[smoldesu]

> Android's goals seem to be:

> 1. Make the UI play well with touch screens

> 2. Restrict the user's freedom

If this is true then they're losing to Apple on both accounts :p

Realistically though, Android is just another Linux distro. You can open a shell and run all sorts of stupid Linux stuff if you have adequate user permissions. Frankly, that's kinda the problem; manufacturers being able to modify the AOSP led to every company building their own shitty UX. Now that the beast is out of the cage, Google is struggling to run damage control.

From a technical aspect, x11 is not sufficient for a modern multitouch display interface (much less anything running at 60hz or higher). A UI framework might be considered excessive, but GTK and Qt were both terrible choices for building robust mobile applications. Even today they aren't really great choices.

Honestly, I don't really see how any of your examples add up to Google making Android a "piece of shit". Their working relationship with the community is great, and the architectural choices being made over the past few years seem to indicate a lot of great progress. In Linux terms, you're getting mad at the kernel for problems that exist in userland.

[sterlind]

Just because you can pop a shell doesn't really make Android a Linux distro in my book. I'm not an Android expert by any means, but apps don't use glibc do they? And I doubt sound goes through ALSA or PulseAudio, or that you can run purely native apps without some kind of Java shim, nor use dbus or hell is there even /etc? It has "Linux," but it's missing the "distro" part. userspace is so divergent, it'd be like calling OS X a BSD distro.

[smoldesu]

Android definitely doesn't use Linux as a runtime, but the implimentation of the kernel and userspace is quite Linux-like in my opinion. OSX isn't a BSD distro because it uses a non-BSD kernel with a BSD compatibility layer; Android on the other hand is Linux, but not GNU/Linux. Saying Android isn't Linux depends on your definition of Linux being incorrect.

[slabity]

> From a technical aspect, x11 is not sufficient for a modern multitouch display interface (much less anything running at 60hz or higher).

Can you expand on this part? I'm familiar with the arguments on why Wayland is an improvement over X11, but I was not aware of multitouch or high-refresh rate issues.

[smoldesu]

Sure, as someone who actually really likes x11 I think the distinction is easy to make. x11 is a feature-complete display protocol that has lots of bells and whistles; it's great for people who want an old-school desktop experience, but there are a lot of anachronisms that make it difficult to support for modern devices. For one, the compositor situation is a mess which makes it really difficult (if not impossible) to lock yourself at a smooth refresh rate. For two, the overlapping window model built into x11 display servers doesn't really reflect the fullscreen-app paradigm that most people expect from a smartphone. Finally, gesture support is a wreck on x11 unfortunately and held back by a number of issues (not the least of which being horrible stutter). There's a reason the community waited until Wayland to start building Linux phone stuff.

I say this as someone who likes Xorg more than most people. x11 is great if your workload can take advantage of it's feature-completeness. Most users would happily trade in VNC support for a locked 60fps interface and gesture support though.