Android developers get shirty with Google

A group calling itself The Android Developers Union has formed to demand changes in the Android Market’s terms and conditions. The so-far anonymous group has issued a list of seven demands which Google can implement “to improve the market,” stating that they are “tired of being treated like sharecroppers on Google’s digital plantation.”

The demands include a “renegotiation of the 32 per cent Google-tax on applications sales, public bug tracking, increased payment options, algorithmic transparency and codified rules and a removal appeal process.” According to the Union, the implementation of its demands “will absolutely improve the working conditions for Android developers, thereby improving the Android ecosystem and giving a better experience to our customers.”

In the event that Google ignores its demands, the Union is threatening to “cease Android development in favour of other more open platforms”, move their apps to alternative marketplaces or the web and work to dissuade other Android developers from working on projects for the platform. The group hasn’t specified exactly which “other, more open platform” it would move to, but it’s highly unlikely that Apple’s even more tightly-shut platform would appeal.

In the 15-or-so hours since the group’s appearance online, their site has attracted comments from disaffected Android developers on subjects ranging from payment to the process for application removal. So far, Google has not responded.