[dontnotice]

"Given Google’s dominance in search and browsers and the popularity of its many web services, Pichai’s warning looks more like a bluff to court popular opinion than a genuine threat that Android will no longer be free."

I wish these bloggers would keep their biases and unsubstantiated commentary to themselves.

This fine is an assault on open source, the fact linux didn't attain mainstream appeal on the desktop was largely due to the lack of condition and harmonization across distros.

In any other context fining an open source project for antitrust violations is absurd.

[mehrdadn]

> This fine is an assault on open source

I don't see how telling Google not to force itself as the default preinstalled option on phones is an "assault on open source".

> the fact the linux didn't attaint mainstream appeal on the desktop was largely due to the lack of condition and harmonization across distros

Not sure what "condition and harmonization is", but if you mean the poor UI for normal people, then yes. I don't see the relevance of this to Google forcing itself onto people's phones.

> and the EU wants to doom android to the same fate.

It was literally a few days ago when I was wondering to myself how people were cool with Google search etc. coming preinstalled. I had no idea the EU was looking into this. As a result I don't have any reason to believe their goal is anything but fair competition.

[s73v3r_]

"This fine is an assault on open source"

Considering the cause of the fine is all of the non-open source bits Google adds on, I don't see how one can make a statement like that with a straight face.

"In any other context fining an open source project for antitrust violations is absurd."

They didn't fine the Android Open Source Project. They fined Google.

[detaro]

They are not fining an open source project. They are fining a company making bad rules about what others are allowed to do with said open source project, e.g. by forcing them to choose between using Google stuff everywhere or nowhere in their devices.

[dontnotice]

Any company can use AOSP in their devices and laod them with anything they like, see the Chinese market, see Amazon Fire tablets.

[detaro]

Yes, and if they sell AOSP-based devices they then can not sell any other device with the Google components.

Or sell a device using only some of the things Google wants to make mandatory, but replacing others with their own.

That way they keep AOSP-based products on the fringe, since only niche manufacturers can afford to make them, and stop manufacturers trying to make/integrate better replacements for Google services. That's anti-competitive, that's the problem.

[klez]

What they like, minus Google apps. And if they want even one device with Google apps, they can't make other devices without them and Search an Chrome

[krzyk]

Why it is assault on open source? The problem is that Google bundles it's Chrome and search apps (which are not open source) together with android that is later installed on devices made my others. At least that what I see in the article.

[_bxg1]

AOSP's position is nothing like that of Linux. For years now it's been held hostage by a mega-corporation that doesn't really want it to be open-source any more. Google didn't buy and build Android and then make it free out of idealism, they did it so Apple couldn't become a monopoly and lock Google search out of mobile. Now they've more than accomplished that, and if they had their way it would already be proprietary.

Probably what Pichai is talking about is charging a fee for Google Play Services, not AOSP. Although if they did decide to proprietize all future development work on AOSP, it would be interesting to see how the community would respond. It's possible we'd see a major fork and a revitalization of community work a la Linux, instead of the little garage forks we mostly have today.

[snuxoll]

Google is already well in the process of making everything they can proprietary. Browser, Calendar, Camera, Dialer, Gallery, Music Player, SMS and probably more - all left to basically bitrot in AOSP while Google pushes proprietary replacements as part of the gapps bundle loaded onto OEM phones.

The core of Android may be open source, but between so many API's being shoved into Google Play Services and AOSP apps being all but abandoned the writing is on the wall.

[_bxg1]

Exactly. They actually go one step further than that with the Google Services API's. Things like notifications and location can now go through the proprietary API's instead of the system ones, with special perks. This means that if you don't have Google Services, then even if you get your hands on a third-party APK without using the Play Store (hard enough as it is), things will sometimes just randomly break because API's are missing.

[drivingmenuts]

> I wish these bloggers would keep their biases and unsubstantiated commentary to themselves.

Hah! You basically want to destroy the blogosphere (oh, how I detest that term).

[ForHackernews]

Google is a multibillion dollar advertising company, not an "open source project".

They're not fining ASOP, and Android is a nonfree OS.

[dontnotice]

Are you suggestion that AOSP has nothing to do with Android!?

And if we were to take the existence of AOSP into consideration then this fine seems even more ridicules and unwarranted.

[simion314]

Why existence of some source code or forks cancels the abuse?

[dvfjsdhgfv]

Android is the very opposition of Free Software. Google took the Linux Kernel, modified it, added some proprietary bits, and they're doing what they can to replace open components with their own proprietary versions, making a really open version of Android hardly usable and extremely difficult to build.

Charging manufacturers for using the operating system you built is a healthy business practice. "Giving it away" and building in dozens of tracking mechanisms is hardly ethical.

[scarface74]

This has been going on for years.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on...