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Zittrain: Android holds the key to free future
Fighting the iPod, Xbox fight

By Nick Heath

Published: Monday 30 June 2008

Android's battle to be the dominant mobile phone operating system (OS) could decide the future freedom of our technology, according to a leading web academic.

Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, said the success of Google's open source mobile platform will be a deciding factor in whether our technologies are free and open or restricted and closed.

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The Oxford professor of internet law, whose book argues the freedom of PCs and the internet has fostered the innovation that has made technology integral to our life today, fears society is shifting towards closed systems such as iPods and Xboxes.

He told silicon.com that the victor in the fight for mobile OS supremacy would shape whether our future technology was free or fettered.

He said: "I think Android will be a very useful bellwether - if it succeeds, I'll be much less concerned about a systemic shift away from the generative platforms we've enjoyed for the past thirty years. The mobile revolution will be a new opportunity to refight the balance between generative and non-generative systems, and while mobile has examples of both, its roots, unlike the PC, are non-generative."

Google's open source approach to the mobile OS recently gained a competitor when Nokia announced its plans to open up Symbian.