Not from the standpoint of the technology.... from the standpoint of the
license: GPL
Question for you:
Do you honestly believe a proprietary
company couldn't build the same application software as currently runes on
smartphones using the pipe model?
The key in the picture is not the tech
model - although I do agree with you that functionality should be simple and
focused. A lot of Linux already does that and it's a great underlying security
model.
The key in the picture is whether or not the public can see the
code to see what the software is actually doing. Like harvesting the contact
information and sending it off to the mother ship.
It's beyond proven we
can not trust proprietary mindsets to keep our privacy and wishes in mind. We
can not trust them to disclose fully what they want to do with our information
and provide us the means to individually decide what we wish to allow and what
we wish to disallow. Like wanting to share our score on a particular game with
a contact but not share that contatct with the mother ship.
Take Carrier
IQ as a great example. It wasn't until the application was traced by someone
skilled enough to do so and then publicly disclosed before people knew it was a
key logger harvesting login credentials.
How much sooner would that oops*
have been pointed out had the code been available for lots more eyes to
peruse?
Take Android phones as another great example: Sure, it's got a
few of the Linux libraries at it's core, but the bulk of Android is licensed
under the Apache license which allows the phone manufacturers to lock down the
phone and install lots of proprietary software that I'd dearly love to remove
without having to hack the device. Now that it's official that Google owns
Motorola, I dearly hope they will be producing a truly open phone. One the
consumer has total control over what software is on it.
Thanks, but I'll
stick with GPL protected software. It's the only license that helps provide
even a basic warantee that someone who does something that's not quite right
will be found out.
*: I give the company the benefit of doubt they really
didn't realize it was harvesting credentials for the purpose of this discussion.
I don't believe for an instant they are actually that innocent.
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