Re:Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
by Tyrannosaurs on Wednesday February 05, 2014 @09:04AM
(#7183716)
Yep, I don't think we're disagreeing, I'm more commenting on - I'm certainly not saying that Android isn't open, more that open should be seen as a continuum rather than a binary switch.
The interesting thing for me is how Google react to the areas where they're losing control of Android. For them Android is (or was) a means to an end - it stopped Apple getting control of the mobile space which would have made Google beholden to Apple for traffic to their services.
I personally don't believe Google have particularly strong feelings about Android as an open source property, they care about it for what it does for them in areas they do care about. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few years and what that means for Android.
That said, yes Android isn't technically Android without Google services but it doesn't mean that stripped down it's still not useful. Just ask Amazon or one of the many companies in Asia that have forked it.
> until there are solid FOSS alternatives to those services you can't use Android to put together a compelling smartphone without Google.
You've made my argument in the same post.
> In China and much of Asia where Google services are either unavailable or less compelling it is far closer to open. OEMs use the OS, bundle what they want and ship it without Google knowing or controlling anything and that's maybe a third of Android shipments worldwide so not insignificant.