other alternative systems have more freedom than samsung because they are not bound by a license from google.
> they have their alternative OS
This is Tizen, and it doesn't support Android apps at all. It's a completely different operating system, so not entirely clear why Sumsung would want Android apps on it.
It would be impossible to launch a new platform without compatibility for existing apps. There's no way to gain enough developer mindshare to become a serious alternative otherwise.
Jolla had Android app compatibility from the launch in addition to the platform native apps, as they knew that's the only option really.
If you look at the linage of it (Intel Meego) and the time frame they started it (2011) the strategy of HTML5 support for apps kind of made sense.
Allegedly they are adding .NET support to it?
It is still around and actively developed. I believe it's had some success on watches.
on watches and appliances or tvs the android apps don't matter much so android support is less critical there.
tizen needs to support android because the tizen app market doesn't offer everything needed. some important apps are only on android. (namely chat apps for example. without those a phones usefulness is very limited) i had a tizen phone years ago. technically it was very nice, but not even having access to f-droid was a problem.
maybe samsung doesn't care, but as a consumer i do care.
technically it was possible to pack android apps into a wrapper to make them run on tizen. but it had to be done separately. a third-party service could do that, leaving samsung free from violating their android license.
Everyone else has really no choice, and Google gives them the my way or the highway approach.