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Comment by martingordon | Hacker News Reader

So now Google has blessed a hardware manufacturer as the official Android manufacturer, and despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet. How long until Google no longer offers the Android source at all?

Samsung, HTC and the others are probably not very happy about this and will likely move them to start pushing their Windows Phone 7 handsets a bit harder than overly relying on Android.

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>despite Google's insistence that Android is open, I don't think we've seen the Honeycomb source code yet

The word "yet" is mildly disingenuous. No one is waiting for them to do that -- google said a while ago that it wouldn't happen, but that they would release the source to Ice Cream Sandwich.

How can Google get away with not publishing GPL-derivative code from the legal point of view?

Because it's not GPL-derivative code? http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html

For those parts of the system that are GPL licensed, they (or the handset manufacturers who are distributing the compiled code) shouldn't be able to: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/most-android-vendors...

From the article, nice list of Android tablets showing those that comply with the GPL: http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/android_tablets/ - a small proportion of the list are marked compliant, but most of the big names seem to be there.

Posted earlier, but not enough votes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2885787

Google doesn't have to as long as they don't distribute binaries. The liable ones are probably the phone manufacturers. But only the copyright holders can sue anyway, and I don't see that happening.

From Larry's post: "This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences."

Edit: Interesting to see huge difference in rationality/understanding of those who read Larry's post versus the TC'd version of the story.

Google is going the Apple route and building well-integrated hardware and software. The problem is that they're taking a detour into mid-90s Apple where other manufacturers were cannibalizing Mac sales. It's inevitable that Google will one day decide that it makes more sense to make $350 from every Android phone sold than from only 15% of them (or whatever Motorola's Android marketshare is).

Officially the other manufacturers have welcomed this as a move to protect Android. Which they profit from. Perhaps the patents that Google acquired can be lumped in with other patents from these companies for a 'MPEG like' protection cartel. Use it to get rid of any more additional payments to Microsoft or Apple in the future.

I hope Google uses the facility to build developer phones and tablets. That way you do not compete too much with the other phone makers. Release a new device every year with new features.

Well it's not like it's an unknown situation. It's more like going back to Symbian licensing situation a few years back.

Yeah, that worked out great.

I think you misunderstood me. I was referring to Symbian in the 90s, at its popularity peak almost everyone was using a licensed Symbian. Not that I agree with the model but it once hasn't a reality of the mobile phone market.

As for the open sourcing and then reclosing of Symbian, it's another story. I wasn't talking about the Symbian of the past few years.

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