[nuclear_eclipse]

What do you mean? It's working on the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner hardware, albeit with some driver difficulties, but Google is perfectly happy to work with them and include drivers in the mainline Android development tree.

Not to mention there is no "official Google hardware." The T-Mobile G1's are produced by HTC, and are simply the first Android platform to hit the market. There are multiple other manufacturers looking at, or already planning devices based on the Android platform.

As for being "open", it's always still a problem of device makers and carriers insisting on digital restrictions of user freedoms, such as not allowing unsigned firmware to boot on the device. But as far as everything else goes, Android is by far the most "open" platform available for consumer grade devices as we know them.

Note that as an owner of a Neo FreeRunner, I don't yet consider it a consumer-ready device; hence the reason I have purchased myself a G1, as it is the next-best alternative until Openmoko, or some other group, can get their acts together and actually release a worthwhile mobile distribution.

[whughes]

Yes, I know that Android works on many different platforms. However, the Market is not available for any of them. I contacted Google myself and they said they had no plans to make it available. That makes these ports pretty much useless unless you get the .apks yourself, and most apps will just go for the store.