This Wired article on Android is worth reading. Not because it’s directly related to DragonFly, but because it’s a open source platform. If you’re interested in DragonFly, you must have at least a passing interest in open source software.
We’re all used to being able to install and configure (and break) our BSD systems the way we want, when we want, without having to seek permission or necessarily pay a fee to someone who isn’t the author of the software we want. This is not generally possible with phones, which, after all, are specialized computer systems. Keep an eye on this.
(Via)
The Wired article on Android was pretty good, and did a good job of making the case for systems “open” to the extent that personal computers have been “open” (anyone can attempt to run a binary).
I was going to make note that Dalvik and some components weren’t going to be open-source, but apparently I missed the news that they *are* attempting to harmonize “everything,” where everything seems to at least encompass Dalvik, under the Apache 2.0 license.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=579
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28mobile_phone_platform%29#Criticism
[That’s the version of the Apache license that OpenBSD rejected, but even if it’s not BSD-compatible it’s still a lot better than complete proprietariness.]