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I'm not sure Android can ever be truly open. As far as I know (please correct me if I am wrong) the firmware that Motorola or HTC (or whoever) ships works aroun

by nodata 16y ago

I'm not sure Android can ever be truly open. As far as I know (please correct me if I am wrong) the firmware that Motorola or HTC (or whoever) ships works around bugs that the vanilla Android does not address (e.g. the Motorola Droid camera). So even if I bypass the carrier and install vanilla Android myself, I might not get a fully functional phone. So I install the firmware directly from the manufacturer, and here the problem is that the updates take months to arrive, or never arrive at all- the hardware manufacturer wants me to upgrade to a new phone. To make it worse, these updates are also security updates, not just feature upgrades.

dman 16y ago
How is this different than the linux kernel for regular PC's. Theres hardware shortcomings in abundance that are worked around. If the process was truly open, a reputable tree would emerge with said workarounds. The mobile market is nowhere near as fragmented as the PC + peripherals market and yet open software works pretty reliably on the PC.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- sovande 16y ago
  Linux on the desktop is dead. Didn't you get the memo? http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Linux-Is-Dead http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Lin... And it's dead exactly because of fragmentation. I don't think Android will fare any better.
  - nodata 16y ago
    I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. If you're not, fragmentation (Gnome versus KDE, i.e. competition), is precisely what drives desktop Linux (see HN comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192)
    - sigzero 16y ago
      It only drives desktop Linux for the geeks. Joe and Jane Public don't really know the nuanaces of KDE or Gnome and they don't want to know. They want a product that just works and Apple is really really good at providing that to them.
      - nodata 16y ago
        and the public don't need to know, they just need to use "Ubuntu" or whatever is installed for them. I've been actually shocked by the number of people nowadays who have told me that they use Linux at home, let alone the number of people who have heard of it. Ask these people whether they use Gnome or KDE and they won't know. Ask them what Linux they use, and they will: Ubuntu, almost exclusively.
edderly 16y ago
https://opensource.motorola.com/sf/frs/do/viewRelease/projects.droidx/frs.droidx_source.shado_x3_1_13_5_10;jsessionid=4BD534A73BDA2A3C0E5ECE9AE9012832 https://opensource.motorola.com/sf/frs/do/viewRelease/projec... The Android repo will not contain all the platforms, I think usually Google are only interested in putting the source for their GEDs there. But the above is probably a good start.

by nodata 16y ago

dman 16y ago

How is this different than the linux kernel for regular PC's. Theres hardware shortcomings in abundance that are worked around. If the process was truly open, a reputable tree would emerge with said workarounds. The mobile market is nowhere near as fragmented as the PC + peripherals market and yet open software works pretty reliably on the PC.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sovande 16y ago
Linux on the desktop is dead. Didn't you get the memo? http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Linux-Is-Dead http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/10/18/1312214/Desktop-Lin... And it's dead exactly because of fragmentation. I don't think Android will fare any better.
- nodata 16y ago
  I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. If you're not, fragmentation (Gnome versus KDE, i.e. competition), is precisely what drives desktop Linux (see HN comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746192)
  - sigzero 16y ago
    It only drives desktop Linux for the geeks. Joe and Jane Public don't really know the nuanaces of KDE or Gnome and they don't want to know. They want a product that just works and Apple is really really good at providing that to them.
    - nodata 16y ago
      and the public don't need to know, they just need to use "Ubuntu" or whatever is installed for them. I've been actually shocked by the number of people nowadays who have told me that they use Linux at home, let alone the number of people who have heard of it. Ask these people whether they use Gnome or KDE and they won't know. Ask them what Linux they use, and they will: Ubuntu, almost exclusively.

edderly 16y ago

https://opensource.motorola.com/sf/frs/do/viewRelease/projects.droidx/frs.droidx_source.shado_x3_1_13_5_10;jsessionid=4BD534A73BDA2A3C0E5ECE9AE9012832 https://opensource.motorola.com/sf/frs/do/viewRelease/projec... The Android repo will not contain all the platforms, I think usually Google are only interested in putting the source for their GEDs there. But the above is probably a good start.