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by probablycorey 5553 days ago
Android is still much more open than Apple. A developer can actually view the Android source code, you can deploy an application to a device without Google's permission, you can access much more of the OS features from Android than with the iPhone.

The only people this limits "openness" for is device manufactures, which most developers would probably consider a good thing.
3 comments
anon1385 5553 days ago
>A developer can actually view the Android source code

So I should be able to download and view the source code to Honeycomb, right?

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jad 5553 days ago
> Android is still much more open than Apple.

Is the goal to be open, or just more open than Apple? As I'm sure you know, they're not the same thing.

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bonch 5553 days ago
> Android is still much more open than Apple.

Instead of being an open platform, we're apparently devolving into specifying particular degrees of openness. If you want to play that game, the Darwin operating system that provides the foundation of iOS is also open source, and it doesn't require a license to use or approval from Apple over modifications.

> A developer can actually view the Android source code

No, Google is withholding Honeycomb's source code for the indefinite future--unless you're lucky enough to be one of Google's privileged partners.

Your post is another example of the justifications we often see from Android supporters for behaviors that Apple has been criticized for in the past, such as withholding source code and holding final approval over third-party development. Google declared pretty loudly that Android exists to prevent a "draconian future" of strict control. However, Google is now exerting aspects of that control.

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pkulak 5553 days ago
The problem is that I want my OS to be open to me, so that I can do with it as I choose. If you give that openness to the person above me who sells me my phone, they're just going to use it to take away my freedoms with the OS, like we've seen Verizon doing for years now. I want it, and if I have to take it from Verizon, then fine, I don't care about conforming to some FOSS ideal.
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Tyrannosaurs 5553 days ago
Which is great, right up until Google decide that the latest version which was on the new phone you just bought isn't going to be made available for the foreseeable future.

The issue is surely that something is open or it isn't? The minute that Google start closing off or controlling bits of it, don't you have to ask yourself whether the thing you care about is next and therefore whether it's actually open or just probably open?

And for me probably open isn't really open enough.

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joebadmo 5553 days ago
Here's my perspective as a user:

Openness for developers/users and openness for vendors are, as it turns out, almost mutually exclusive.

Google's taking my side. Finally.

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