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It all boils down to what you call "Android." AOSP is open source, I've already said that. It doesn't care about my freedoms (so I don't care about its opennes
by drdaeman 13y ago
It all boils down to what you call "Android."
AOSP is open source, I've already said that. It doesn't care about my freedoms (so I don't care about its openness), but it's "open" as in OSI definition. That's true and I've never argued about that.
However, typical Android you get on smartphone (that's called "Android", too) is neither open nor free - it's usually completely proprietary bootloader, firmware and userspace, you won't have any source code for anything except for GPLed parts (i.e. Linux kernel). It just happens that those proprietary binaries were mostly built from unmodified AOSP code (but you can't really tell if code's modified or not), but this doesn't make them open.
- barbs 13y agoI'm surprised no-one's mentioned Replicant, which "aims to replace all proprietary Android components with their free software counterparts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(operating_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(operating_system)
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoThat's mostly about binary drivers for hardware though, which remains a struggle for desktop Linux too.
- 1stop 13y agoSo you're upset that they call it "Android" ? You know you can change what's installed on your handset? Cyanogenmod supports a ton of phones... maybe next time you buy a handset, check they support it.
- drdaeman 13y ago> You know you can change what's installed on your handset? Ah, thanks for suggestions. Actually, I've had to buy a smartphone recently, and tried exactly what you suggested. Unfortunately it seems that Cyanogenmod has almost non-existent support for dual-SIM phones (at least nothing for what was available, and I was in a bit of hurry), and due to personal circumstances I needed this kind of hardware.