garuda

Android is a real Linux

Actually, a "few bent cops" do mean that all police officers are like that to some degree.

Obviously they aren't all going out and committing crime, but by not policing each other, they are colluding with those who do.

Police simply don't face the same consequences for violent crimes that ordinary citizens do, and that is because of the culture of policing that all police are to some degree responsible for.

When was the last time you heard the officers who are 'doing the best they can' calling for jailtime for fellow officers found to have abused their authority?

On the exact same day as that felon fled the police and crashed a car, millions of ordinary citizens obeyed the law and worked to make the world a better place...

But none of that makes criminals any less of a problem.

And decent cops stopping crime does nothing to lessen the harm done when other cops commit crimes.

It's not a duopoly - anyone can use Android for free, and many do.

They're just trying to avoid having a single company, Microsoft, dominate the industry again.

Google gives away all their client platforms as open source (i.e. Chrome and Android), so it's hardly a power play when compared with the other options.

There are multiple players in the map market, Microsoft themselves being one of them. Google are competing against Microsoft by asking customers to choose between their integrated mobile offerings rather than supporting Microsoft by giving them a second maps option for free.

It's just a platform they use to deliver their services to their customers - the same way that everyone else does.

They see Google maps as a strong enough brand that they think people will avoid Windows Phone if it doesn't have it.

I think it's a good move. The last thing we need is our one chance at an Open Source OS being undermined by Microsoft.

I don't see it as at odds with how they market themselves. They position themselves as providing an Open, non-proprietary option as an alternative to monolithic and traditional closed solutions from Apple and Microsoft, and they are delivering on that in the form of Android.

They're the only ones providing an Open Source mobile OS. Without them, we'd have only proprietary solutions controlled by single corporations.

Having put in all this effort to provide an open solution, they need to be somewhat competitive to make it succeed, otherwise it would likely languish the way the Linux desktop has.

The FTC cleared them of antitrust. This is just normal business competition.

Not adding value to your competitor's products for free is simply competitive and part of normal business. "Anti-competitive" is a different thing and means using market power to suppress competition, whereas this move is about intensifying it.

Because iOS is still influential and they are hedging their bets.

Google have provided a free, open source alternative to Windows Phone. There is nothing 'evil' about them not supporting other platforms.

Why should Google provide their service for free to their competitor's customers?

There is nothing 'Anti-Competitive' about not providing your free service to customers of your competitor. If people want Google services they can choose Android.

It's worth remembering that Android was developed in the first place to be an Open alternative to prevent Windows phone from taking off. Why would they go to all the trouble of developing Android only to prop up Microsoft.

It's well known that Android has overtaken iOS in terms of the base OS. A hardware advantage that Apple had is almost gone now, so the only thing missing is content. I don't think iOS buyers are fanatics or taken in by marketing because there is more marketing of Android. I think they have been choosing a better product.

So, now that hardware and the OS no-longer favor iOS, it's simply down to content providers to make the investment. Technologists bought in to Android because it's open, long before it became the best platform. Why shouldn't content producers do the same?

Because that investment will pay off over time as more and more people move to Android, and a platform that isn't controlled by a single company will make innovation easier for everyone.

Android is Open Source, so it belongs to everyone. Content producers need to do their part alongside developers to make it great, even if that means putting in more investment than supporting a propriety platform like iOS.

Openness seems to be a guiding principle for Google. It seems inconceivable that they want to keep it closed to the web forever, so we can probably take their statements about protecting it until they understand how to protect it's unique attributes at face value.