News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Android Migration. Parent comment

Re:Android Migration by sangnoir on Tuesday June 09, 2015 @04:06PM (#9688225)
> I'd venture that Google's tightening its grip on Android and making it more closed than it ever was. A high profile engineer, JBQ, quit AOSP project for a reason

It might seem nit-picky, but that is so vague as to be untrue. The reason JBQ quit, as I pieced together from his G+/tweets, was because of 3rd party drivers for a Nexus device that were not released as open source as he would have liked (he managed AOSP releases). Inferring from his posts at the time, this was something he realised as a potential problem ahead of time and notified legal, but it seemed nothing was done (or they failed in negotiating with manufacturer).

I'm not a Googler, so I could also be off-base here. I apologise ahead of time if I misrepresented anyone.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Android Migration by ignoramous on Wednesday June 10, 2015 @10:11AM (#9692279)
You're right. JBQ quit because of the reasons you mention. But he was tired of AOSP in general and doubted the intentions of powers that be. Android was notorious for its non-cooperation with the rest of Google (remember the android browser vs chrome wars?), IIRC. Removal of Andy Rubin from the Android division was a sign enough... Ever since Sundar Pichai has taken over, Google has continued to close source a lot of code that was earlier part of AOSP.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/android-5-0-lollipop-...

[ Parent | on HN ]