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Android for all practical purposes is as good as a closed ecosystem with apps tied to closed source Google services and the inability to run Linux on your Andro

by throw2016 9y ago

Android for all practical purposes is as good as a closed ecosystem with apps tied to closed source Google services and the inability to run Linux on your Android phones. This kind of lip service and self serving tip toeing around the spirit of open source in many ways does more harm to open source than closed source. How is it that devices drivers that work on Android perfectly are not available for use on Linux? What purpose does this kind of 'open source' then serve? Between Arm, its licensees and Google the ball is kicked around with open source devs struggling for years to make things work. Yet the narrative is this is no one's fault least of all Google and Arm, the 2 most powerful forces in the Android ecosystem. Google the planet's largest spyware and adware company is now making its own kernel. More power to them but given their track record healthy skepticism of their objectives and agenda is called for.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
This is definitely true, and I have a lot of issues with Google and their lip service to open source. (People reading my history will attest, I'm sure.) But at the very least, Fuchsia will be a lot more secure by design than Android, and Android is the dominant OS platform on earth. The state we are right now, where 85% of mobile devices run Android, and 0.7% of them are actually up to date, is a terrifying place to be from a security standpoint.
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Why am I not surprised that you can't even get your percentages correct.
  - IshKebab 9y ago
    Did you mean he was exaggerating? Because it's actually 0.6%.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Sorry, unfortunately I did get my numbers wrong. Based on a chart of Android versions taken from the Google site, it will probably be at least a month or two before 0.7% of Androids are running the latest version. My bad! I keep a running copy of the stats here: https://oasis.sandstorm.io/shared/UtPbpOAW2OaV4QpkgwIclqGeGC0tC5dYfqg4_c17r3Y https://oasis.sandstorm.io/shared/UtPbpOAW2OaV4QpkgwIclqGeGC...
    - simplehuman 9y ago
      Thanks for sharing but I am unable to scroll on Mobile
- oever 9y ago
  Fuchsia will be a lot more secure by design against user freedom.
43224gg252 9y ago
Don't know why any hacker would argue against you, but for some reason I see people on HN making excuses for companies like google and Microsoft almost everyday. These companies don't like Linux or FOSS, they just want to take advantage of it to make a profit. Google uses Linux to make the most popular OS in the world, and gives almost nothing back compared to what they could be giving back. "b.. but google is one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel" - it doesn't matter when their contributions don't serve the greater community. Even if they can't get some of their changes sent upstream, they could still provide patches for users for things like power management. Microsoft is no better. They say they love linux, but you don't see directX coming to linux. You don't see a windows sub-system coming to Linux (even though they were able to code up a Linux sub-system in a matter of months). Why not open source Visual Studio? They just don't give a shit about Linux.
sametmax 9y ago
I agree but unfortunatly we are not that many to see it as a major problem.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

This is definitely true, and I have a lot of issues with Google and their lip service to open source. (People reading my history will attest, I'm sure.) But at the very least, Fuchsia will be a lot more secure by design than Android, and Android is the dominant OS platform on earth. The state we are right now, where 85% of mobile devices run Android, and 0.7% of them are actually up to date, is a terrifying place to be from a security standpoint.

bitmapbrother 9y ago
Why am I not surprised that you can't even get your percentages correct.
- IshKebab 9y ago
  Did you mean he was exaggerating? Because it's actually 0.6%.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Sorry, unfortunately I did get my numbers wrong. Based on a chart of Android versions taken from the Google site, it will probably be at least a month or two before 0.7% of Androids are running the latest version. My bad! I keep a running copy of the stats here: https://oasis.sandstorm.io/shared/UtPbpOAW2OaV4QpkgwIclqGeGC0tC5dYfqg4_c17r3Y https://oasis.sandstorm.io/shared/UtPbpOAW2OaV4QpkgwIclqGeGC...
  - simplehuman 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing but I am unable to scroll on Mobile
oever 9y ago
Fuchsia will be a lot more secure by design against user freedom.

43224gg252 9y ago

Don't know why any hacker would argue against you, but for some reason I see people on HN making excuses for companies like google and Microsoft almost everyday. These companies don't like Linux or FOSS, they just want to take advantage of it to make a profit. Google uses Linux to make the most popular OS in the world, and gives almost nothing back compared to what they could be giving back. "b.. but google is one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel" - it doesn't matter when their contributions don't serve the greater community. Even if they can't get some of their changes sent upstream, they could still provide patches for users for things like power management. Microsoft is no better. They say they love linux, but you don't see directX coming to linux. You don't see a windows sub-system coming to Linux (even though they were able to code up a Linux sub-system in a matter of months). Why not open source Visual Studio? They just don't give a shit about Linux.

sametmax 9y ago

I agree but unfortunatly we are not that many to see it as a major problem.