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Comment by Steltek | Hacker News Reader

> FTC officials have met with technology company representatives who say Google gives priority to its own services on the Android platform, while restricting others

AOSP is Open Source. Starting from that, Google hasn't restricted anything. Going forward from there, Google (with Play, Play Services) has gradually started tightening things up because of harm to consumers. Is your Android phone running the latest security patches. No? Google needed a way to push out critical updates and their behind-the-scenes position means they have more limited control than Apple does. It obviously doesn't solve everything but I'd argue that they're doing their best to protect consumers.

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Google Android is NOT open source. If you want to use Google Android you are restricted. You can FORK Android and build your own but that is a massive undertaking.

This isn't about software products anyway, it's about services, search in particular.

But this is irrelevant, I'm not attacking Google, I'm disputing the "Apple is the bigger anti-trust violator" idea, which is just silly.

I'm lost, isn't THAT what open source means? Having access to source code? (Witch you do on Android)

To compete with "Google Android", I would need to fork the android source, market and brand this new "EnsorcelOS", develop my own backend services for updates and registration, negotiate with Bing or some other search and services company, develop my own app store, ...

Saying that Android is Open Source doesn't actually make competitors to "Google Android" viable or numerous.

> Saying that Android is Open Source doesn't actually make competitors to "Google Android" viable or numerous

Tell that to Chinese Android manufacturers.

Apart that your comment has nothing to do with Android being open source or not. it is irrelevant if a fork is competitive or not, AOSP is still open source

ITs open source in the same way OSX and iOS are open source (although more open, i will admit) the core is open, but a very large proportion of the key services are closed and difficult to replace.

> ITs open source in the same way OSX and iOS are open source

I can give you a link to the AOSP repository.

If iOS and OS X are open source in the same way than Android, then you can give us a link to the repositories, isn't?

Can I fork OS X and make another operating system based on it?

Yes, you can get the XNU kernel and many of the frameworks (including the Objective-C 2.0 runtime) from http://opensource.apple.com. Feel free to fork it and let us know how you get on.

So no,it is not the same, you don't have the source code for OS X, you have source for SOME parts

So if you include a builtin search box on Android, AOSP wouldn't be considered open source unless Google gave away the source go Google Search itself, and the transitive dependency of all of that, including all of the secret data center stuff? After all, you need to be able to build and deploy it, otherwise it doesn't count.

There's a limit to how many turtles you stack.

Google Services are not open source. Android IS open source

> Starting from that, Google hasn't restricted anything.

Google has made all manufacturers who use the official Google version of Android sign a contract that forbids them from shipping devices any other forks of AOSP. They've restricted plenty.

The restriction is for forks that don´t pass the compatibility test, not for AOSP

The compatibility test is not an open standard, and Google unilaterally excludes anything that it doesn't like: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...

Relevant bit: > Switching to Skyhook's service meant Google would not be able to collect location data from users. This was bad for Google, so Skyhook was declared "incompatible." OEMs that wanted the Google Apps were not allowed to use them. Skyhook sued, and the lawsuit is still pending.

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