[laureny]

Nonsense. You can certainly argue that "less" of Android is being open sourced than a few years ago, but it's still orders of magnitude more open than any of the other mobile OS available on the market. Especially OS X and iOS, which are both 0% open source.

Open source fanatics are impossible to satisfy, they will always find a reason why the flavor of open source that a company or an organization picked is not the "real" open source, but the simple truth is that I can load up the source of Android in any IDE and start debugging into Android's system libraries any time I need it.

Good luck getting this from Apple.

[ghshephard]

While I'm not suggesting that OS X is as open as, say, Android, I don't think the parent is speaking Nonsense. OS X does have and open source element, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system), so claiming iOS and OS X are "0% open source" is somewhat incorrect.

I think the parent is correct in that Google is now moving the value added components of their Operating System (as opposed to the more "core" elements of the OS, into closed source and fully under Google's control. It's a rational move, and I applaud them for their cleverness.

[ZeroGravitas]

Unless something has changed, there is no darwin for iOS and never has been.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29

"Darwin is now only available as source code,[5] except for the ARM variant, which has not been released in any form separately from iOS."

[wtracy]

> it's still orders of magnitude more open than any of > the other mobile OS available on the market.

Symbian? OpenMoko? The upcoming SailfishOS, Tizen, Firefox OS, and Ubuntu phone? Oh, you meant in the U.S., I guess. (Yes, I know that all the above have either already largely failed or have sketchy futures. That's an entirely different kettle of fish.)

> Open source fanatics are impossible to satisfy

All I want is the ability to make arbitrary changes to the software running on my phone. Why is that so hard?

[crumblan]

Arbitrary changes? But then how can we ensure that you are charged the proper price for tethering bandwidth versus phone bandwidth? How can we ensure you are paying the right price to blacklist phone numbers? My goodness what if you remove the default apps from the phone? No, that won't do at all.

[laureny]

> All I want is the ability to make arbitrary changes to the software running on my phone. Why is that so hard?

What mainstream OS makes this easier than Android?

[the_mitsuhiko]

> Firefox OS

Considering the closed source bits of Android have no equivalent in Firefox OS I would say it's equally open source as Firefox OS.

[ZeroGravitas]

Firefox and Ubuntu phone both run on top of an Android layer so they're not great argument against the openess of Android.

[4ad]

No, absolutely not. Ubuntu on existing Android phones uses the Linux kernel with the Android patches so it can use the OEM binary drivers. It doesn't use any bits of Android. FirefoxOS is the same.

[ZeroGravitas]

I didn't say they run on top of Dalvik, I'm saying they share some of the lower level foundations like e.g. "the Linux kernel with the Android patches so it can use the OEM binary drivers", which is important because that kind of stuff is what separates a smartphone from a brick.

[4ad]

No. Android layer means Dalvik + bionic. Ubuntu and FirefoxOS run on top of the Linux kernel, which happens to be supplied by Google/OEM vendors on some devices. Both can run on an unmodified Linux kernel if a device supports it, and both are trying to come up with their own devices.

Btw, the Linux kernel is the only GPL piece of code in Android. However closed Android is or will become, the kernel will still be provided because of the virulent license. Arguing Android is open because they ship the kernel that allows FirefoxOS and Ubuntu to boot on some devices is wrong because they are legally bound to ship this kernel, it's not an act of good will (but doesn't mean they wouldn't do it out of good will).

[csixty4]

> Especially OS X and iOS, which are both 0% open source

http://opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1084/

http://opensource.apple.com/release/ios-61/ (and a lot is shared with OS X, such as the xnu kernel)

http://www.cups.org

[gaadd33]

To be fair, CUPS was around before Apple's involvement and they purchased the source + hired the developer.

[Someone]

That applies to a zillion other parts of Mac OS X, too, but does that matter?

If it matters: to be fair, Android was around before Google's involvement and they purchased the source + hired the developer (1), and the Linux core of Android also wasn't developed by Google, IIRC.

(1) they probably did more work on Android than Apple did on CUPS, but that's a gradual difference.

[ZeroGravitas]

It's always fun to remember a time when Mac OS X's printer support was so bad (mostly due to low marketshare) that they had to adopt the Linux printing solution, and it was an immediate and massive improvement.

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

[samspenc]

They bought Howl software, its developers, and renamed it Bonjour and made it open-source - that became the de-facto standard for their network "plug-n-play" support for devices because Microsoft was trying to convince standards groups to make its (failed) protocol the standard for this.

[threeseed]

OSX printer support wasn't bad because of low marketshare. It was bad because it was a new operating system. And it wasn't just printers but everything. Drivers, applications, utilities. They all took years to move to OSX.

And most technologically astute people (young or old) know that OSX relies extensively on UNIX software of which CUPS is just one part.

[hisham_hm]

No, the parent comment is correct.

"It was bad because it was a new operating system." -- it was already bad in the pre-OSX Mac era (mostly due to low marketshare).

"And it wasn't just printers but everything. Drivers, applications, utilities. They all took years to move to OSX." -- for applications and most other things Apple had migration alternatives (Carbon APIs for pre-OSX Mac apps, the Classic environment for emulation of pre-OSX and even Rosetta for emulating PowerPC on Intel).

For the case of printers, they really just dropped whatever they had and went with the Linux solution.

[Everlag]

While I agree with your reasoning in the latter sections, comparing android to basically every other mobile os and calling it an order of a magnitude of a difference is a bit strange when they are basically 0.

[laureny]

Good point, I should have said "infinitely" instead of "orders of magnitude".