This ridiculous outraged tone describing how a company makes money with an open source project. If you like open source, shouldn't you be glad that companies are able to make money with it?
> Android manufacturers will have to pay Google a surprisingly high cost in Europe in order to include Google’s Play Store and other mobile apps on their devices, according to documents obtained by The Verge. A confidential fee schedule shows costs as high as $40 per device to install the “Google Mobile Services” suite of apps, which includes the Google Play Store. The new fees vary depending on country and device type, and it would apply to devices activated on or after February 1st, 2019.
> But phone manufacturers may not actually have to shoulder that cost: Google is also offering separate agreements to cover some or all of the licensing costs for companies that choose to install Chrome and Google search on their devices as well, according to a person familiar with the terms. Google declined to comment.
> Google’s licensing terms are changing in Europe later this month on account of a European Commission ruling that barred the company from requiring phone manufacturers to bundle Chrome and search with the rest of its suite of apps. In public statements, Google has been cagey about exactly how the new licensing fees will be structured, but documents reveal the deal with EU manufacturers will be rated by country and pixel density.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/19/17999366/google-eu-andro...
>Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices and a corresponding open source project led by Google.
So, in my opinion, calling Android an Open Source OS is kind of misleading, but it's a matter of how you interpret what Android is. I would rather refer to Android as the final product (which relies on proprietary software), and to AOSP as the open source project which Android is built on.
Plus, I think that AOSP and Android are considered two different entities and I doubt that AOSP is under the trademark of Android.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-kill-android-aosp-di...
Edit- There is also no browser in AOSP, just webview, which is enough to look at the F-Droid website but not download and install F-Droid.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131225075731/http://www.unwire...
> Android 4.4+ KitKat ships without browser app. OEMs have to license Chrome or build their own
> According to Android developer and author Maximiliano Firtman, he just got official confirmation that KitKat “… doesn’t ship with any browser, just the WebView. The emulator has it but not real devices. It’s up to each vendor to create a browser app using the WebView (such as Samsung) or to get license to preinstall Chrome.”
There were (even before Android) _multiple_ Linux-based operating systems designed for PDAs and/or phones (remember GPE? Qtopia? etc), and there are (even after Android) multiple non-Android Linux-based operating systems for phones.
Frankly, evidence seems to point that Google borrowed from the community much more than they gave back.
Doesn't seem unreasonable to bring your own dialing and voice calling app(s) if you want a UI for punching in formatted E.164 identifiers and making PSTN calls.
If I put AOSP on my own device and it's talking to Google folks will start complaining the other way ... "why is this in AOSP?"
If I'm understanding you both right, I'd say their point is:
- it's not very open source if the only thing you can rely on is "API shim on top of Linux kernel", there's to some approximation no phone app, no launcher, no Settings, no browser. Those are hard!
- It's doubly so if _the apps for this open source OS regularly rely on GMS APIs_, which require a commercial relationship with Google.
and your point is:
- There _is_ a phone app, launcher, Settings, and browser. No one said the OS and a _full modern mobile application suite_ are open source.
- It is very good that the OS is open source and that shouldn't be discounted just because its non-trivial to get your own distro up and running.
- completely putting words in your mouth now :) - the GMS APIs are things that _should_ be vendored, it'd be worse if Google's location tracking was baked into the OS. Also, vendors can provide shims that allow apps to call GMS APIs "headers" even if the impementer isn't GMS
https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/main/+/...
Absurd.
I mean, this line of reasoning is ridiculous. Proper full fledge OSes support the main use cases, not the lowest common denominator.
Does an Amazon Firestick need a phone dialer? a TV need the contacts app. does your toaster need gMail?
You are still in the mindset that Android == phone. Which isn't true. Android (a full fledged OS) supports all the things you mentioned
The part you are referring to is not part of AOSP. Different vendors all build their own OS for their devices on top of AOSP.
I worked on Android for several years and was struggling to find an entry point in the comments where people would be amenable to a message like this.
You're either Samsung and have some bespoke deal with Google and get to negotiate out stuff such that you end up with a real, full, OS, or you're a nobody trying to make an increasingly bare version of the full thing work.
The whole thing feels darn creaky too, Google teams outside the phone / tablet team infamously, constantly, struggled to work with it. Even today, my Google TV will sometimes freeze for 20-30 seconds after power on.
I can't help thinking there's room for something much better, but, here we are. Many projects have lived and died on that shore. And if anything, I'm too negative on it. The flavored water dispenser, and a vending machine, I'm looking at both run on it.