Comment by neya | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neya | Hacker News Reader

This is seriously good news. What many people don't realize is how powerful Android is. Open Source doesn't mean shitty quality software, contrary to popular belief. Android can do so many things that other Operating systems still cannot provide. All Android needs is some time, and some iterations and no one can even dream of killing it (like many plan to). Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war.

I own a 42" Sony Bravia LCD TV. When I first purchased it, I got a hard copy of the GNU/GPL license. Wondering, I did a quick search and found out that my TV runs on Linux! Now, here's the sad part - Since I'm somewhat techie, I know my TV is powered by Open Source software. But the average end consumer doesn't know and doesn't care much, he just wants a good TV. So, the main area where open Source is weak at is marketing. And this too, is only a matter of time, till it catches up, I believe.

Imagine if the Linux foundation advertised on TV like Apple did, for their Mac vs PC commercials? Then the average consumer would probably care. If you have a good product, you should let people know about it. Sadly, even the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 have poor marketing in this context (Michael Arrington wrote a wonderful article on this[1]).

One day, Android will reach 95%+, and I will live to watch it happen and I will tell my kids and my grandchildren without hesitation - "This is the future."

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-mar...

> Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war.

How does that work? Where is the open source OS that "won" the desktop war? Where is the open source codec that "won" the codec wars?

I'm unsure I agree with it also. Android has Google's wallet to fall back on. That could be one reason why it's successful.

Mobile devices fill a different "comfort", I think. Desktop OS's out there try to fill a broad spectrum of wants (and needs). I think Linus has been quoted as saying something like, "Desktop is a hard problem to solve", and that the Linux world hasn't even come close to solving it (yet).

I know a lot of people who would otherwise be lost on a Windows machine be completely comfortable with iPhone or Android devices simply because it fills that niche. Computer illiterate people seem to gravitate to, not desktop, but mobile devices.

So maybe Android is the new "desktop" for those types of users. Power users are now left to fill their own comforts. Maybe Linux powered desktops will eventually be the winner in the future. We'll see.

Open source codec race is, as far as I'm concerned, not over yet. Opus shows a ton of potential for audio related streaming/recording. Webm is supported by most browsers (except for Safari and IE). It's not a bad container, too. Compared to mp4, it's not that great, but I really can't tell the difference when watching something online anymore.

So, the wars aren't over. Android with Google's backing will be, and is, a force to be reckoned with. However, I wouldn't cancel out the possibility of another open source and free alternative coming around the corner to change that. Perhaps Firefox OS, who knows?

Pretty much every open source project that has succeeded has been the result of fat wallet corporate backing. I'm sure someone will offer a counterexample, but for the most part, hackers have to eat, and I haven't seen the "donate" model really work out. However, this is cool: it shows that open source isn't anti-commercial, it's pro-freedom.

Open source has won the enterprise. (Servers and platforms)

Server operating system definitely.

But Java and .Net are both effectively proprietary.

I am guessing the original poster is referring to GNU/Linux beating Solaris to win the server market.

EDIT: Regarding the desktop, just saw this: "Ubuntu will account for roughly 9% of all global PC shipments by 2014" http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/ubuntu-pc-sales-skyrocket...

pro-tip: Every VP of sales for every company will tell you that their market share will increase in the next year. Half of them will be wrong.

x264?

I don't think "heavily used by pirates" really qualifies as winning anything, I would hand that claim to H.264.

And will HCJ (HTML5/CSS/JavaScript) ultimately win the mobile app platform war?

Right now, native apps do a better job than Web apps, so they tend to be Plan A. You do one if the market justifies it. Plan B is a Web app for market segments too small to write a native app for. But if Android takes enough total market share with its motley crew of incompatible devices, it could push iOS into being just another of the small fragments, and mobile development could become dominated by HCJ.

I would like to see Google use its leverage to actively, explicitly work toward making HCJ the Plan A for the great majority of mobile apps. If they reached the point where enough devices used HTML5/CSS as essentially the native UI, they could even make the Plan A for native apps be browserless HCJ on the client with an option to use compiled Go instead of JavaScript (behind the HTML/CSS UI) where it made sense. The Web app and the native app become nearly the same stack.

LAME, FLAC and x264 all won in a sense.

The Android codebase may not be killable, but Android as a platform certainly is. Google is the only thing holding Android together; if they pull out or a major OEM or carrier grows balls, they'll fork and the ecosystem will shatter. Remember Android is mainly [edit: Apache] licensed so there's no requirement for forkers to stay open; I have serious doubts OEMs and carriers are interested in helping their competitors.

Actually it's Apache: http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html

My fault. Noted.

>>Open Source will eventually win the war.

You're neglecting to mention one important fact. Open Source often relies on subsidies and handouts from companies/organizations(that use open-source software to compete with (and attack) software companies that created the original software product). Sun is a good example that comes to mind here

In case of Android, Google is an ad company and don't need to earn money by selling mobile OS software.

I have had Android phones since the G1 (and wrote a prototype Android app long before the first Android phone (G1) was in the market). However, that doesn't blind me to the fact that Google's business model (free software that obtains user information and monetizes users through ads) is very different from the business model of companies like Microsoft and Apple.

Android is open source? Cool! Where's the source code?

http://source.android.com/

Actually Android is closer to shared source than open source.

A typical open source project has an open repository, allows third party contributors, open issue tracking etc. Last time I checked Android had none of these and only released source code after a release.

https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/q/status:open,n,z

No, Android is a open source project. Open Source does not require a community driven process. When Google releases a snapshot of Android under the Apache license, then this code is open source.

Downloading the Source Tree: https://source.android.com/source/downloading.html

android Git repositories: https://android.googlesource.com/

Submitting Patches: https://source.android.com/source/submit-patches.html

View Patches: https://android-review.googlesource.com/

View Issues: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/

  > only released source code after a release

Granted. They don't release before they release.

He is a well known troll. Don't feed him. But thanks for clarifying anyway.

It bears repeating that "what we call Android" is more then just what is available as open source. It's all that plus a lot of closed source: Maps, Play, Gmail, etc.

Maybe what _you_ call Android. I don't think most of us fall into that category.

What do you call the OS running on the Nook or Kindle?

Android fork? AOSP? Something besides "Android" because what consumers know as "Android" includes Gmail and Google Play.

Android is a technical term. I don't think it is important to this discussion what the press/ "average" consumer think the word Android means, because they are not part of this discussion. Consumers/press also have a very different meaning for the word "hacker" than most of us here have. Yet we can still use the original term here without getting confused.

Gmail and Google Play are not Android, they are pieces of an app suite from Google.

Samsung licensing Google Apps for their android-based operating system is not that different from Samsung licensing Adobe reader for their Android-based operating system. And Amazon is not making a fork. Amazon's software is fully compatible with Android 4.0.3.

Android is what you find at http://source.android.com/

> Android is a technical term.

So why do carriers sell those devices as Android smartphones then? Why does Bell run a campaign advertising "Android superphones" as gifts for the holidays?

Because it's not a technical term, it's what people call devices that run Android. "My Android" like "My Mac" or "My iPhone. I would love to hear you argue that "Mac" or "iPhone" is a technical term.

In that scenario, they instantly roll Google Play, Gmail, and the various other apps that ship on all Google-approved Android devices into the mix.

> I don't think it is important to this discussion what the press/ "average" consumer think the word Android means, because they are not part of this discussion.

Yes, they are. That was the point of the "most of us" comment.

> Yet we can still use the original term here without getting confused.

Maybe die-hard Android fans can. Everyone else associates Android with the Market, Gmail and various other apps just like they associate iOS with the App Store.

> Samsung licensing Google Apps for their android-based operating system is not that different from Samsung licensing Adobe reader for their Android-based operating system.

That could be the dumbest thing I have ever read. Why don't you go ask Microsoft about the differences between shipping applications with the OS you build and negotiating with 3rd party software vendors and get back to me.

> And Amazon is not making a fork. Amazon's software is fully compatible with Android 4.0.3.

Compatibility with applications has nothing to do with whether or not software is a fork or not. It simply implies a split development path.

> Android is what you find at http://source.android.com/

No, it isn't. It's a stripped down subset missing most things associated with Android as being good or useful, like the Market or Gmail. I personally call that AOSP, because that's what it is. Its own separate thing.

"I don't think most of us fall into that category."

I'm calling bullshit. People all the time refer to Maps as one of, if not the biggest advantage of Android. Same thing with the Gmail client. In this very thread you refer to a Chrome for Android (not Chromium afaik) feature as Android (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4734771).

"What do you call the OS running on the Nook or Kindle?"

Properly it's AOSP. That fact that Google has, whether intentionally or unintentionally, created a lot of confusion between AOSP (which you can't even use the Android mark with) and "what most people call Android" (the one you can actually use the Android mark with) doesn't mean you get to have your cake ("we're open") and eat it too ("android is so great because of <list of closed source features>!").

http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-ho...

Call bullshit all you want, it doesn't make you any more correct. Android is an open source operating system, saying otherwise is ignorant.

If you want to talk about Google Play, Maps, Gmail, etc., it's pretty easy to install as a user on any non-locked down AOSP based version of the OS that doesn't rip out necessary APIs. In any case I call these 'apps' which are available on Android, the OS.

A propritary software that only runs on Android is for sure an advantage for Android. But that does not mean that it is Android.

One advantage of Microsoft Windows over Ubuntu is that Windows runs Photoshop nativly and Ubuntu does not. But that does not mean that Photoshop is Windows.

People don't say that it's an advantage that Maps "runs on" Android. The way it's commonly discussed implies that to people, Maps is Android.

>(the one you can actually use the Android mark with

source. A quick check of the brand guidelines page says nothing of the sort.

Also, you're intentionally blurring line between people who like the Android experience and people who like the idea of Android as a free OS that is literally taking the world by storm. There is nothing that you or taligent won't say to try to find something to back Android into a corner for the chance to say one bad thing about it.

Yeah, I like Android because Google Maps, Google Now and Gmail are very, very compelling offers. I like Android because it's open source, I can do far more with it than I can with iOS and I can do it far more efficiently and increasingly even more intuitively (How far do you have to work and disrupt your flow to enable/disable Wifi in iOS vs Android for example). I like it because it has a powerful intent system, allows side-loading apps and more.

Do you see how those are two different things? Do you see how using Google Apps as a way to just try to blanket dismiss peoples' opinions might be bad.

"source. A quick check of the brand guidelines page says nothing of the sort."

I linked an article that backs up the citation. Here's wikipedia also:

Even though the software is open-source, device manufacturers cannot use Google's Android trademark unless Google certifies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28operating_system%29

Which, parsing anally, might make me look wrong because you could use ASOP and also pass Google's non-open compatibility test but the clear meaning was that ASOP does not get to use the Trademark openly. Ask Asus if you have any doubt about this.

I guess I just have two comments:

1. The brand page more or less straight up endorses using the mark, in so much as it describes how to do it properly with attribution of ownership of the mark to Google. Unless you think I'm misinterpreting the implication of this page? http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/promote/b... Full disclosure, I'm no trademark law expert or enthusiast.

2. That article above, while I missed the first time around is from a truly desperately atrocious source that missed the important facts surrounding the Alibaba case, but to be fair, so did reddit and HN. Everyone saw the shit show the first day as the "Android is Closed!!!11111" allegations flew, only to find out that Alibaba was ripping apps off the Android Market and putting them in a co-branded rip off app store...

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