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Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice. Generally hardware warranty will remain if it's

by ikeboy 8y ago

Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice. Generally hardware warranty will remain if it's purely a hardware issue - you can always flash back anyway. Android is free software in the sense that you can make and distribute modified versions. If app vendors choose to discriminate against those versions that doesn't make it unfree any more than software supporting windows and not Linux makes Linux unfree

notacoward 8y ago
> Android is free software in the sense that you can make and distribute modified versions. I don't think that's enough to make it free software, and "free software in the sense..." is nonsensical. Free software would guarantee the continuance of that freedom. Since that guarantee doesn't exist, Google could place limitations on the Play Store at any time. The fact that they haven't makes the example less clear, but it doesn't make Android free software. Even Google doesn't claim that it is.
- ikeboy 8y ago
  Play store isn't part of Android. Even if it was only available to specific phones, that wouldn't make Android unfree. Play store isn't open source at all. Amazon was able to take Android and put it on their extremely popular devices with 0 support from Google, no play store. That's what I call freedom
  - zamazingo 8y ago
    > Play store isn't part of Android. It is extremely well integrated into it, by design.
  - SSLy 8y ago
    Play store isn't part of AOSP.
dahart 8y ago
> Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice. Isn’t the entire point of Google’s certification process to encourage app vendors to make that choice?
- ikeboy 8y ago
  No, only for apps that value certified behavior over accessibility. Typically this is payments (high liability for fraud, higher fraud rates from non-certified users), DRM, and multiplayer gaming (prevent cheating).

by ikeboy 8y ago

notacoward 8y ago

> Android is free software in the sense that you can make and distribute modified versions. I don't think that's enough to make it free software, and "free software in the sense..." is nonsensical. Free software would guarantee the continuance of that freedom. Since that guarantee doesn't exist, Google could place limitations on the Play Store at any time. The fact that they haven't makes the example less clear, but it doesn't make Android free software. Even Google doesn't claim that it is.

ikeboy 8y ago
Play store isn't part of Android. Even if it was only available to specific phones, that wouldn't make Android unfree. Play store isn't open source at all. Amazon was able to take Android and put it on their extremely popular devices with 0 support from Google, no play store. That's what I call freedom
- zamazingo 8y ago
  > Play store isn't part of Android. It is extremely well integrated into it, by design.
- SSLy 8y ago
  Play store isn't part of AOSP.

dahart 8y ago

> Those apps are making a conscious decision to exclude phones/roms not certified by Google. That's their choice. Isn’t the entire point of Google’s certification process to encourage app vendors to make that choice?

ikeboy 8y ago
No, only for apps that value certified behavior over accessibility. Typically this is payments (high liability for fraud, higher fraud rates from non-certified users), DRM, and multiplayer gaming (prevent cheating).