European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitrust case

Re:European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitr... by pertymcpert on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @12:02PM (#17559570)

Google didn't write all of Android, there are GPL components. They didn't have the choice to keep it closed source, all of it anyway.

And secondly, they're not being punished for having an open source operating system. They're being punished for forcing manufacturers to install their suite of software (simplified). It's not because they open sourced Android. I repeat, it's NOT BECAUSE THEY OPEN SOURCED ANDROID.

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Re:European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitr... by VikingCoder on Wednesday July 18, 2018 @01:48PM (#17560491)

Google could absolutely close-source enough of Android to make it essentially closed.

As I posted elsewhere:

Couldn't Google have had Samsung OEM phones?

With co-branding?

And all of the profits going to Samsung?

This would merely be a different way to structure access to Android, right? Android is closed source, but literally everything else is the same...

Except now it's not "anti-competitive," because the phone manufacturers are not "competitors" to Google.

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Re:European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitr... by kilotaras on Thursday July 19, 2018 @05:13AM (#17564826)

> Couldn't Google have had Samsung OEM phones?

1. Android still reached 80% of market 2. Terms of OEM prohibited Samsung from making phones with another OS

That would be the same anticompetitive violation

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Re:European Commission fines Google €4.34B in Android antitr... by VikingCoder on Thursday July 19, 2018 @10:46AM (#17566758)

The terms wouldn't prohibit Samsung from making phones with another OS.

The terms would say that Samsung installs the version of Android 2 (the new and closed source one) that Google tells it to. As manufacturing partners are always told what to do.

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