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You're like the only person I know who is a Windows Phone fanboy. Perhaps you missed the part where none of the competitors were open source, or cheap to licens

You're like the only person I know who is a Windows Phone fanboy. Perhaps you missed the part where none of the competitors were open source, or cheap to license, and shipped years later (Windows Phone in 2010, Android in 2008). The world is flooded with Android for the same reason it's flooded with Linux now, and not Windows kernel devices. Perhaps if Ballmer had stopped trying to make OS licensing a profit center on mobile, history would have been different.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Not really a fanboy, just... finally no longer fighting with my phone. It's faster, it's more secure, it's supported properly by the developer. I'd honestly probably rather an Ubuntu phone or a Tizen phone or something, but Windows is the only third option I currently have on my carrier. And there's plenty of open source options out there now too, but it requires people step away from the coddled embrace of the existing monopolist.
- cromwellian 10y ago
  Using a non-Google ecosystem phone is trivial. Hundreds of millions of people do it. I've lived on Chinese Android phones, it wasn't hard. In China, instead of being "coddled" by Facebook/Google/et al, you are "coddled" by BAT - Baidu/Alibaba/Tencent. Apps like WePay are indispensable, ergo, as long as your phone runs WePay, you can do lots of stuff. Arguing for more Android forks is really a counter to your complaints about security issues, since it will result in even more fragmented updating schedules, given carrier control. It also contradicts your usual pimping of Windows Phone, complaining about Google's "monopoly" on Android, but supporting a monopolist (Microsoft) who won't even open source their OS.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Honestly, between the possibility of Microsoft open sourcing Windows and Google open sourcing Google Apps, I'd give ten times the odds to Microsoft. Microsoft is on the path of being more open from where they were. Google is on the path of being more closed then they were. This here wasn't persay an argument for more Android forks. As I said, Android is buggy and insecure. I'd rather many of the other open source options like Tizen or Ubuntu Touch get a chance to thrive. My view on Android itself is simple: As long as Google is incapable of updating it's own software, it's a joke. A literal joke.
    - cromwellian 10y ago
      Every so often I decide whether or not I should bother engaging your posts thinking perhaps you have moderated your obsessive fixation and bias against Google, and I'm continually disappointed. One could easily claim my bias is obvious, given my employer, but outside that, there are simply facts that can be independently measured and verified by anyone by simply measuring amount of code, projects, shipped as open source by each company. While Microsoft should absolutely be commended for their turn around in recent times given their new CEO, the fact reminds, Google not only continues to ship more open source projects every year, but has actually been more open, not less, recently. And that doesn't even count the huge number of external commits that Googlers make to other open source projects that are not owned by Google. To say that Microsoft getting better than Google at openness is completely lacking in evidence, and only by bias and political spin can it be seen otherwise. As of right now, Google open source enables IHVs to make products and take them to market, saving enormous development costs, by forking Android or parts of it, or forking Chromium. Or taking V8 (as nodejs did) to spawn an entire development ecosystem. There's a thriving industry of startups and development ecosystem that exists because of these contributions. Right now, I can't go make say, a new wearable, IoT device, phone, or TV, and bootstrap it quickly by taking parts of Windows, but you can see tons of Kickstarter projects that do that with Google code, without involving any formal arrangement with Google, i.e. "permissionless" development. When cheap devices in India or China enable the worlds poor to get online by using Microsoft source, then maybe your statements can hold water.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Not really a fanboy, just... finally no longer fighting with my phone. It's faster, it's more secure, it's supported properly by the developer. I'd honestly probably rather an Ubuntu phone or a Tizen phone or something, but Windows is the only third option I currently have on my carrier. And there's plenty of open source options out there now too, but it requires people step away from the coddled embrace of the existing monopolist.

cromwellian 10y ago
Using a non-Google ecosystem phone is trivial. Hundreds of millions of people do it. I've lived on Chinese Android phones, it wasn't hard. In China, instead of being "coddled" by Facebook/Google/et al, you are "coddled" by BAT - Baidu/Alibaba/Tencent. Apps like WePay are indispensable, ergo, as long as your phone runs WePay, you can do lots of stuff. Arguing for more Android forks is really a counter to your complaints about security issues, since it will result in even more fragmented updating schedules, given carrier control. It also contradicts your usual pimping of Windows Phone, complaining about Google's "monopoly" on Android, but supporting a monopolist (Microsoft) who won't even open source their OS.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Honestly, between the possibility of Microsoft open sourcing Windows and Google open sourcing Google Apps, I'd give ten times the odds to Microsoft. Microsoft is on the path of being more open from where they were. Google is on the path of being more closed then they were. This here wasn't persay an argument for more Android forks. As I said, Android is buggy and insecure. I'd rather many of the other open source options like Tizen or Ubuntu Touch get a chance to thrive. My view on Android itself is simple: As long as Google is incapable of updating it's own software, it's a joke. A literal joke.
  - cromwellian 10y ago
    Every so often I decide whether or not I should bother engaging your posts thinking perhaps you have moderated your obsessive fixation and bias against Google, and I'm continually disappointed. One could easily claim my bias is obvious, given my employer, but outside that, there are simply facts that can be independently measured and verified by anyone by simply measuring amount of code, projects, shipped as open source by each company. While Microsoft should absolutely be commended for their turn around in recent times given their new CEO, the fact reminds, Google not only continues to ship more open source projects every year, but has actually been more open, not less, recently. And that doesn't even count the huge number of external commits that Googlers make to other open source projects that are not owned by Google. To say that Microsoft getting better than Google at openness is completely lacking in evidence, and only by bias and political spin can it be seen otherwise. As of right now, Google open source enables IHVs to make products and take them to market, saving enormous development costs, by forking Android or parts of it, or forking Chromium. Or taking V8 (as nodejs did) to spawn an entire development ecosystem. There's a thriving industry of startups and development ecosystem that exists because of these contributions. Right now, I can't go make say, a new wearable, IoT device, phone, or TV, and bootstrap it quickly by taking parts of Windows, but you can see tons of Kickstarter projects that do that with Google code, without involving any formal arrangement with Google, i.e. "permissionless" development. When cheap devices in India or China enable the worlds poor to get online by using Microsoft source, then maybe your statements can hold water.