Free Software on Android

[Nadav Har'El]

Hi, I recently bought an Android machine (a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0),
and am quite enjoying it. Superficially, it isn't very similar to what
we've come to expect from Linux machines, but in my opinion the Linuxness
still shows through in many ways that are hard for me to enumerate.

Anyway, something which surprised me a bit is that although Android
itself is free software, there seems to be very few free software
apps, and even fewer high-quality free software which I'll be proud to use.
The biggest (and only?) repository of free-software ("open source") apps
I could find was f-droid, with around 150 apps.

I was wondering - am I missing something? Is there a thriving community
of Android free software writers that I somehow missed, and someone can
point me to it?

It got me thinking why when Linux started, free (open source) software
thrived on it while commercial software was hardly available for it.
Why is it the other way around with Android?

I think I found a couple of reasons:

1. When Linux started and became popular, people did not have the
   illusion of being able to make money from selling applications.
   Richard Stallman didn't think he can become rich from selling copies
   of Emacs. David MacKenzie didn't think he can sell his version of
   "ls" to Unix users for $1 each. On other other hand, on Android, following
   Apple's lead, developers fell into the illusion that they can become
   rich by selling apps - and thus unless they have a strong ideological
   motivation to give out free software (in the GNU sense), they think -
   why NOT sell it on the market? Or why not make it free and make a few
   dollars from ads? The latter tendency - to stick ads everywhere, in
   at least 90% of the free apps I looked at - is by far the thing I hate
   most about Android so far.

2. When Linux became popular, source still meant something to most, or
   at least many, people. People could compile from source, and had the
   compilers preinstalled and knew how to use them after reading a short
   "INSTALL" help file. With Android, 99.99% of the users wouldn't know how
   to use source even if you drop it on their head. In fact you can't
   really use the source if all you have is your android machine - you need
   an additional machine, with a complex cross-compiler installation.

I think that there are things that can be done on both points, and I wonder
what other people think:

Regarding point 1, I'd like free & open source software to be a more
visible option to Android users and start to replace ad-ridden
closed-source free apps. Why can't the good open source software be more
prominently visible on the android market? E.g., what prevents me from
paying for an Android market account ($25, one time) and then uploading
the good free software that I find and help make it more visible? Has
anyone ever done that?

Regarding point 2, wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to have a
programming language which you can use to program the Android, on the
Android itself, and run applications? Applications written in that
language could be downloaded in source code form and run, and modified
by the user, without needing any cross-compiler setup or an additional
computer. Is anyone aware of such a programming language for Android?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,
Nadav.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |                 Wednesday, Dec 28 2011, 
nyh at math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Those are my principles. If you don't
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |like them, I have others.