(or were there some copyright claims involved here? e.g. making a TI-89 emulator should be ok for the market, but you can't include TI's ROM)
As others have pointed out, that's only for Honeycomb. Google has said all along that the code would be going public again once it's been cleaned up and the phone and tablet versions have been remerged for the next major release.
>(or were there some copyright claims involved here? e.g. making a TI-89 emulator should be ok for the market, but you can't include TI's ROM)
The comments over on reddit are suggesting that these emulators were based on GPL'd emulators and the developer wasn't complying with the GPL. If that's the case, Google was absolutely right in pulling them from the market. The market is minimally moderated, but blatant copyright infringement is still a no-no for obvious reasons.
That said, it is a frustrating move. The problem is similar to the one I foresee happening soon with the Mac App Store. Sure, it is great to have the convenience of the one true app store alongside the freedom to install what you please, but the power of the first tends to undermine the second until the freedom is mostly theoretical as the platform still is nearly entirely in one company's hands (e.g., the current state of Android).
I don't think so. For example, I know the PSX emulator didn't include any of the required BIOS files and they are all still removed.
It seems that if someone big enough complains, Google will remove any emulator.
EDIT: occurs to me people might not have gotten that pun: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Texas_Instrum...
There are certain requirements to use the Android trademark. For instance, Barnes and Noble don't get to use the Android brand for the Nook.
Allowing unapproved apps isn't one of those requirements, and in practice some Android branded devices have indeed disallowed such apps.
That's factually incorrect and sounds like flamebait. They've stated that they're going to begin releasing the code again with Ice Cream Sandwich and not wanting to release bad code that was forced by a deadline isn't totally unreasonable.
the market is more of an Apple app store.
It's always been moderated. As has already been mentioned in another response the big difference is that on Android you can install apps from a different app store.
They specifically said that there will be a code drop, as for the app removal it's probably due to copyright owner request and they had to comply.
Google has a right to withhold the non-copyleft components if they don't feel they're ready for distribution. Open-source doesn't mean that you can force someone's hand if they're not ready to share. Can you call Theo de Raat and compel him to release an unpublished branch of modifications to OpenBSD and then accuse him of not really developing open-source programs because he only releases source "if and when he feels like it".
Google's hand was forced on Honeycomb and it wasn't really ready for distribution. If you're upset about this, you shouldn't buy a Honeycomb product because it doesn't come with a full stack of source. That's a great idea. Honeycomb+1 will have source like its predecessors.