technically, T-Mobile had an update released within days of the > release date. Was there ever a definitive list of changes published? > > http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/board/message?board.id=87&thread.id=8855 To me "Beta" level bugs that were fixed include; - Cannot associate with WiFi access point using shared WEP key. - Google Contacts/Calendar Sync (endless loop) - New Email notifications not received. - Amazon MP3 fix for files with underscores (_) in the filenames > Second, by your argument, you would prefer bugs not be found, and > certainly not fixed. > > I would prefer that the source code was opened a lot earlier so problems could be fixed before it's in the hands of users. There was an army of people who would have happily thrashed the code if it had been released earlier to help find these bugs before the G1 shipped, but instead Google went the closed source development route until the day before launch. > On any software development project the size of Android -- open source > or not -- QA is a fairly continuous exercise, and bugs are found at > times that bear little on release dates. Finding bugs shortly after > release is par for the course. Timetables and processes for fixing them > vary by firm and type of bug, but some may get addressed rather quickly. > It happens to everyone. > True, but for the OTA release to be bundled and scheduled these bugs were found before the release to the public and before the source become public, so it would appear the G1 was loaded with a "work in progress" (dare I say beta quality) version of Android. > Now, if you want to go on a rant about how they should build software > like they build bridges, that's fine. > > Lol.... If peoples lives depended on it then I think that may have an outside chance of happening. My point is that Google had access to a fair number of willing external beta testers in the development community that it chose to not use. I'm not talking about every teenager in their bedroom hacking some code in their spare time, I'm talking about ADC entrants and winners who have already shown commitment to the platform. Instead, even now, when you can buy or order a G1 in the highstreet of many US cities, there are ADC winners who don't know when they're going to get a device. QA is always good, but a beta involved users in diverse situations is always better, and opening the code up for people to check over for a few weeks prior to launch would have been better still. >> and someone >> discovering a reasonably serious security flaw within days of the source >> code being available >> > > See above. QA and security testing is never ever "done", and so flaws > will be found when they're found, regardless of when stuff is released. > Do you really want them to *not* do continuous testing, or *not* fix flaws? > > True, but if one guy found a problem in 3 days, shouldn't he have had the opportunity to spend those 3 days before the devices went into users hands? This is an "open" platform we're talking about, except that the source code was close to public viewing until waaayy too late, and now it is open we're seeing all the community contributed stability & security fixes happening after the release. >> it does paint a picture of a 0.9 beta product set >> into the wild, not a 1.0 release. >> > > To you, perhaps. > > In what way does anything you've listed here go against what other > titans of the OS industry (e.g., Microsoft, Apple) or major open source > projects (e.g., Mozilla, Linux distros) do? > > The problem Google has is that it mixed the two worlds in the worst way, keep development closed until the product is already on it's way to users, so any security holes that third parties may find are only found once users are susceptible to them. If you think back to when Netscape released the source code of Naviagtor in 1998, or Real Networks released Helix as the Open source player in 2003, the first thing that happened was that the development community started crawling over it for bugs and turned up a quite few which some of the less moral developers started to use for their own gain, so why did Google think Android wouldn't follow the same path? -- Al Sutton W: www.alsutton.com B: alsutton.wordpress.com T: twitter.com/alsutton --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
