Re:Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
by css771 on Wednesday January 02, 2013 @02:50PM
(#4998811)
> there are no guarantees that AOSP even works without Google's magic proprietary mojo
What do you mean by this? If you mean in the market, it can work. Amazon's devices are proof. If a manufacturer is shipping just AOSP, it needs to have a working complement to Google's suite of apps or it needs to have a different value proposition altogether.
> CyanogenMod had to develop the missing pieces when Google sent their C&D over the proprietary bits
What "missing bits"? They were shipping Google's suite of proprietary apps on top of their AOSP-based ROM and they stopped after the C&D.
Re:Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
by fluidcruft on Wednesday January 02, 2013 @03:29PM
(#4999065)
Once Google's proprietary stuff was deleted, it was not possible to provision a phone (until the FOSS alternates for things like Provision.apk were developed). I can't remember if you got bootloops or what. There were other problems, too. I think AOSP has been friendly toward patches for that sort of thing... ensuring AOSP without gapps works just wasn't one of Google's requirements (at least early on--it may be now for all I know). Not that you can really fault them for having different priorities.
Technically, you can probably ship something based on pure AOSP, but your competitors will have had pre-AOSP access to the code for multiple months and there are no guarantees that AOSP even works without Google's magic proprietary mojo. CyanogenMod had to develop the missing pieces when Google sent their C&D over the proprietary bits. I would suspect defensive things designed to make it more difficult for Amazon to leech AOSP are either present or coming soon particularly with the rumors that Amazon is working toward introducing a phone.