The point at which Apple's culture significantly shifted away from open source was the point at which they hid all their source code until after the OS was released.

This completely breaks the OSS community and contribution model.

Back in 2002, it was possible to contribute code to the current in-development version of Mac OS X. Now it's not, and iOS-specific OS code isn't provided at all.

Ok? What's this have to do with android? An anecdote is just that. We can't compare past Apple behavior to that of Google. They are very different companies in many ways.

It means that:

A) closed development breaks the OSS community model -- that's not anecdote, just fact.

B) We have a past example of the slippery slope of closed development.

Depends on what you call Android... If you talk about the "Android open-source software stack" ..yes that's "open" (I would still not see it as open source as for me it's the community that matters). If you talk about the Android smart phone os ... no that's not open-source.

For me "open-source" stands for community driven with open repository. It's a way to develop (not a source dump after a while of closed source development).

Also I argue that Android as a smart phone OS is NOT open-source, as you desperately need binary code for basic OS functionality.

Sigh, this whole Android is open or not argument is degenerating into the kind of arguments over 'Copyright infringement vs. Stealing'.

Here's one good solution, call the open Android as Androidium(on the lines of Chrome vs. Chromium).

Very good article on the openness of Android and to implement the above proposal.

http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-ho...

>Some like to claim that since Google gives vendors early access to the source, this somehow makes it not open. For those releases, at that specific date in time, maybe so. But, the source is released and generally pretty soon after phones start shipping (honeycomb was a different story and Google's statements on the matter have been proven to be true with the new combined tablet and phone releases).

The problem came to fore when Acer got threatened with being cut off early access etc. when they wanted to launch other phones with Alibaba OS (Aliyun) on them. It's sort of a Android fork, but that's legal, but still Acer had to fold under the pressure or force getting cut off from their mobile business. Early access is much more important to OEMs than you make it seem to be and being able to fork is the core tenet of open source.

>Look, if android wasn't open source, projets like this would be a lot less successful: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

You know what, barely anyone would use CM if they couldn't get access to the Play Store and Google Apps like Map. So they download it illegally from other sources. CM used to provide them but got a warning from Google. So right now they wink-wink-nudge-nudge towards the Play Store.

I like the androidium idea. It would help with the confusion.

The acer problem is an interesting thing to examine closer. The issue is that of android fragmentation. Vendors want to ship hardware asap (to their own detriment at times). Google is more interested in the long term viability of the OS. I think the acer threat is a good thing. It's good that Google maintains this leverage. Otherwise, android will fragment and die. Vendors were pushing hard to get a tablet OS out before it was ready. Google capitulated and offered up honeycomb, but soon learned that wasn't viable. They had to do something to give themselves more time to present a unified strategy.

I disagree that CM would die without pirated roms. I do agree however, that this has a lot to do with it's popularity. Keep in mind that the play store, maps, and other services aren't open for a reason. Sometimes it's because the technology uses proprietary bits that Google expects to monetize (maps) and other times it has to do with legal concerns (the play store, which allows in store purchases).

I agree with what you said about Google doing these things for the good of the Android ecosystem, but the problem is with calling Android "open". There are a lot of caveats to that statement which almost always go unmentioned by the person calling it open.

> The problem came to fore when Acer got threatened with being cut off early access etc. when they wanted to launch other phones with Alibaba OS (Aliyun) on them. It's sort of a Android fork, but that's legal, but still Acer had to fold under the pressure or force getting cut off from their mobile business. Early access is much more important to OEMs than you make it seem to be and being able to fork is the core tenet of open source.

At first glance it looked like Google was going mental about Acer and Alibaba forking Android, but later on it became clear that their Aliyun OS was to be released with all the Google Apps preinstalled, which of course is not allowed. Hence all the drama at Google. Combine that with the fact that Alibaba is a big company in Asia, which gives Google reasons enough to step up.

> You know what, barely anyone would use CM if they couldn't get access to the Play Store and Google Apps like Map. So they download it illegally from other sources. CM used to provide them but got a warning from Google. So right now they wink-wink-nudge-nudge towards the Play Store.

Same issue here. Not allowed to come with Google Apps preinstalled. But unlike Aliyun, CM is not a competitor in the smartphone OS market. It just provides an alternative to the standard installed Android OS with custom manufacturer skin (Sense, TW, ...) and often bloated apps. Although Google forbids CM to come prepackaged with Gapps, I highly doubt Google would ever go on a crusade against CM for providing links to the Gapps packages floating freely on the net. After all, with a few exceptions, only people owning a genuine Android phone would ever flash CM. Having the ability to still flash Gapps would continue to extend their value as a customer to Google due to ad and Play Store revenue.

It's just Google enforcing their policy concerning the Play Store and Google Apps in the entire Open Source story that is Android. It's actually Google that's wink-wink-nudge-nudge-ing the entire custom rom developer scene. Plenty of ways for Google to DRM their apps to prevent the likes of CM from using them, but they won't.

Cyanogen Mods

Excuse me?

They are possible because Android is open source.

Edit: overlooked that you already mentioned them. The argument "nobody uses them without Play and Maps" is invalid, though.

>The argument "nobody uses them without Play and Maps" is invalid, though.

Why? CM is legally prohibited from bundling Play Store, Google apps like Mail, Youtube, Maps, Currents, Now etc. etc.

In fact, Google sent them a C&D for doing so.

http://phandroid.com/2009/09/25/cyanogen-gets-cd-from-google...

If users cannot obtain them from (sometimes shady) filesharing sites, how many using CM currently would have installed it?

Still, the OS is open source, even if some of the apps are not. Number of installs is not a relevant metric for open sourceness.

The OP I was replying to said that projects like CM won't be popular if Android wasn't open source.

I replied that CM's popularity is a direct result of people committing copyright infringement by providing and downloading non-open source Google apps. Won't cutting that off reduce the popularity of CM?

AOSP is open. Android? Probably not so much, since it includes the Play Store and Google Apps in common usage of the term. Don't you see the technical distinction between Android and AOSP?

I'm not so sure that cutting off access to play has as much to do with the popularity as much as vendors "abandoning" their devices.

The only way I can run a "modern" version of Android on my Viewsonic Gtablet is by using CM, and I don't care that I don't have access to google play on it. The Amazon marketplace is free to download and install and the apps work great.

What's the difference between "Androidium" and AOSP?

It's cooler, and kinda rhymes with Chromium (which is to Chrome what Androidium will be to Android).

There's probably no difference technically, but you don't see people using that term much. For example, in this thread we see people saying Android is open, instead of AOSP is open.

Perhaps increasing the usage of the AOSP term will suffice.