What a truly fatuous and obnoxious comment. You've managed to hit most of the HN bullshit argument dog-whistles: accusing people of being shills, invoking Aaron Swartz, arguing on behalf of "hackers", speaking for the rest of the site, and accusing the person you're debating of dishonesty. And you managed to do it in an argument about software licensing. Well played.

Sorry if you find it obnoxious - I was trying to avoid picky, semantic arguments about individual sentences by explaining what was happening at a higher level.

For the record, I'm specifically not accusing DannyBee of dishonesty. The reason I mentioned Moral Mazes as a book is because it explains what happens from the point of view of the managers, and why it comes across to outsiders as dishonest.

This stuff is subtle and systemic.

Fair point about speaking for the site.

"However, you are not acting in a straightforward "hacker" way, as befits this site, telling the truth how it is."

I'm not even sure where to start with your comment, because it implies so much, and has so little to offer.

Rather than address it point by point, i'll just say things:

When i'm speaking for the company I work for, you'll know it, because it'll be a press release that says Google on it. Maybe you are unable to separate your personal and professional lives, and hold opinions separate from your corporations. For me, Google is a company I work for. While I love my job, Google certainly does things i don't always agree with. When it does, i'm certainly not going to avoid saying something because i am "rehearsing to explain the actions my company has taken".

There are a lot of things Android could do better. But in the end, what I see over the years is a lot of whining that it's never enough. From where I sit, Google has taken a lot of flack for actually pushing the ball forward, because it doesn't always go as far as the open source community wants. First they wanted Google to beat up the carriers (without understanding why this is pretty much impossible). Then they complain when we don't. Heck, some people complain android is "too open", because we can't force carriers to give people what they want. I could go on here for hours. Look at the complaints of a lack of a nexus 4 and nexus 5 on certain carriers . Google releases an entire platform, on which other open platforms are now based, and people complain that they have value-added apps that provide a lot of functionality, and haven't opened them. Well great, good for them. This is supposed to be an innovative community. Create your own. Do it better. Do it open, and win. Prove that they made the wrong choice.

Let's stop and be honest for a second. Do you really think something like Firefox OS would even exist (not even just because it is/was based on Android at the lower levels, like Gonk) in the market today if Android had not pushed the ball forward?

When Android was first released, one of my good friends told me no matter what Google did, people would never see it as enough, no matter how open it was. The saddest part to me of all this is that he was right.

Android was never meant to be the end solution, it was meant to be the beginning.

Thanks for this comment - it's much better and clearer than the grandparent at explaining what Google are doing.

All the hard work on Android is much appreciated - I'm really glad Apple didn't gain a monopoly.

Would you prefer that Google gains a monopoly in operating systems as well as search?

Firefox OS certainly would not exist without Google signing the Mozilla Foundation nice big paychecks.

But the mobile web is inevitable. Eventually there will be parity in performance between web apps and native apps. (And Android is on the wrong side of that divide, and Dalvik doesn't exactly help.) Even if Firefox OS isn't doing what it is now, someone would have tried to push for a mobile OS focused on web apps. Perhaps even Samsung.

I don't agree with the parent poster's implication that 'because you work for Google you are a spokesperson'

But.. You have certainly claimed to have authority to speak about parts of Google's strategy because you were in certain meetings.

I have claimed to know certain things, not to have authority to speak for Google :)

These are very different things, and you should not confuse them.

As i've said before, everything i've stated about these strategies is public knowledge, and often stated by Andy Rubin himself, just not always believed :)

All i've done is basically say "believe it".

What I believe is that (as you have claimed) Android started as open, and is not any longer, but that many advocates of Android (Google included) continue to assert that it is.

You seem to be trying to wriggle out of this by saying that what people mean by Android today has moved past the 'open beginning' that is all that was ever meant to be open, and that's not Google's fault.

I agree that this isn't Google's fault. But let's speak plainly. Android began as open and that was all that Google intended. Things have changed since then and only a part of Android is open anymore.

Why try to claim otherwise?

Remember earlier when I said "It's just not a point worth arguing with someone who holds a position that clearly conflicts with mine and is highly unlikely to change it."

This is why I said that. You have your belief. You are clearly unlikely to change it no matter what I say. Your goal in this is not to possibly change your belief, but to find a way to confirm it in what i'm saying. This is what people do in these situations.

That does not often generate useful discussion, and it hasn't really here.

Realistically, I haven't tried to wiggle out of anything. It just turns out, as I suggested, we strongly disagree over whether Android is open, whether it was meant to be, and whether it still is.

Rather than continue this unproductive debate, i'm just going to go back to hacking some code on this fine sunday :)