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Comment by bitpush | Hacker News Reader

> it's only just now that they bothered to actually release the source of their open-source operating system.

Do you really need to have snark for an open source project?

Open-source projects maintained by individual developers working for free absolutely deserve more respect than that, but ones maintained by the most profitable company in the world [1] do not, especially when they go out of their way to change from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing [2].

[1]: https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43484927

> ..., especially when they go out of their way to change from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing.

And let's not forget this part. Android is a member of the mobile platform duopoly. Another similar project - Chrome - is almost a monopoly among web platforms. Both these projects exploit the open source label and most people's false belief that open source somehow equates to respect and protection of user rights. (Philosophically, it's only free software that cares about user rights. Both projects are textbook examples of non-free open source software.) This actually protects these projects to some extend from criticisms and penalties against the dark patterns that they employ to corrupt and exploit both the mobile and the web ecosystems. They absolutely don't deserve the same considerations as the passionate and underpaid small teams or individual maintainers.

I thought we were talking about the Android project? /sarcasm

It's Google, I think they've sucked up enough of our digital lives and economy to handle a bit of snark.

So why do you so badly want to use their operating system to care what they do and how they license it?

It's their work, their OS and we have others.

Applying your argument more broadly, we shouldn't critique any product or changes made to it, and I don't see any reason why that should be true.

Caring about the products you use is pretty standard behaviour, and when the product changes under the user's hands, it's normal to complain. It can resolve the issue faster and less painfully than switching products would.

No, my argument is not what you applied here.

The fact of the matter is that Android is fully funded and developed by Google and you kinda don't have much standing to control what they do with their project and how - especially if all you can say is that their work is bad.

You can be unhappy about it, but it doesn't change that its their work and their money on the line here with very little relationship to you or your wishes. You're not even a paying customer.

This doesn't apply to "any product or changes" at large.

wym we are not paying customers? every person with an android phone is a paying customer indirectly and can complain about its development

You're a paying customer of Samsung et. al.

You don't become a paying customer of Linus when you get a Thinkpad with Ubuntu.

It's not the same lol I become a paying customer of Samsung and Google because Samsung paid for it (you have to pay for your device to be verified and access Google Play Services) and some of the cost is absorbed by me

I don't become a PAYING customer of Linus because Thinkpad didn't pay for Ubuntu (and if anything was paid I would become a customer of Canonical)

You said we can be unhappy, which is what the grandparent was being, but you took issue with that anyway. I imagine people in deep enough to care about the downstream release cycle of android are well aware of the power structures at play. Being under the thumb of a massive corporate is not an enviable position but here we are, and here we complain.

Sure, but they also get a full opensource operating system for free in exchange.

I don't.

Being more constructive, the future isn't looking bright for freedom of choice in mobile OSes, as governments and banks enforce use of approved apps on approved devices for identification and banking. Without one of either an Android or an iPhone, things get difficult. My government for example can consider a phone running something like GrapheneOS a Criminal Device.

Android is the most open of the two, being open source, so it would be nice if it stayed that way.

Yes. Precisely because it's "open source", not "free".

A project which uses and depends on a lot of other third-party OSS? Maybe.

Yes, open source requires snark just as much as tone policing

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