Joe Hewitt: Android and Open Source

Re:Joe Hewitt: Android and Open Source by bradshaw1965 on Thursday October 21, 2010 @09:28AM (#1815262)

... And while everything you say may be true, I still don't think most people care. In fact, I'm fairly certain most people don't care. Ask your average developer, much less consumer, the difference between Chrome and Android with respect to openess and you'll probably get blank stares. ...

and what subset care about:

the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

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Re:Joe Hewitt: Android and Open Source by kenjackson on Thursday October 21, 2010 @12:20PM (#1816118)

A much bigger subset. Although even that misses the larger point.

Probably the most useful part of the Android story is side-loading. After that the ability to host Android on any device I like. After that the ability to add or remove any part of Android I like. At somet point we eventually get down to something like public commits, but that's far below things like ability to audit and escrow code.

Again, I'm not saying that the things Joe wishes for are bad things. But the absence of them does not make something closed.

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