6 ms·
An interesting side effect of the creeping googlification and closed-sourcing of the Android platform [1] is that it's making Android less attractive to reasona
by tetromino_ 10y ago
An interesting side effect of the creeping googlification and closed-sourcing of the Android platform [1] is that it's making Android less attractive to reasonably paranoid non-American government users.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...
- dispose13432 10y agoWhy are there no Open Source implementations of Google's API? Except for that, most of their complaints don't hold water. No OS texting app? Go to f-droid and find them. No browser? Go to f-droid. The only issue is the API, much of which actually depends on Google Data (for example, Geolocation would be a problem without Google's WiFi data)
- JonnieCache 10y agoThere is one: https://microg.org https://microg.org It's very much an alpha however.
- lima 10y agoStill works surprisingly well for most basic usage.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hackuser 10y agoThere are several alternatives to Google Apps, if that is what you are referring to, including TK Gapps and the MicroG project (as far as I know - I haven't used them myself). > for example, Geolocation would be a problem without Google's WiFi data UnifiedNlp[0] geolocation, when I looked into it a little while ago, could use various data sources including Mozilla's, Apple's, OpenWlanMap, and others. ---- [0] https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_UnifiedNlp/ https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_UnifiedNlp/
- tananaev 10y agoThere is also an alternative for location APIs: https://github.com/mapzen/lost https://github.com/mapzen/lost
- bitmapbrother 10y agoFunny how China is able to take Android and make it their own OS void of any Google services. I guess it's easier for these lazy people to blame Google then doing the actual work like China did.
- Grazester 10y agoYeah and SailFish OS isn't full open source. The only thing that is not open source on android is the Google Play services. Android is can be fully functional without the Play Services. With SailFish the UI is closed source. How's the OS without a UI?
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoAndroid isn't fully functional without the apps you want it to run. And all the apps you want to run require Play Services. With a walled garden like that you have no way around that requirement where it's implemented. A UI layer you can conceivably replace. App stores have incredible controlling power. But even worse is the Play Services platform: It means even if you get the APK on an AOSP device, it won't run because it's not built to run on Android, the open source project, it's built to run of Google Android, the closed source product. The realization people need to realize is that Google effectively forked their own OS, and the original has basically no support.
- rtkwe 10y agoIt's tricky because there's not really a great alternative to creating the Play Services divide because those services are pretty integral to how a lot of apps function and they rely a lot on outside data and servers so you either have a separate bit of the OS handle it or you have base AOSP have weird dependencies on Google servers for data. Also I think a lot of the movement of things into Play Services instead of the base OS is because manufacturers were so horrible about actually updating their devices so Google moved it out of the OS into a portion they could actually control so they could actually roll out updates in a timely manner.