About Android from cell phone companies and those like the Kindle Fire - Is the operating system really Android? Kindle is careful to make sure you can't load apps from anyone but Kindle. Same for cell phone companies. In addition, do they keep their devices up to date with the latest versions of Android?
On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 8:22 AM, Blake McBride <bl...@mcbride.name> wrote: > A bit off-topic, I think there are two different reasons open-source > is succeeding. > > One reason is like the reason I gave - security. Knowing that a small > company can't ruin you. When Windows 3.1 came out the development > environment was terrible. It took way too many complex lines of code > to make the system do anything. In response a number of very quality > solutions came out from small companies. Those development > environments offered easy and powerful solutions to Windows > development challenges. The companies did well and were soon offered > big sums of money to sell the products to larger companies. Almost > all of them did and then promptly disappeared. The only one left > standing in the end was the big dinosaur Microsoft. (It is somewhat > likely that Microsoft had a hand in all this!) Microsoft's solution > (MFC) was the worst solution by far (really!), yet everyone ended up > with it since all the rest failed. Even Borland's product (OWL) was > better and Microsoft even killed them. If you made a corporate > investment in one of the other tools you ended up having to scrap what > you did and re-do it in MFC - virtually no exceptions. After this, > few companies would use anything unless it came from Microsoft. > They's been burned by all the rest. Thus the consistently worst > solution with the least vision ruled. Open source says to a company - > if you make an investment in our product it won't disappear. In the > worst case, it works well and you can support it. > > The second reason open source is succeeding is because of frustration. > I had a Windows phone (shortly before iPhone and Android existed). I > was excited about it and thought it would be a very valuable tool for > me. But in the end it turned out to be much worse that a standard, > dumb cell phone. The phone crashed multiple times a day. Some days > it didn't crash only to find it wasn't excepting calls all day and I > missed all of my calls. It was very unreliable. If it wasn't for the > reliability I'd still be using it. Microsoft is so big that you can't > reach anyone and even if you did they wouldn't fix anything. I > switched to the iPhone. It was very considerably more reliable. I > loved it, although I now use Android. The thing about open source, > like Android, is that Google or Linus (the big cheese of Linux), is > that if there is a bug and Google and Linus refuse to fix it, someone > else will and a patch will be available. People aren't going to wait > 6 months for a fix. With open source you can either fix it yourself > or someone who understands the source can. Things become stable and > enhanced much faster, and you are not subject to the whims of one > company. > > So, I think J is interesting for the first reason, and Android the second. > > Blake McBride > > > 2012/1/2 Björn Helgason <gos...@gmail.com>: > > It is always interesting to hear from potential users what has kept them > > away. > > There have been some people claiming that lack of open source has been a > > hindrance. > > Many of us I know have not understood why that is. > > Everyone has their own reasons. > > It is good to hear that you will be investing time and interest in J now > > that it is open source. > > It will be interesting to see if there are many more like you joining the > > crowd. > > > > I was reading a very interesting web page about why the Nokia/windows > > combination is failing against the competition from android and others > that > > are open source. > > > > People are going in for more mobile over from the PC and windows > dominance > > seems to be coming to an end and the open source crowd seem to be winning > > on the mobile front. > > > > Looking at the trend pages seem to indicate this as well. > > Especially the os/browsers on mobile are windowless. > > > > J gong in for HTML5 seems to be a very good timing too. > > > > 2012/1/2 Blake McBride <bl...@mcbride.name> > > > >> Greetings, > >> > >> J has long interested me. APL is a very interesting language but > >> awkward to use because of its special keyboard and font requirements. > >> I saw J as a possible solution to these problems (in addition to its > >> enhancements to the APL model). When I first looked at J (more than > >> ten years ago I believe) I was fascinated by it but somewhat > >> intimidated by its new paradigm. Although I was very intrigued by the > >> language, there is one thing that kept me from investing the effort > >> into understanding and using J - lack of source code. I was unwilling > >> to invest my time in a single-source language vendor without source > >> code. If I made the investment and the company failed, my investment > >> would be waisted. Now that the source code has been made available > >> (again, and non-beta), my interest is piqued again and I find myself > >> much more motivated to learn and use J. > >> > >> I would like to thank the owners of J for creating J and having the > >> courage to release its source code. > >> > >> Respectfully, > >> > >> Blake McBride > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
