4 ms·

comparing Linux to Android is ridiculous. Linus released and built it from genuine, ulterior motives. google wanted a platform to display ads.

neya 13y ago
> a platform to display ads. Wow, you used just a single line to describe an entire, complex, (possibly superior) open source operating system? I'm done reading comments here.
cromwellian 13y ago
No, Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from completely controlling and owning the onramp to the mobile web with two dominant proprietary operating systems that prevent third party software installs without approval, a huge huge reduction in freedom even comparing it to Microsoft in the 90s. And in that regard, they did the world a favor, regardless of whether it was selfish or altruistic. It doesn't matter how you try to downplay it. Google shipped a huge useful chunk of kernel changes to Linux, plus a mature, ready, out of the box piece of open source that anyone can fork and use as a foundation to make another free OS, like FireOS, Tizen, FirefoxOS, etc, and they successfully got a platform deployed on a huge number of devices around the world that don't completely lock down who can install what. Even if they had completely evil motives, good has come out of it. If you're a rabid fanboy who wanted Steve Job's platform to have a monopoly on mobile, it's depressing for you, but it's liberating for everyone else.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  Not to go all meme on you, but let me FTFY: Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from beating them to control of the next big advertising platform. Nothing more, nothing less. "Open" has been shown conclusively to take a back seat to monetization. It is as much a marketing tactic (in the sense that it's useful to promote the platform, but can and will be discarded, with spin to explain why, when its usefulness decreases) as anything in Microsoft's or Apple's ads. And it doesn't matter how you try to downplay it: companies other than Google have, whether they intended to or not, accomplished undeniable good through things they've shipped. Apple, for example, has contributed monumentally to LLVM, which is a large and useful public good. But it did so more or less explicitly to screw the GPL. So, faced with all the major players doing this in some form or another, how, precisely, do you plan to rank them relative to each other in order to discern which one is "good" or at least "least bad"?
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    I give Apple props for for their contributions to LLVM or WebKit (and OpenCL, and Darwin), no one is saying they haven't done any good things for the ecosystem, but that doesn't erase the egregious damage that the iOS T&C impose on the ability of people to do what they want with their devices. To me, that ranks them lower. That, and the aggressive "thermonuclear" offensive litigiousness they have, not just on patents, but even going back to the Look-and-Feel lawsuit of the 90s. I'm an Apple fan boy when it comes to their hardware, I've owned every Apple device, I own an iPhone 5S, the A7 is remarkable. I love the hardware, I hate the closed nature of the platform, the fact that I need to jailbreak my device to have ownership of it. For the average consumer, control of "the next big advertising platform" is a meaningless abstraction, it matters to people in the ad buying business, not consumers who generally don't like ads in the first place, and tolerate them mostly to get free stuff. And how does Android "control" mobile web advertising anyway? But for the average consumer, telling them they can't install App X on their device that they spent $300 on because Apple censors don't like it is much more direct. No company is perfect, but I can say as a Googler, your cynicism is basically wrong, that open source isn't just a marketing tactic, but that the rank and file at the lowest levels of the company, culturally believe in it. Google has disappointed in the past on the degree of openness, and there is much to improve, so I am not uncritical of it in this regard, but if you were to query the rank of file of Microsoft and Apple with regards to open source, and Googlers, you'd find a lot more zealots at Google. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of gray, and some are just a much brighter shade of gray than others.
    - ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
      I'd go so far as to say that Windows RT is more open than iOS-with Windows RT you have built in Windows Explorer, and command line access. And a non crippled browser (desktop IE 11 vs mobile Safari).
  - belorn 13y ago
    Given the context of this discussion, it must be mentioned that LLVM license do not include a patent grant. Apple has patented several frontends of LLVM, and is likely to have several patents on the core parts of LLVM. Apple could do a oracle at any time.

neya 13y ago

> a platform to display ads. Wow, you used just a single line to describe an entire, complex, (possibly superior) open source operating system? I'm done reading comments here.

cromwellian 13y ago

No, Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from completely controlling and owning the onramp to the mobile web with two dominant proprietary operating systems that prevent third party software installs without approval, a huge huge reduction in freedom even comparing it to Microsoft in the 90s. And in that regard, they did the world a favor, regardless of whether it was selfish or altruistic. It doesn't matter how you try to downplay it. Google shipped a huge useful chunk of kernel changes to Linux, plus a mature, ready, out of the box piece of open source that anyone can fork and use as a foundation to make another free OS, like FireOS, Tizen, FirefoxOS, etc, and they successfully got a platform deployed on a huge number of devices around the world that don't completely lock down who can install what. Even if they had completely evil motives, good has come out of it. If you're a rabid fanboy who wanted Steve Job's platform to have a monopoly on mobile, it's depressing for you, but it's liberating for everyone else.

ubernostrum 13y ago
Not to go all meme on you, but let me FTFY: Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from beating them to control of the next big advertising platform. Nothing more, nothing less. "Open" has been shown conclusively to take a back seat to monetization. It is as much a marketing tactic (in the sense that it's useful to promote the platform, but can and will be discarded, with spin to explain why, when its usefulness decreases) as anything in Microsoft's or Apple's ads. And it doesn't matter how you try to downplay it: companies other than Google have, whether they intended to or not, accomplished undeniable good through things they've shipped. Apple, for example, has contributed monumentally to LLVM, which is a large and useful public good. But it did so more or less explicitly to screw the GPL. So, faced with all the major players doing this in some form or another, how, precisely, do you plan to rank them relative to each other in order to discern which one is "good" or at least "least bad"?
- cromwellian 13y ago
  I give Apple props for for their contributions to LLVM or WebKit (and OpenCL, and Darwin), no one is saying they haven't done any good things for the ecosystem, but that doesn't erase the egregious damage that the iOS T&C impose on the ability of people to do what they want with their devices. To me, that ranks them lower. That, and the aggressive "thermonuclear" offensive litigiousness they have, not just on patents, but even going back to the Look-and-Feel lawsuit of the 90s. I'm an Apple fan boy when it comes to their hardware, I've owned every Apple device, I own an iPhone 5S, the A7 is remarkable. I love the hardware, I hate the closed nature of the platform, the fact that I need to jailbreak my device to have ownership of it. For the average consumer, control of "the next big advertising platform" is a meaningless abstraction, it matters to people in the ad buying business, not consumers who generally don't like ads in the first place, and tolerate them mostly to get free stuff. And how does Android "control" mobile web advertising anyway? But for the average consumer, telling them they can't install App X on their device that they spent $300 on because Apple censors don't like it is much more direct. No company is perfect, but I can say as a Googler, your cynicism is basically wrong, that open source isn't just a marketing tactic, but that the rank and file at the lowest levels of the company, culturally believe in it. Google has disappointed in the past on the degree of openness, and there is much to improve, so I am not uncritical of it in this regard, but if you were to query the rank of file of Microsoft and Apple with regards to open source, and Googlers, you'd find a lot more zealots at Google. The world isn't black and white, it's shades of gray, and some are just a much brighter shade of gray than others.
  - ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
    I'd go so far as to say that Windows RT is more open than iOS-with Windows RT you have built in Windows Explorer, and command line access. And a non crippled browser (desktop IE 11 vs mobile Safari).
- belorn 13y ago
  Given the context of this discussion, it must be mentioned that LLVM license do not include a patent grant. Apple has patented several frontends of LLVM, and is likely to have several patents on the core parts of LLVM. Apple could do a oracle at any time.