| What part of Google's AOSP do you disagree with? Is it that they don't perform every single commit in public or is it that their services aren't open sourced? As for your reference to the Google Play Store - this makes no sense at all. It's a service hosted and maintained on Google servers. Did you really expect Google to give this service away to any competitor that decides to fork Android? >But you know what... if you don't sign the OHA we'd not provide any support, and if you do sign the OHA, then you must install our closed source apps). Why would Google support a version of Android that refuses to pass the CTS? Do you really think Google would allow a device to use their services that was incompatible with Android? Also, why else would a company join the OHA other than to get the Google Apps and Services? >If you'd recall, Google refused to release code for Android for Tablets (honeycomb) at all. The code wasn't in a state to be released as it was incomplete. When they pushed ICS out they also included the Honeycomb source. So, it was released eventually. >Google is getting a lot of the bugs fixed for free! Would you by chance know the percentage of bugs fixed by people not employed by Google? I'm going to guess that percentage is very very low. |
And even if a device passes CTS, Google would not automagically hand you the keys to the Google Play Services kingdom.
As for Play Store / Play Services is concerned, they've been moving a lot of code to closed-sourced APKs. For instance, the default browser was open source, now the default browser that's Chrome isn't. The default keyboard was, now it isn't. The Camera app was, now it isn't. They started out being more open than where they are now. And that's my beef with AOSP.
I don't have the count of number of bugs non-Google employees fix. The percentages may be negligible, but the impact is high-- They do seem to be looking at mods elsewhere (swipe to dismiss notification? battery percentage in the status bar? open apps from lockscreen? CyanogenMod had them first), and they did just brought in Knox from Samsung recently.
Also, I am not asking for free Play Store support, no sir; I am asking for an open and standardized integration of multiple appstores and related services. But I guess that's not possible (see first line), and elaborate hacks such as MicroG need to be put in place https://github.com/microg (a loosing battle, IMO).