Dell and Baidu Introduce a Smartphone With Forked Version of Android

cortex writes "XDA developers is reporting on the release of a new smart phone which runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system: 'Dell and Baidu, the Chinese search giant with over 80% marketshare in its home-country, unveiled the Streak Pro on Tuesday (via Computerworld). The device has a 4.3 AMOLED screen with 960×540 resolution and packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Most notably, however, is the operating system it runs: a forked Android version dubbed Baidu Yi, which replaces Google's services with those of Baidu.' How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?'

Comments

Impact?

[NoMaster]

"How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"

Not at all, or possibly for the better?

If they didn't want people to fork Android (and, as noted above, it's debatable if this is really a fork or just replacing bundled apps / settings), they shouldn't have open sourced it.

If they get pissy and decide to close it off due to forks/mods like this, then we're still left with the previous versions of Android - and we're better off without a developer that wants to take their bat and ball and go home at the first little upset.

Re:Impact?

[Daniel Phillips]

"How will this impact Google's support for Android and open source in general?"

Not at all, or possibly for the better?

Definitely for the better. Truth be told, Google's attitude towards free software sucks in major ways, not least their overt campaign to undermine the GPL and copyleft in general. Yes, this is overt, and shameless. There is one loose cannon in particular whose name I will not mention whose personal vendetta includes not only the entire GPL ecosystem, but Debian too. Might as well have a serial puppy shooter on staff.