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What matters is that the consumers have choice to use free software if they want. If someone makes an app for a (locked-down) samsung phone, it's going to work
by cowtools 4y ago
What matters is that the consumers have choice to use free software if they want. If someone makes an app for a (locked-down) samsung phone, it's going to work on a pixel phone running some AOSP distro. If google took some hardline policy or license that prevented the likes of samsung or xiaomi from tinkering with the OS, then all of these companies would be spinning up their own OSes and you would have even more fragmentation. the end result would be worse for the remaining AOSP/Pixel users.
Even if the consumers had privacy and control by default (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong), they still have to choose to take steps to maintain that privacy and control, because user respecting software is necessary but not sufficient for freedom.
I think the android userbase will come around when they realize that plain AOSP and vanilla android are just way better than all the bloated shit these manufacturers are doing with android.
- pjmlp 4y agoThe OEMs are spinning their own OSes for years, as anyone trying to make their app work across the ecosystem painfully knows, what AOSP allows is that they don't need to start from zero. Android userbase, the one that actually matters to app developers, just goes to the shopping mall and gets whatever cheap Android devices are on sale with pre-paid cards. Again, Pixel phones are more symbolic than anything, outside US very few countries have them on sale on those shopping malls.