It's not really "stealing" but you could theoretically fork it and gain enough market share on your fork that your version becomes what people think of when you say Android.

But, Google open sourced it so they're cool with that. I still don't see the issue here.

Allowing forking (by the license) does not mean that Google likes forking.

That is how these things work. If an org isn't willing to allow forking then they forking shouldn't have open sourced it. The FACT that Google open sourced it tells me THEY DON'T MIND.

Then why did Google threaten to banish Acer from the OHA if they dared release even a single device running a fork, partnered with a competing search engine?

Google has made it very clear they are opposed to so-called 'incompatible' forks of Android, and that they consider pretty much anything not running Google's proprietary services to be 'incompatible'.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/19/android-ch...

> And your app store contains Android apps (including pirated Google apps).

I think THIS was the issue, not the forked Android.

Amazon has a forked Android. Cyanogen has one.

Acer isn't responsible for what Aliyun puts in it's app store, and that's NOT the issue, Google made clear in their response: Google doesn't allow OHA members (companies allowed to ship the Play Store) to sell any devices with forks. Amazon isn't an OHA member. Cyanogen may have something interesting going on, because AFAIK they're compliant with whatever OHA terms they currently have agreed to.

What kind of thinking is that? Google open sourced it because they HAD TO. Linux is GPL so they had no other choice. Whether or not they mind is a different issue.

Indeed, as tingol wrote, parts (as the Linux kernel) had to be open sourced. But also for the large rest I believe open sourcing Android had more advantages than disadvantages for Google - thus it made sense. This does not contradict the fact that Google might not be fond of forks.

Android the OS isn't where the value lies. It is the Android ecosystem - the applications, drivers, and hardware.

Google has essentially taken over the ecosystem via their Google Play API. I know this first hand as my beloved Blackberry OS 10 was able to run Android apps. Now this is almost impossible as the majority of apps created in the last few years have hooks into Google's APIs and absolutely won't work without all of Google's hooks into your privacy.

I don't imagine roms that avoid GApps will be a viable alternative in a year or two either.

Microsoft has been trying to develop an ability to run Android apps on their phones, and it looks like they're giving up too due to Google's lock on the APIs.

Yes, of course they can't steal the source code, nor the OS itself. There OS is used in a broader sense. They want to steal Google's position of inmense power in the Android ecosystem.

While Android is 'technically' open source, from a practical sense, it is not. It's primarily controlled by the Google MADA agreement, which is how Google dictates terms to OEMs. OEMs have very little ability to negotiate this agreement, and they have almost no alternative to accepting it.

If Microsoft was able to present a viable alternative, such that manufacturers could choose to use Microsoft's flavor of Android over Google's, it'd effectively wrestle control of Android away from Google, because Google would no longer be able to impose such strong terms over access to things like the Play Store.

This is correct, although this isn't likely. Replicating the end-user cloud services Google provides is hard enough, but replicating the app store could be much harder since so many Android apps are written to call Google Play Services APIs. Microsoft would have to spend considerable resources getting developers to rewrite (and even harder, maintain!) their Android apps to target Microsoft equivalents for Play Services. Perhaps an easier sell to developers than "hey, learn C# and build your app from scratch for Windows Phone", but easier than impossible does not necessarily mean possible.

Possibly, but not likely for a while. The Play Store is the one with all the Android apps. There'd have to be something quite compelling to get developers, especially ones using Google services in their apps, to support the Microsoft or Cyannogen stores. Because there'd still be a cost in supporting the alternative store, and so far most developers aren't wanting to do that.