>Maybe it is, but you really can't go around claiming openness when you don't provide it.
How does "closed Honeycomb" reflect on any of the code that you previously would have considered "open"?
Before someone commits code to an open-source project, that code isn't available. No one would claim that the existence of that unavailable code says anything about the openness of the available code. And that wouldn't change if the unavailable code was shared with some of the author's friends.
What if the author in your example and his friends shipped the unavailable code as a consumer product and called it Android Smart Tablet?
They've been making a lot of noise for years about Android the open source software stack for mobile devices. Now they
're releasing mobile devices, calling it Android, basing it on Android, and keeping the source to themselves; Weak.
The concept of openness is not black or white. There are many shades of grey, and certainly wrt mobile OSs, Android is more open than WP7, iOS, RIM, or WebOS. Just like there are differences between FOSS licenses (e.g. BSD vs GPL). They have to contend with the wishes of the carriers and hardware mfgs, not just developers, which can be quite difficult to balance.
Yes, Android's conception of openness is the kind where you get to advertise how moral you are and how dastardly the competition is, not the kind where you have to compromise on difficult business decisions.
Seems to me that the important part of Android openness was the ability to sideload and run competing app stores.
It's great that the OS source was also open, but it seems like this has only a very indirect impact on end users and app developers, unlike app store policies.
anamax|15 years ago
How does "closed Honeycomb" reflect on any of the code that you previously would have considered "open"?
Before someone commits code to an open-source project, that code isn't available. No one would claim that the existence of that unavailable code says anything about the openness of the available code. And that wouldn't change if the unavailable code was shared with some of the author's friends.
So why does "closed Honeycomb" have that effect?
notaddicted|15 years ago
They've been making a lot of noise for years about Android the open source software stack for mobile devices. Now they 're releasing mobile devices, calling it Android, basing it on Android, and keeping the source to themselves; Weak.
18pfsmt|15 years ago
gamble|15 years ago
eli|15 years ago
It's great that the OS source was also open, but it seems like this has only a very indirect impact on end users and app developers, unlike app store policies.
seabee|15 years ago