Murphy's Law: Breaking the Gavel on Google Android for Netbooks

Posted 06/04/2009 at 9:00am | by David Murphy

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As if Microsoft didn’t have enough on its plate in advance of the October 22 launch date for its latest operating system, Windows 7, an old, familiar friend is entering the fray. Like a second player that adds a quarter and interrupts your progression in an arcade fighting game, Google is bringing its open-source Android operating system out of the handheld market and into the PC world.

Acer netbooks are the target for Android’s first foray beyond the mobile market. The company has announced that it will begin offering both Microsoft-based operating systems and Google’s Android platform for a majority of its netbooks—or “mini-notebooks,” as Microsoft now prefers to call them. Acer’s latest Aspire One netbook will be the first of its kind to offer Android as an alternative platform, and you’ll be able to pick one up in the third quarter of this year.

The move is a boon for the open-source world… sort-of. For Android is as open as it is Linux, which is to say that it might be based on the Linux kernel, but it’s not a Linux operating system. Similarly, although Android comes close to fulfilling the philosophy and licensing requirements to deem it a full, open-source product, a few qualifiers exist that give cause for concern. Together, these two issues combine to create a troubled picture for Android’s future outside of the mobile market.

Were there an operating system that could compete with Microsoft’s dominance in the netbook/mini-notebook/weePC market, it would be Linux, hands-down. I’m no developer, but I’m willing to bet that it’s not all that difficult to port applications between Linux’s many variants. It might be time-consuming, but the use of similar if not identical libraries for applications makes this task more a challenge than impossibility. That’s not quite the case with Android.

For Android, it’s as if we’re staring at a completely new operating system. Even though Android runs on a Linux kernel, the operating system itself isn’t a true Linux variant. Google has slapped its proprietary operating system on top of the kernel, so that Android resembles Linux in form and functionality, but remains incompatible with existing Linux applications. Similarly, the custom Java virtual machine powering the operating system, Dalvik, doesn't incorporate existing Java standards, slapping a big ol' wall between Java applications for Android and Java applications for Linux.

"The problem with Google's approach is that it makes Android an island. The highly insular nature of the platform prevents Android users and developers from taking advantage of the rich ecosystem of existing third-party Linux applications," writes Ars Technica's Ryan Paul. "Android doesn't officially support native C programs at all, so it won't be possible to port your favorite GTK+ or Qt applications to Android. It's also not possible to run existing MIDP applications on Android because it uses an incompatible virtual machine." 

So there we have it. Android offers a proprietary system that works well in the mobile market, but will do nothing to accelerate operating system's adoption in the laptop/desktop/netbook space. Linux is already struggling enough in the latter, now along comes an operating system that's going to force everyone to rewrite their code for new standards.

But that's not all. The very nature of open-source software is Android’s second major weakness. Although Android’s code has been released to the public for use, modification, and integration, the code exists under an Apache license that doesn’t require Android modifications to be submitted back to the open source community. In gaming terms, it’s as if Google built an identical foundation for your entire SimCity, then turned the city over for developers to build whatever proprietary properties they want. Obviously, you’re not going to get a city with 10,000 identical police stations—you’re going to get a wealth of diversity, including buildings and themes that run the gamut of awesome to horrible.

IMS Research analyst Chris Shreck argues that this possibility for fragmentation and proprietary control—already seen in the Android mobile market through carriers’ restrictive terms of use—could have a widespread effect on the operating system’s future growth opportunities. First, there are the compatibility issues. Suppose individual laptop manufacturers each go with a different Android OS? What's to say that their proprietary modifications don't somehow muck up your intent to use the full, open operating system in every way imaginable? How will application makers design apps that fit every possible permutation of the operating system?

Given the difficulties Linux has had in gaining traction in the netbook market, it's hard to imagine that an operating system closed to Linux's application base and potentially modified with proprietary hacks would have any chance in this Microsoft-dominated space. If Android wants to run on anything more than phones, Google needs to at least reconsider the terms of its licensing for the operating system. It might not be able to run Linux apps natively, but developers might be more willing to cross over if they knew that their applications--unlike the poor tethering applications for Android mobile phones--weren't potential targets for deletion or incompatability with each new customized version of the operating system.