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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?'
Perhaps they want something onboard that makes Carrier IQ look tame.
Search for or have anything deemed subversive on the device, it reports you silently.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
There's already some Android phone out that uses Bing as the search engine. And then of course there is Amazon who essentially is forking Android.
Google had to know this would happen, they simply don't care. If they keep advancing Android it keeps Android devices more desirable than others in theory. Plus at this point what would the strategy really be? Close Android off and watch vendors run to Microsoft?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Google didn't "ignore" the chinese market, they pulled out for ethical reasons (present chinese government wanted them to censor).
This is great for the Android hardware ecosystem. Android hardware can then become the commodity computer of the future. The PC model of real hardware and software choices needs to move into the phone/tablet market as well. Otherwise we will simply be just the iJailed users of these devices.
That was only last year. They had a minor market share to begin with, so gaining good publicity by "pulling out of china" was only good for marketing purposes. They weren't profitable there to begin with. Google has a good marketing team tho - instead of announcing that they failed to profit in Chinese market, they turned it upside down and told they're getting off for ethical reasons to make it look less failure.
They would not be the first Android phone to not use Googles services, hell Motorola replaced the Google services with Yahoo on some of their phones. That does not mean that it is a code fork. So what specifically is different about the OS, other then the non-Google bundled apps?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Google had a significant portion of the Chinese market before pulling out - over 35%. And even with the current situation where they have much less marketshare, they're profitable. So basically you're full of shit.
Google had been against censorship all along, but decided to try and change China from the inside. Eventually, they discovered that it wasn't possible, so they stuck up for their principles and took their ball and went home. It's rare that you see a company put principle ahead of profit, and they should be commended for it.
"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.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Baidu is absolutely laden with spam. The English searches are a little better, those come from Bing rather than Baidu's own engine, no great but passable.
But when I was in Shanghai I used Baidu almost exclusively, because they keep blocking Google. Sometimes Google works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it works but is so ridiculously slow that it's unusable. I know this is not Google making, but the Chinese tricks. However I still need to find things.
It's not a political thing I think, a lot of it is just corruption. It's not that the guy running the routers is such a communist puritan that he favors Baidu comrades, it's that he's such a corrupt person, ten bucks in his pocket and he'll route you through a Pentium 4 firewall! Baidu just know who to pay off.
Follows the pattern that Baidu appears to have adopted in duplicating what Google does. Typical copy, change the picture and the name, and paste.
Given the history, Google should have left the software open source elsewhere and kept it proprietary in China.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
That's because they are competing on an unfair market. The Chinese government is highly corrupt and is trying to support chinese companys where they can. They do not only block youtube, twitter, google and the like for political reasons, but also to support domestic companies. If you cannot reach youtube due to the firewall, of course you will change to a chinese alternative. Same goes for twitter, google, and all the other google services...
Wow. The "full experience" requires the use of Google apps? So much for open source and choice.
Yes, if you have the technical ability that /.'era are supposed to have, then you can root your phone, fork your own version of Android, yada, yada, yada. But Google would go broke if the only people using Android phones are /.'ers. So as more organizations move to fork Android for their own purposes, it will be interesting to see just how long it takes before Google pulls out of supporting it.
From http://source.android.com/faqs.html#what-kind-of-open-source-project-is-android
"No central point of failure, so that no single industry player could could restrict or control the innovations of any other."
Seems pretty clear.