5 ms·

Google still distributes AOSP. The Android ecosystem is quite diverse and healthy. They've done a great job IMO I wouldn't trust Apple with anything open sourc

by HKH2 2y ago

Google still distributes AOSP. The Android ecosystem is quite diverse and healthy. They've done a great job IMO I wouldn't trust Apple with anything open source, but Apple's not trying to look like an open-source-friendly company. Microsoft is.

skeledrew 2y ago
Google has been slowly poisoning AOSP for years, ensuring the antidote is to include their services. AOSP now is mostly just a shell. This was reinforced just a few days ago when I downloaded and setup Android Studio for the first time in years: the default AVD with their APIs integrated works really well out of the box, but when I tried creating a couple AVDs without them, they wouldn't even boot (AVDs in my old setup still work fine, but that's on my previous computer).
shiroiushi 2y ago
It's more than that. Google started out as an open-source-friendly company. Furthermore, their business model has never been to sell proprietary software to end-users, so supporting or opposing FOSS has never been an existential issue for them. Apple has never tried to look like an open-source-friendly company, but has never really been actively opposed to it either. Their whole business model, for a long time now, has been to sell overpriced iDevices to users. Anything that supports that goal is OK by them. More recently, they've been making money with online services: Apple Music, Apple+ streaming TV, etc., but these aren't really affected by FOSS. Microsoft is different from both of these. Their business model for ages was to sell packaged (or preloaded) proprietary software to end-users, and to control the OS that all users used. They've moved more into the cloud services realm in recent years, but they're still pushing Windows and Office. They were actively hostile to FOSS for many years: "Linux is cancer", "pacman-like", etc. Don't forget the Halloween documents. They've been trying to project a nicer, friendlier-to-FOSS image in recent years, but a tiger can't change its stripes.
- iLemming 2y ago
  Yeah, anyone who remembers 1990s knows that MSFT is not to be trusted. I am appalled to see how they lured thousands of programmers to use VSCode. How are people so naive to think that a colossal corporation with a capitalization comparable to the GDP of Germany is spending an enormous amount of resources to build "a free" code editor, and that they are doing so with absolutely the best and benevolent intentions?

by HKH2 2y ago

skeledrew 2y ago

Google has been slowly poisoning AOSP for years, ensuring the antidote is to include their services. AOSP now is mostly just a shell. This was reinforced just a few days ago when I downloaded and setup Android Studio for the first time in years: the default AVD with their APIs integrated works really well out of the box, but when I tried creating a couple AVDs without them, they wouldn't even boot (AVDs in my old setup still work fine, but that's on my previous computer).

shiroiushi 2y ago

It's more than that. Google started out as an open-source-friendly company. Furthermore, their business model has never been to sell proprietary software to end-users, so supporting or opposing FOSS has never been an existential issue for them. Apple has never tried to look like an open-source-friendly company, but has never really been actively opposed to it either. Their whole business model, for a long time now, has been to sell overpriced iDevices to users. Anything that supports that goal is OK by them. More recently, they've been making money with online services: Apple Music, Apple+ streaming TV, etc., but these aren't really affected by FOSS. Microsoft is different from both of these. Their business model for ages was to sell packaged (or preloaded) proprietary software to end-users, and to control the OS that all users used. They've moved more into the cloud services realm in recent years, but they're still pushing Windows and Office. They were actively hostile to FOSS for many years: "Linux is cancer", "pacman-like", etc. Don't forget the Halloween documents. They've been trying to project a nicer, friendlier-to-FOSS image in recent years, but a tiger can't change its stripes.

iLemming 2y ago
Yeah, anyone who remembers 1990s knows that MSFT is not to be trusted. I am appalled to see how they lured thousands of programmers to use VSCode. How are people so naive to think that a colossal corporation with a capitalization comparable to the GDP of Germany is spending an enormous amount of resources to build "a free" code editor, and that they are doing so with absolutely the best and benevolent intentions?