[bmcusick]

That's basically what the EU is demanding. The EU has handed down what is an anti-tying decision. "You can't tie Android to Google Search, because that prevents competition in Search."

Okay then, but Google Search is what paid for Android development, so if you can't tie them together, Android needs to seek other sources of funding. The most obvious one is some sort of licensing fee.

(It could also possibly fund itself from search revenue (like Firefox) and App Store fees, although the second one could be broken up by the EU too on anti-tying grounds)

It's no different from when Windows was prevented from tying Windows to Internet Explorer. It opened competition in browsers (and we now have Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Brave, etc.), but it also forced browsers to find independent business models.

[ge0rg]

Okay then, but Google Search is what paid for Android development, so if you can't tie them together, Android needs to seek other sources of funding. The most obvious one is some sort of licensing fee.

A licensing fee would be a valid and reasonable outcome. It probably can even work without making Android closed-source, by choosing the licenses accordingly or maybe have some kind of early-access or migration-support agreements (IANAL).

The main point is that Google is using a monopoly in one market to retain a monopoly in another market, and this is illegal. As far as I'm reading the press release, Google is not barred from developing and offering Android for free, if they wish so - they are only disallowed to abuse their monopoly.

but it also forced browsers to find independent business models

It stopped Microsoft from preventing independent business models for browsers; it was just too late already for the commercial browser vendors of the time. And the current EU ruling will hopefully allow other mobile OS developers (or startups) to compete on more equal grounds.

Of course we still have the network effect of Google Play, featuring a market dominance over Android apps and Android users. I wouldn't be too surprised to see another future EU ruling requiring Google to unbundle Google Play from all but technical requirements, possibly allowing users to legally get access to Google Play on AOSP-based devices, or using alternative clients.

[dwild]

> The main point is that Google is using a monopoly in one market to retain a monopoly in another market, and this is illegal. As far as I'm reading the press release, Google is not barred from developing and offering Android for free, if they wish so - they are only disallowed to abuse their monopoly.

I agree with this and it's a good thing, but where does it ends? When can we say this is another market, don't touch it?

Qualcomm is pretty much the standard on cellphone processor. Their processor include a GPU, called Adreno. I want to manufacture GPU for phone. By including it on their processor and not offering it without one, they essentially force their buyer to ignore my offering. Are they trying to illegally retain monopoly over GPU for phones? CPU and GPU are 2 different market (desktop PC prove this pretty clearly).

[s73v3r_]

There are other GPU processor cores out there. Manufacturers can and do license the designs and switch out GPU cores.

[erlend_sh]

> Android closed-source, by choosing the licenses accordingly or maybe have some kind of early-access or migration-support agreements (IANAL).

Absolutely. Something akin to https://licensezero.com might fit the bill. There’s plenty of innovation left to do in the space of source code licensing.

[furgooswft13]

> It opened competition in browsers (and we now have Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Brave, etc.)

MS all but ceasing development on IE after version 6 is what opened competition in browsers, not any government action. Remember from IE4 to 6 before Firefox was released Internet Explorer really was the best browser out there. MS used their Windows monopoly to aid distribution and their huge piles of cash to make it free (vs paid-for Netscape), but it wasn't like it was crap software that was only being used because MS force-fed it to everybody. At least not until they (probably intentionally) let it wither and die and Firefox and then Chrome ate their lunch.

[reitanqild]

Was about to disagree but on closer reading I agree.

I'll still say the browser choice thing was a good thing as it spread the message, and helped get a critical mass of users to use other browser so that web developers had to design cross browser solutions for a while until they got lazy again and started only designing for Chrome.

[repolfx]

Is there any evidence the EU's mandated browser choice thing had that effect at all? IIRC what moved the needle on Firefox was huge grassroots campaigns, and what moved the needle on Chrome was advertising it on the Google home page. I've never heard any argument that the Windows choice box made any impact.

[slededit]

> (probably intentionally)

It was intentional, the even disbanded the development team. Even in the mid 90s it was obvious to everyone that web apps would be the future. If web apps were the future then win32 didn't matter and their grip on computing would be lost. IMO the mistake they made was not doubling down and turning IE into the next windows. Instead they tried to bring win32 to the web.

[marichards]

IE was terrible for anyone not using Windows. They encouraged ActiveX and didn't keep to web specs. Imagine if they'd kept their monopoly and we'd all had to stay on Vista and Windows Mobile because it was the only way to browse the web. Flash would still be a thing. The iPhone could have failed because it couldn't load most websites. We might still have keypads on our phones.

[DiabloD3]

Except that isn't exactly true.

I used other browsers on Windows before Internet Explorer ever existed, and even on Windows versions that came with IE in the box, either it was the age where we still used Netscape Navigator CDs to install it (and all your mime type handlers would change from IE to Navigator), or later or, I used IE to just download installers for other browsers.

It didn't open competition at all, it just made Microsoft pay for what every OS does today: it includes a browser by default. OSX, iOS, Android, multiple game consoles, and even some TVs.

They got punished for innovation, and no one else had to pay the fine for copying their behavior.

[zaarn]

Microsoft wasn't punished for bundling the browser with the OS.

They were punished because they did that while IE and MS both had major market positions.

The game consoles are split between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, you have choice there. OSX and iOS are only shipped on Mac devices which don't have major marketshares either.

When you have a majority marketshare then you can't do what you want, there is rules. Especially when it comes to abusing your major position to leverage other positions (Sony and Nintendo are hardly pushing their browser products)

[DiabloD3]

Except that is false.

Apple abuses its market position as being the only vendor authorized to ship devices with iOS and OSX. I cannot buy, say, an LG or Samsung iPhone. They abuse their market position by not allowing third party core functionality on their phone at all, nor third party devices at all.

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony abuse their market positions via exclusive AAA titles that will never come to other platforms, without a valid technological limitation being available (Nintendo owns emulators for tons of past systems, that can work on x86 and ARM fine; Switch internally is 100% the same SoC as the Shield TV; XBOne and PS4 are both AMD APUs and involve no Microsoft or Sony magic in the core hardware).

Phones nor game consoles are not equivalent: when I buy them, I am not buying a device, I am buying a member of an ecosystem. Apple 100% dominates the Apple ecosystem, Microsoft 100% the Xbox ecosystem, Sony 100% the Sony ecosystem, Nintendo 100% of the Nintendo ecosystem.

They have committed far more sins against their own customers than Google has for not dominating the Android ecosystem (as they do not make any Android devices (Pixel does not count, it is an LG and HTC product line)), and the EU has fined Google for an unrelated domination in the search market (of which, Google has no realistic competitors, and not because Google somehow prevented the development of other search engines magically).

In comparison to Microsoft /w MSIE, the MSIE team did not abuse their customers by including a browser by default. They allowed people in the Windows ecosystem to connect to the Internet (a much larger ecosystem) with no additional software for free.

MSIE-era Microsoft and Google were fined for allowing choice, and by allowing choice their platforms (and thus ecosystems) became popular.

DoJ vs Microsoft and EU vs Google both have illustrated that the governments prefer Equality of Outcome over Equality of Opportunity. This tells big business, don't bother innovating, don't bother taking advantage of first mover strategies, don't bother doing anything that might benefit your customers; just lock them into little walled gardens, because you'll make a lot of money but not risk becoming popular enough to get fined.

Apple certainly learned from this, iPhones aren't popular, iMacs and MBPs aren't popular, but Apple will probably be the first company ever with a $1T market cap.

[zaarn]

>Apple abuses its market position

Apple does not have a major position in smartphones or search engines.

Their only monopoly is to sell their own devices, which is totally okay. You can compete by making a YouPhone that's better than the iPhone.

>Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony abuse their market positions

Again, neither has a major market position over the other and it does not prevent any of the other from competing. As you mention, each is capable of putting out exclusives just fine.

>when I buy them, I am not buying a device, I am buying a member of an ecosystem

You seem under the false impression that this is about you. This is purely about competition. As long as any of those vendors do not prevent the others from fairly competing on the market, the EU won't lift a finger.

>They have committed far more sins against their own customers than Google has for not dominating the Android ecosystem

Google is dominating the mobile browser and internet search markets, which, if you check the EU ruling, is the markets this is about.

The android market itself is irrelevant.

>They allowed people in the Windows ecosystem to connect to the Internet (a much larger ecosystem) with no additional software for free.

And google allows vendors to ship phones that can connect to the internet with no additional software for free.

>MSIE-era Microsoft and Google were fined for allowing choice, and by allowing choice their platforms (and thus ecosystems) became popular.

Completely false, they were fined for disadvantaging competitors who would not be able to compete on a fair market.

>DoJ vs Microsoft and EU vs Google both have illustrated that the governments prefer Equality of Outcome over Equality of Opportunity.

Atleast in the EU case, false again. The EU favors a market in which everyone has a level playing field, primarly enforced by having additional rules for any major players in a market. This doesn't tell business to not innovate or first mover advantage, both are allowed.

It's not disallowed to have a major market position but it's disallowed to abuse it to either disadvantage other competitors in the same or other markets.

Otherwise MS would have been fined for producing windows and selling it in the EU, which has not been the case to my knowledge.

[AnssiH]

Yeah, I don't personally see a problem with this.

Having OEMs pay a licensing fee to Google seems better than having Google stiffle competition by bundling Google Play and Search and requiring OEMs to not ship alternative non-Google AOSP products.

[scarface74]

Okay then, but Google Search is what paid for Android development, so if you can't tie them together, Android needs to seek other sources of funding. The most obvious one is some sort of licensing fee.

And that’s a good thing. I prefer simple transactions. I give a company money and they give me stuff. It’s very transparent business model.

[bmcusick]

Yeah, that's why I'm favor of this decision. I think it's reasonable for regulators to have an anti-tying bias and make companies prove that the tying is somehow necessary. Because the alternative to tying (as you say) is a more open, competitive, and transparent "cash for stuff" market.

[repolfx]

But then Android wouldn't be open source anymore. That would be a big shame and it's bizarre to see HN commenters arguing after so many years of shitting on things like Play Services that, in effect, they want Android to become entirely proprietary.

It'd also send a powerful signal to lots of other companies - don't create open platforms monetized through additional services. As so much open source code is funded by companies, that'd be a huge blow.

[scarface74]

What most people think of “Android” has never been open source. Android has always been the unusable AOSP part + Google Play Services + proprietary binary drivers. Google has over the years abandoned much of the open source parts and created proprietary versions.

No one is saying that they want Android to become proprietary. There are plenty of open source projects supported by major corporations - Angular, React, NodeJS, WebKit, CUPS, Java, .Net Core, Swift, etc.

If a company only wants to license part of Google Play Services they should be able to pay for just that. If Android is so valuable, other companies should be willing to contribute to AOSP. How healthy is a piece of open source software if it completely dies once one corporate benefactor abandons it?

Would Java die the minute Oracle abandons it?

[repolfx]

That's simply not true is it - there are plenty of people who have made their own Android ROMS using the released code, and Android still comes with the same set of apps it always did. Yes, Google has often made better apps that compete with the built in open source ones, but you can still get a very capable and powerful mobile OS for free just by downloading it. And as for proprietary drivers, well that's the hw vendors not Google doing that.

[scarface74]

It doesn’t matter who is doing it. You can’t build a working Android system without binary closed source drivers.

No manufacturer can build an Android device using just AOSP even with proprietary drivers and hope to be competitive in any western market.

[dblohm7]

> also forced browsers to find independent business models

That's how things were before IE came around in the first place.