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Comment by lazerwalker | Hacker News Reader

It's worth noting how closely Android's apparent path going forward mirror's Apple's strategy with both OS X and iOS: closed end-user components built on top of an open source core. I guess Google's realized that "openness" isn't a meaningful market differentiator for the average consumer.

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Google didn't choose the open-source route because it figured consumers would find that enticing. They did that to encourage development on a low marketshare platform. Android exploded in popularity in exchange for fragmentation.

And we have to assume that Google will do exactly the same thing with Chrome and Chrome OS when it is to their advantage to do so.

I'd like to know what technical benefits there are, if any, from this roundabout approach by Google. I suspect there aren't many, if any, and this is more of a tactic to 'circle around' and retroactively gain tighter control over the OS. (Also, see Google's purchase of Motorola with the intention of making phones with better hardware-software integration...)

They (Google) can release new versions of these core services to almost all users immediately, without those users having to wait for their devices' manufacturers to go through the usual testing and shittification (aka "skinning and customization") process.

I'm interested, what is the open source core in OSX and iOS? I was not aware of any. I know they share code with BSD but I didn't think it was to the extent that one could compare Apple's OS relationship with BSD to Android's relationship with Linux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29

http://opensource.apple.com/

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