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That's not the point that GP is making. The point is that AOSP has been extended through google play services in the same way MS used to extend open protocols.

by eterm 13y ago

That's not the point that GP is making. The point is that AOSP has been extended through google play services in the same way MS used to extend open protocols. It has used that to bring up a lot of people who associate android more closely with the google play services ecosystem than the AOSP ecosystem. If google said "we're ditching AOSP but we're making a new closed source OS with google play services and a compatible API layer" then really would people move to AOSP or the new google OS? The potential for "extinguish" is there. Had this all happened the other way around or had AOSP been around and MS had embraced it and extended it in this manner then I think people would be acting differently.

fidotron 13y ago
That new OS is Chrome OS. Notice that the Chrome OS device manufacturers don't get to rebrand it, modify it in any way, or control delivery of the updates. It is far more closed than Android ever was. Google are applying their lessons from Android to Chrome OS.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  That's a rather bizarre way of putting it. Another way of looking at it is that Chromium is completely open source and anyone who wants to build a Web-browser based netbook could do so, they just couldn't call it ChromeBook. Since all the apps are web apps, everything would continue to work as normal. There's no "if you don't agree to all of this, you can't use the GMail Web App or Google Maps on your device"
  - fidotron 13y ago
    Can you access the Chrome API from apps not delivered through the Chrome Store? Chrome OS is closer in spirit to iOS than it is to Android.
    - cromwellian 13y ago
      AFAIK, you can install apps and extensions without going through the Chrome store, and if you have the source, you can certainly hack it to use an alternate store host. The thing you might not get access to is cloud based Chrome services like Chrome Sync. But since these are Javascript APIs, you can easily polyfill them to use your backend. I don't think forking ChromeOS is as difficult as forking Android.
      - fidotron 13y ago
        That's like arguing that iOS is open since you could all become developers and distribute the ObjC. Not all Chrome apps are web apps ( http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html ) and you can't distribute those packages trivially to end users, so the whole distinction is almost identical to the iOS situation, by design. Google's Chrome group have a serious case of Apple envy, and this is how it manifests itself. The whole point is forking Android is unnecessary - you can build all you want on top of the base platform without needing to make many lower level changes. To fork Chrome OS to add hooks for app delivery would be a far harder undertaking, whereas implementing an Android app to download an apk and run it is about 10 minutes of work.
        comex 13y ago
        fwiw, I don't think there is currently anything preventing you from accessing the Chrome Web Store from Chromium, without any kind of API key or proprietary extension. Of course that could theoretically change if someone started commercially distributing a forked Chromium OS, but we shouldn't blame Google for something it hasn't done.
        fidotron 13y ago
        Irrelevant, since your users would still need a Google account to use that store, and developers would still need to publish through it. The whole problem is duplicating that store.
        13y ago
- cbhl 13y ago
  I'm still convinced that Chrome OS is mostly a ploy to get device manufacturers to sell devices that can run Linux unmodified without paying a Windows OEM tax.
Zigurd 13y ago
That can only be partly fixed. AOSP could be improved by creating a parallel out-of-house project. But, maybe, CyanogenMod and other downstream distros serve that purpose. I'm not up to the minute about what kind of job Google is doing accepting fixes and improvements from downstream, but I'd guess that could stand to improve. I don't see a fix for parts of the open Android app layer migrating into dependence on the Google ecosystem, apart from allowing downstream distros to maintain and/or replace the open versions. If Google wants to integrate Photos with G+ what are they going to do about that that would be consistent with their "All of our ecosystem or none of it" approach to licensing?

by eterm 13y ago

fidotron 13y ago

That new OS is Chrome OS. Notice that the Chrome OS device manufacturers don't get to rebrand it, modify it in any way, or control delivery of the updates. It is far more closed than Android ever was. Google are applying their lessons from Android to Chrome OS.

cromwellian 13y ago
That's a rather bizarre way of putting it. Another way of looking at it is that Chromium is completely open source and anyone who wants to build a Web-browser based netbook could do so, they just couldn't call it ChromeBook. Since all the apps are web apps, everything would continue to work as normal. There's no "if you don't agree to all of this, you can't use the GMail Web App or Google Maps on your device"
- fidotron 13y ago
  Can you access the Chrome API from apps not delivered through the Chrome Store? Chrome OS is closer in spirit to iOS than it is to Android.
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    AFAIK, you can install apps and extensions without going through the Chrome store, and if you have the source, you can certainly hack it to use an alternate store host. The thing you might not get access to is cloud based Chrome services like Chrome Sync. But since these are Javascript APIs, you can easily polyfill them to use your backend. I don't think forking ChromeOS is as difficult as forking Android.
    - fidotron 13y ago
      That's like arguing that iOS is open since you could all become developers and distribute the ObjC. Not all Chrome apps are web apps ( http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html ) and you can't distribute those packages trivially to end users, so the whole distinction is almost identical to the iOS situation, by design. Google's Chrome group have a serious case of Apple envy, and this is how it manifests itself. The whole point is forking Android is unnecessary - you can build all you want on top of the base platform without needing to make many lower level changes. To fork Chrome OS to add hooks for app delivery would be a far harder undertaking, whereas implementing an Android app to download an apk and run it is about 10 minutes of work.
      - comex 13y ago
        fwiw, I don't think there is currently anything preventing you from accessing the Chrome Web Store from Chromium, without any kind of API key or proprietary extension. Of course that could theoretically change if someone started commercially distributing a forked Chromium OS, but we shouldn't blame Google for something it hasn't done.
        fidotron 13y ago
        Irrelevant, since your users would still need a Google account to use that store, and developers would still need to publish through it. The whole problem is duplicating that store.
        13y ago
cbhl 13y ago
I'm still convinced that Chrome OS is mostly a ploy to get device manufacturers to sell devices that can run Linux unmodified without paying a Windows OEM tax.

Zigurd 13y ago

That can only be partly fixed. AOSP could be improved by creating a parallel out-of-house project. But, maybe, CyanogenMod and other downstream distros serve that purpose. I'm not up to the minute about what kind of job Google is doing accepting fixes and improvements from downstream, but I'd guess that could stand to improve. I don't see a fix for parts of the open Android app layer migrating into dependence on the Google ecosystem, apart from allowing downstream distros to maintain and/or replace the open versions. If Google wants to integrate Photos with G+ what are they going to do about that that would be consistent with their "All of our ecosystem or none of it" approach to licensing?