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Alibaba Says Google Threatened Acer With Banishment From Android
Spy Handler writes "In a Microsoft-esque move, Google threatened Acer with banishment from Android if it went ahead with its new cellphone project with Alibaba (China's version of Amazon), using an OS called Aliyun. Acer has remained silent on the issue, but Alibaba reports that they received notification from Google, stating 'if the new product launch with Aliyun went ahead, Google would terminate Android product cooperation and related technical authorization with Acer.' A possible reason for Google's upset is that the Aliyun OS, which is not Android, can run Android apps as well as its own."
They could still use Android all they wanted if they did this, Google just wasn't going to go out of their way to help them. Don't they have the right to pick and choose who they work with?
I'm not usually so keen to call upon these - but a user with only two posts, with a seemingly Linux-friendly nick, not a subscriber apparently but still manages two posts within a minute of the story being released, another one of those recommending Bing of all things... Just doesn't seem quite genuine to me. Not that I disagree with this being dickish, if true.
Anyone want to suggest any other search engines?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=search+engines
The entire mobile phone ecosystem is evil, starting with the carriers.
Not giving special treatment =/= restraint of trade.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
In a tabloid-esque move, /. posts a summary in which it treats an unilateral allegation as fact.
TFA at least makes it clear that Alibaba is making a unilateral claim and that neither Acer nor Google have commented on it. Furthermore, TFA makes it apparent that Alibaba is offering no letter, email, or voicemail as proof that Google told Acer to nix the deal.
Whereas the /. summary contains this line: "Acer has remained silent on the issue, but Alibaba reports that they received notification from Google, stating 'if the new product launch with Aliyun went ahead, Google would terminate Android product cooperation and related technical authorization with Acer.'" Which makes it sound as though Google made the threat to Alibaba directly, which isn't even what Alibaba is claiming.
Look, I'm not a big fan of Google. I think they very frequently ignore their own "don't be evil" advice. But I'm also not a fan very of sloppy editing and poor journalism. Come on /., put more effort in creating your summaries.
actual evidence.
Not the I expect much from the troll known as Timothy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
^This
Google has agreements and partnerships with various manufacturers to work with them and help them with Android. That hasn't stopped other companies, such as Amazon, from taking Android and running with it on their own. After all, it's supposed to be an open OS, so anyone can use it for anything at all that they want, really. If Acer is breaking an exclusivity agreement on which their Android partnership with Google is based, Google may simply be reminding/threatening them with the consequences of doing so, but that doesn't mean that Acer will be locked out of Android, just that they will no longer have a partnership with Google, which, once again, is hardly a deal-breaker.
Is it evil? Sure. Illegal, however? IANAL, but I find it doubtful.
Truth is, as most of the code on android is apache licenced or GPL (as the kernel) there is no need to ask google's permission to make anything with it. The only parts of the operating system that are under a non-permissive licence that can be considered a showstoper would be the "brand" apps, as gmail, youtube and the google play store.
Google Play works just great with Cyanogenmod, and google didn't "decide".
There is only a single source for this. That source is a company that is looking for publicity for a product they are producing which they hope to have compete in a marketplace where the established players (Ios from Apple, Android from Googloe) have both a relatively polished product and position to control "mindshare". This makes me somewhat suspicious of the story.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Added to the list
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They are not banning Acer from anything. You have completely misunderstood. They are terminating the privilaged cooperation they give Acer. Why should Google spend extra money an resources on assisting Asus, when the intention is that they use that assistence to build better Android products, not build competing products. This just puts Acer on the same footing as any other Joe Smo. It doesn't prevent them from doing anything they do now. Essentially Google recognized that Acer was leveraging Google's assistance, not to help build android products, but to help build competing android products. There is no lockout here.
You must live a pretty sheltered live in a closet to think that this is what "evil" is. You want to talk in concrete terms about vendor lock-in, greed, proprietary vs. open, then I'll listen. You start throwing around words like "evil" in this context then you just look like a drama queen.
Sure, assuming you are just a member of the public with no contractual or similar limitations on your behavior, you can do pretty much (within the various F/OSS licenses applicable to the code) whatever you want with Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code.
OTOH, its not at all unlikely that the deal Acer has that involves "technical authorization", trademark licensing, etc., for Android -- not merely AOSP -- code also involves agreements by Acer not do some things it otherwise could do -- either with AOSP code on its own, or (as would be more relevant in this case) in terms of using Android-compatible third-party code, whether or not it is AOSP derived -- in exchange for all the special privileges with regard to Android that they get.
So its not at all hard to see how their flirtation with Alibaba's Aliyun OS may have conflicted with obligations they undertook as an Android -- not AOSP -- licensee, and resulted in a Google threat regarding the Android license.
Even if the Google threat story Alibaba is selling is true in broad outline (which there is nothing, AFAICT, other than Alibaba's claim itself to support), it still sounds like it is quite likely that it was Acer being reminded that they have to chose whether they want to be in the same relationship as the general public with respect to Android, or if they would prefer to keep the special privileges they've enjoined with regard to Android and pay the price that goes with that.
It's a little like people who advocate for a punctuation mark to denote sarcasm. If you can't detect sarcasm when you see it, you don't really deserve to enjoy it.
More Twoson than Cupertino
This just establishes the fact that Google is not necessarily evil.
FTFY
Aliyun (alien?) is clearly written in code lifted from Android without Google's permission. While Android sources are available, that doesn't mean you can just take the source, change it as you see fit and sell it as your own. Pretty shoddy of Acer.
What I don't understand is how Aliyun can even sell it. Not the mechanism by which they get money in exchange for some code, but how anyone would willingly pay these people for something they can get for free. What exactly is Aliyun adding to the Android base that isn't already there?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Are we even sure this is legit? Im not clear on why Alibaba, and not Acer, would have been the recipient of such a letter: Why would they be a relevant party? And why is it Alibaba, not Acer, who is raising the issue?
Ive been at slashdot and on the internet long enough to be suspicious when a competitor makes claims like this that are validated by noone else. Maybe its legit, but id want to see something more than accusations by a party with a vested interest in making google look bad.