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Google Pressured Acer/Alibaba Because of Android Compatibility Issues
An anonymous reader writes "On Thursday we discussed news that Google pressured Acer and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to cancel the launch of a phone running the Aliyun OS. Google has now addressed the issue, speaking out on the importance of compatibility for Android devices. Andy Rubin, who runs Android development at Google, said Aliyun was a non-compatible version of Android, which weakens the ecosystem. He pointed out that the Open Handset Alliance provides all the tools necessary to make it compatible. An Alibaba exec fired back, saying, 'Aliyun OS is not part of the Android ecosystem so of course Aliyun OS is not and does not have to be compatible with Android. It is ironic that a company that talks freely about openness is espousing a closed ecosystem.'"
case closed.
It is ironic that a company that talks freely about openness is espousing a closed ecosystem.
Exactly, but Google has been doing so for a long time. They are only little about openness while most of their stuff is actually closed source and closed ecosystem. They have both and in a way that always suits them better. There are in fact more closed systems than open, just see Google's search engine, adwords/adsense, youtube etc.. They only use and support open source when they can't be bothered to do all the work. In a way they steal from open source projects and hardly ever bring anything back.
For me this clearly looks like Microsoftesque move by Google. They try to limit the market and hide behind the curtain of "compatibility issues" when companies rightly call them out of it. But Google does not want to change. Instead, they cry like a baby and try to limit competition in China from growing too much. At the same time we have honest companies like Microsoft who actually adjust to different markets and continue providing services even if they aren't the number #1. Just look at Bing - Microsoft doesn't make a huge hullabaloo about it all the time, no, they continue improving it and providing it to users. Google cries like a baby when it isn't number #1 somewhere.
Just look at what Google did in Russian markets.
Google plays a cunning game when intellectualizing about openness of the internet, says one of the founders of the Russian search engine Yandex. Google’s primary weapons to hinder competitors are its Chrome browser and Android platform.
Speaking with The Guardian, Ilya Segalovich, chief technology officer at Yandex, has accused Google of overindulgent use of its dominant position on the market to shut out rival companies in cyber space.
The California giant's mobile platform Android is a "strange combination of openness and not openness," Segalovich added.
and here about dirty tricks in Chrome browser
Segalovich suggested Google was guilty of foul play with its Chrome browser, which he said made it difficult for users to choose rival search engines, including Yahoo, Bing and Yandex, over its own market-leading product.
"You cannot [send any code] to Android, it's semi-open source. You cannot send anything, just see and watch [how the code is changed by Google] If you download an application it may not work properly if it's not Android marketplace.
So in fact this is old problem with Google's products. Other products too... Hell, just look at Google+. It's a perfect copy of Facebook and a product that greatly emphasizes closedness. They are even more closed than Facebook as currently they only allow very few developers to be make apps and games for Google+. I mean it's been like this for ages. It feels like they've given up all hope about Google+. They're just thinking how to phase it out now that they made the whole thing such a big thing, like including it in search results etc. But Google+ is dying.
Android is about the same shit Google has thrown at us multiple times. They only open it because they used Linux as the base. They wouldn't open it otherwise. In fact they've even ignored GPL multiple times when they've been late to open up their sources as required. Android is only open because it has to be.
Google tries to close it, be no mistaken. They require you to pay lots of money to Google if you want to use any of the Android trademarks, logos or name on your product. You don't get any of the Google apps if you don't pay up and stick to Google's "standards" (which are there to limit competition, like in this case). You don't even get to give your users access to Google Play so that they could buy and download apps and games. No, you don't g
It advertises that it runs Android applications?? That seems a little disingenuous as well.
This is bizzare. Company A asks for adherence to standards. Company B, who was about to fork an app ecosystem, yells "closed!" How is interoperability a means of locking down and controlling an os? I thought that worked the other way around.
For me this clearly looks like Microsoftesque move by Google.
At the same time we have honest companies like Microsoft who actually adjust to different markets and continue providing services even if they aren't the number #1. Just look at Bing - Microsoft doesn't make a huge hullabaloo about it all the time, no, they continue improving it and providing it to users. Google cries like a baby when it isn't number #1 somewhere.
Could you fucking shills at least remain consistent?
If you want to create your own OS, no one is stopping you. If you want to use android, you have to agree to the terms of the license.
Is Aliyun derived from the Android source code or a new development?
Does Aliyun offer any features/capabilities/advantages over android (other than nationalist pride if you live in China)?
good...
Segalovich suggested Google was guilty of foul play with its Chrome browser, which he said made it difficult for users to choose rival search engines, including Yahoo, Bing and Yandex, over its own market-leading product.
LOL. Click Menu -> Settings and then choose your favourite search from a dropbox.
"You cannot [send any code] to Android, it's semi-open source. You cannot send anything, just see and watch [how the code is changed by Google] If you download an application it may not work properly if it's not Android marketplace.
LOL
At least choose better sources for your FUD, FFS.
They only open it because they used Linux as the base
Only kernel has to be open. Anything else is open under APL
You don't even get to give your users access to Google Play so that they could buy and download apps and games. No, you don't get any of that. It's Google's way or Amazon, SlideMe, GetJar, Opera Apps, ...
Good troll, mate! Please, do go on giving Android haters reputation of ignorant FUDders.
Apparently the OS of this phone is a flavor of Android that runs Android apps. What happens if it runs them poorly? An uninformed customer starts bashing Acer, and Google(because it's a smartphone so it must be Google) China is a big market, so there's no doubt word would spread and just like that Android loses to Apple clones in what is possibly the biggest market.
There are plenty of manufacturers that produce Android devices without Google's blessing. Archos is one that im familiar with. I had a handheld much like an ipod touch. It came with android 2.1 or something like that and it didnt have the Market app. Instead Archos had a app store. By now the thing could probably use the Amazon app store or any one of them.
Isn't Acer one of the companies destined to design one of Google's new flagship devices? Perhaps thats why they've been given such harsh treatment
He's perfectly consistent. He copied/pasted the same exact text twice.
Please don't be evil.
It's great that you invented Android. You also must have gotten a great payoff when Google bought Android. That's enough, isn't it?
You cleverly screwed Sun out of a few millions of dollars licensing fees, which contributed to its downfall.
Now your megalomania is leading you to beat up on an Android vendor that merely wants to experiment with an Android variant?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
There's that word again. These "walled gardens" are more akin to zoos than true ecosystems -- all they offer is the convenience of finding the different flora and fauna together in one spot, with the restriction being how you interact with them. Some people could benefit from more direct interaction; still many others would be eaten by lions if given a chance.
As I understand it Google's side of the story is they said something because Acer is a member of the Open Handset Alliance. Amazon is not a member of the AHA therefore Google hasn't said a thing to them.
Read into it yourself YMMV.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
No, what weakens the ecosystem are the Open Handset Alliance members who promise to keep their phones up to date, then renege.
I bought an Xperia Pro in 2011 because Sony announced they'd be getting Android 4. It's currently running Android 2.3, released in 2010, because Sony have completely cocked up the rollout. The rollout started back in May, then mysteriously stopped. It might have something to do with it being so buggy it's unusable (hardcoded to AZERTY keyboards, even if you've got a QWERTY keyboard), but we have no way of knowing because Sony won't talk. They announced it was being rolled out a second time at the beginning of August, but there's no evidence of that in their shitty update software. Customer support stonewall, just saying that the rollout is ongoing. This isn't even for the latest version of Android, it's for last year's version.
This is what's damaging the ecosystem. iOS developers can happily target iOS 5+, released a year ago, and get the vast majority of users (more than 80%). If you targeted the year old Android 4+, you'd only be getting about 22% of users.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
for any publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees to meet companywide. So Google management decided to break down implementation as follows:
"Don't Be" --> Google Desktop, Google Health, iGoogle, Wave
"Evil" --> Android, Search
Like dogs fighting over the scraps below the table.
They should be fighting for what is on TOP.
And is stupid to boot.
So remind me how Google make an incompatible implementation of Java?
Android uses the Java language and some Java core libraries, but the implementation is neither a complete implementation of Java SE (e.g. no AWT or Swing compatibility) nor of Java ME (e.g. no MIDlet compatibility), and it uses Dalvik bytecode instead of JVM bytecode.
They build an open source operating system. When they refuse to release Honeycomb, people start claiming they're going back on the open source commitment. They release ICS and JB source code less than a week after the official announcement. They literally give Android away for free - http://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429
Yet they get far more criticism than Microsoft and Apple running increasingly closed ecosystems. They get blamed for Android fragmentation. Now, when they decide to do something about fragmentation, they get blamed again. It's pretty simple isn't it, you join OHA and you maintain compatibility with Android. Or you don't, like Amazon, and take the source code for free and whatever the hell you want with it. Is that really so onerous for Acer?
When Android OEMs get sued with crap patents, Google gets blamed. Even when it's Samsung, a far bigger company who is making the majority of profits off Android (Google isn't making nearly as much), Google is somehow supposed to show up and save the day for them. When Google registers patents of their own, every time there's a Slashdot story about the pot calling the kettle black although Google have NEVER used patents to sue anyone except in retaliation, not their search patents, not their Hadoop, Mapreduce, etc. patents.
If you're an Android device used, you should be glad Google is doing this. The last thing we need is another Amazon. Try playing with a Kindle Fire - Amazon completely skinned Amazon and made it incompatible with normal Android apps. I have tried putting many in through apks, most install but almost none work properly. Despite coming with a powerful dual core processor, the devices are terribly slow and laggy. The browser is awful compared to Chrome or Safari on mobile devices. They could have gone with a completely skinned version of compatible Android, with their own skin but retain compatibility with apps. Instead, we get different versions of Android apps for the Kindle Fire. I am not sure this even works in Amazon's favour, they could still have sold all the content and made proper tablets offering real tablet functionality, not glorified content consumption devices with terribly proprietary software.
Here's the kicker:
You don't have to pay Google a cent to retain Android compatibility. Amazon could do exactly what they are doing now: run their own app store instead of using Google Play, use Nokia maps, use Bing as the default search engine, put their own browser in that tracks all websites you visit. Google's own Motorola branded handset, the RAZR M ships with the Amazon app store installed. I don't know why Google let this happen, it makes no business sense. But it's good for us consumers, you don't even have to be tied to the Google Play store.
Anybody can use Android. Just don't expect Google support without paying for it. And if it isn't compatible with what Google can support is that Googles fault? That is as stupid as expecting MS to support you using applications running under Wine... They won't do it either.
Anyone can create a search engine. Google isn't stopping anyone. Would it take a significant amount of effort to compete with Google? yes - as MS is finding out, and failing.
If you provide a search people like better than Google, then you will be successful.
You are just another shill.
It's Google's way or Amazon, SlideMe, GetJar, Opera Apps
Good luck convincing your bank to offer its application on Amazon or SlideME. I own an Archos 43 Internet Tablet, which didn't come with what was then called Android Market. I called a representative of Chase Bank and asked how to get Chase Quick Deposit working, and I was told that there were no plans to support my device. Nor were there plans to support a PC's flatbed scanner instead of a smartphone's rear camera.
Google Play Store's license is not the Apache license, and at least one major bank that I've contacted has expressed its lack of plans to make its check deposit application available anywhere but Google Play Store
Archos is one that im familiar with. I had a handheld much like an ipod touch. It came with android 2.1 or something like that and it didnt have the Market app. Instead Archos had a app store. By now the thing could probably use the Amazon app store or any one of them.
I too have an Archos 43, which was Android's closest thing to an iPod touch until Samsung introduced the Galaxy Player. But just try to find certain apps, such as Chase Bank's check deposit app, on AppsLib, Amazon, or SlideME. Acer would have to convince each application publisher to make its applications available through a channel other than Google Play Store, or it would risk losing customers who rely on such apps to Acer's competitors who toe the google line.
The "Open Handset Group" should be the "Constrained Handset Group" - since it seems non-members like Amazon and RIM have far greater freedom and "openness" available to them...
It also doesn't advertise that it's a Java SE technology.
It advertises that it uses the Java language, and Oracle tried to argue that various copyrights and patents associated with the Java language were not available for licensing except in connection with a complete implementation of Java SE technology.
OP talks about license in relevance to Android - not Google Play Store.
Well, it would be fine for Microsoft to make Windows code open and free for anybody to use however they want, but to make it a condition of a license to sell products with Windows branding that the entity with such a license not also sell product that isn't compatible with Windows that advertises itself as running Windows software.
Surrendering what amounts to nominative fair use rights (which, absent any contractual limitation, everyone has) with regard for the trademark in order to get the right to use the trademark more directly to brand some of your products (which, without the license, no one but the trademark holder has) is fairly common, and is all this is.
I think it would be more than "fine", but actually strongly preferrable to the status quo.
The hypothetical you offer, OTOH, isn't actually analogous to what Google is doing here.
Android as it is most commonly marketed to end users is Android with Gapps, not AOSP. Do most customers (other than hardcore geeks) buy Android devices for the apps that are included with AOSP, or do they buy Android devices for the apps that are available through Google Play Store?
Back then Microsoft provided 3 choices for OEMs:
Microsoft argued that this was not anti-competitive; they claimed the discount simply represented Microsoft not having to keep track of individual licences and that OEMs where free to buy licences individually instead. They lost that argument because it was found that since Windows already had a majority market share (for the time being) an OEM had to load Windows on a majority of their systems to satisfy consumers. Because of the pricing scheme OEMs could not be competitive with other OEMs if they took option 2, forcing them into 3 where Microsoft's terms made it uncompetitive to sell PCs with another operating systems. So Microsoft was convicted under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Let's look at Google and its club the Open Handset Alliance (OHA):
The official Android distribution can be seen as something wanted by the majority of customers (looking for a non-Apple/Microsoft or a inexpensive phone) at this time (unless you have something else big enough to get people to come to you, like Amazon) so most Android/android OEMs would be giving up the majority of their customers if they dumped official Android entirely; that removes option 1. Much like the licence discount a membership in the OHA represents a major competitive advantage - the OEMs are already way behind in keeping official Android up to date in their design and production pipelines even with that inside track and help from Google. An OEM on its own trying to make an official Android device is thus at a large disadvantage against OEMs that are part of the OHA. This makes option 2 uncompetitive, forcing any serious OEM into option 3. Option 3 goes even farther then Microsoft in the 90s - it doesn't just apply a tax, it outright bans the alternative.
So does the same 90s logic applied by the court - that regardless of Microsoft/Google's excuse for the 3 choices it isn't really a choice at all, and that the only viable choice blocks competition - still apply today?
You appear correct. It appears the lack of results is still Chase's fault: Amazon was filtering it out of my search results on both devices on Chase's behalf. I'm stumped as to why I'm getting this result from the page you linked:
Compatibility with your devices
(No) asus Nexus 7 2
(No) archos A43
The Archos has a rear facing camera. The Nexus 7 has a front facing camera. Neither is supported. At this point, my cynical guess is that Chase only wants to target customers who are rich enough to be paying $500 or more per year for smartphone service. Should I switch from Chase over this?
What do you think China's Government is going to add to the Aliyun OS? If China's Government makes a request to the company, what do you think will be added to the Aliyun OS?
What's not clear to me is how the Alibaba handset is positioned. Google is claiming it's an Android fork that will fragment the ecosystem, and Alibaba seems to be claiming it's not part of the ecosystem. Is Alibaba being disingenuous here?
While everyone's Microsoft analogies sound good, they don't really work - because if they were true Google would have kicked Acer out of the OHA for making a Windows phone...
Now if Acer and Alibaba were trying to position their device as an Android phone, and it broke the ecosystem in many ways I could understand Google's behavior. But if it's more of an Amazon thing and Alibaba doesn't want or need anything from Google, then Google really does come off as kind of an asshole by punishing Acer's other business which does comply. That's a classic monopolistic strategy.
In any I guess we all know there's a difference between being truly "Open" and just making the source code available...
This stupid clown spent years telling the world how awesome Android is because the code is there for anyone to take, then prevented people from accessing the Honeycomb source because someone might try to use it on a phone and now, once more, we see what a hypocrite and an asshole he truly is.
--
I'm a professional asshole
Bad move, imo. Sounds like they want all the open source karma but don't want someone taking that and making something better. If Android is so good they should welcome the competition rather than killing it.
Yeah, the tutorial cleverly focuses on layout expressed in XML for the first several pages, hiding any actual program code. The first mention of Java appears in a source code filename in Starting an activity: "If you're using a different IDE or the command line tools, create a new file named DisplayMessageActivity.java".
(Warning: rant below)
When this story first appeared here, everybody was screaming left and right that the information was unsubstantiated, that there was no (reliable) source, and that Google couldn't have done something like this. That gave me a good laugh. They completely ignored the "no comment" part from Acer (not Asus) and Google, which should say to anyone who's listening with half an ear that the events were most likely true, but the mouthpieces needed to wait for the PR department to decide on how to spin it before responding. The only other possibility was that Google, being such a big company, was waiting for confirmation. But Acer, being a small company, should have had a categorical denial immediately if it actually had been untrue. But of course it couldn't have been true and Alibaba was just making things up, because Google couldn't do something so...evil.
Now that it has emerged that Google actually did do this, people are now claiming that Google isn't being anti-competitive, that they're not doing what Microsoft did in the 90's with Windows, that they're not evil, just because. There are no reasons presented here. There's just a whole lot of because, followed by some hand-waving with how this is different from when Microsoft did it twenty years ago. Sure, it's probably legal because they don't have a monopoly, but people are saying that when Google does it, it is not at all being evil.
So what if Aliyun is a fork of Android? Isn't Android open source? Is it wrong to fork? Does that infringe on some copyrights, because last I heard, Android's codebase was largely FOSS, which means anybody could repackage it under a different name, without any modifications. So what if Aliyun is advertising that they can run Android apps? Is is illegal to do so in that jurisdiction? I may be illegal in the U.S. and in Europe (and even that's arguable), but they're not selling this phone here.
And the response by Google is outright evil. It is wrong, even if it's legal. If Google had any legal standing, they would've sued. Instead, they threaten an OEM with pulling their privileges. They had no legal recourse, so they bully instead. They throw their weight around. Because Acer is not Samsung or HTC, who can take a chunk of the Android userbase with them if they go exclusively Aliyun. It's Acer, who's hanging onto the phone market by a thread. It's Acer, whose phones don't even have a U.S. presence.
Tell me how this is not evil. Tell me this is what companies are supposed to do when the product they advertise as "open" is forked. I guess it's now also perfectly reasonable for Oracle to threaten HP or any other OEM who packages LibreOffice with their Linux offerings. Because that's exactly what this is. And if Oracle, Apple, or Microsoft did something like this, there'd be people up in arms right about now, not throwing around lame excuses trying to justify what happened (there'd be some of those too, but either identified shills or trolls, and not nearly as many).
I thought this was a place where people were halfway intelligent. I thought people here could see things for what they were, and not what they wanted it to be. But all that's left seem to be fanbois, shills, and sheep. /rant
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Shut up, you piece of shit Windows shill.
All Google is saying is that you can't play both sides of the fence. Either be Amazon or Archos and successfully roll your own with your own app-store, or be a part of the OHA and get special access to Gapps and early releases. Being in-between was seen as a conflict of interest for Google for obvious reasons.
There is nothing wrong with that. It is their product, their choice in who they do business with. And for the rest of us, they release the source code.
That makes it quite the distinction between them and Microsoft for those people trying to make a comparison. Google isn't saying you can't run another OS like WinMo or Symbian or WebOS etc. Just saying you can't run a non-OHA compliant fork along side a compliant fork.
That said, I think Microsoft got the raw end of the deal there too. But it's the price you pay when you make it to the top.
Depends where you live. Here in China you can't get the Gapps so you have to either side load all your apps or go with an alternate appstore. I kind of like slideme.org, but it has only a fraction of the apps that the official store has.
But, in places where the Gapps are available, pretty much all the devices have it installed.
Android is NOT an operating system. GNU/Linux is an operating system. Android is a heavily customized GNU/Linux distribution that includes a java-based GUI and SDK. Android is Free Software. Google is the Android maintainer and main developer, and it decides to help certain manufacturers to achieve better results with their android-based devices. Google gets to choose in what companies it wants to invest its time and money. If Microsoft wanted to release an Android phone, Google would most likely say no, since microsoft works on a competing mobile platform, and therefore would not make a very good partner. Same goes for Acer/Alibaba if they want to compete.
Also, now that we have Android's definition clear, let's define Aliyun: It's certainly NOT an operating system. It's just a fork of Android. So, Aliyun is to Android what Linux Mint is to Ubuntu. If the Linux mint guys asked Canonical to help them out build their distro, would it be wrong for Canonical to refuse? Are they obliged to help them? Now, trying to close the code, or suing them, would be another thing. But telling them "You don't get to be part of our club and we won't invest time and money in your project because it's not compatible with our goals" is certainly not unethical or wrong in any way whatsoever.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The difference is that Amazon makes an APK of Amazon Appstore available for sideloading. Thus the Amazonverse consists of the Kindle Fire and any Android device supporting "Unknown sources" onto which the Amazon Appstore has been sideloaded, such as my Archos 43 and my Nexus 7. Furthermore, because (at least the original model of) the Kindle Fire supports "Unknown sources", this means that every Android device in the Amazonverse can also join the SlideMEverse.
In any case, it's been pointed out to me that this was Chase's fault. My next bank will be one that allows check deposit from a PC with a flatbed scanner, such as Ally.
We built Java to be an open source computing platform freely available to anyone wishing to use it. In 2006, Java was released under the GPL open source license and we continue to develop and innovate the platform under the same open source license -- it is available to everyone at: http://java.net./ This openness allows device manufacturers to customize Java and enable new user experiences, driving innovation and consumer choice.
As the lead developer and shepherd of the open platform, we realize that we have a responsibility to app developers -- those who invested in the platform by adopting it and building applications specifically for Java. These developers each contribute to making the platform better -- because when developers support a platform with their applications, the platform becomes better and more attractive to consumers. As more developers build great apps for Java, more consumers are likely to buy Java devices because of the availability of great software content. As more delighted consumers adopt Java phones and tablets, it creates a larger audience for app developers to sell more apps. The result is a strategy that is good for developers (they sell more apps), good for device manufacturers (they sell more devices) and good for consumers (they get more features and innovation).
In biological terms, this is sometimes referred to as an ecosystem. In economic terms, this is known as a virtuous cycle -- a set of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. Each iteration of the cycle positively reinforces the previous one. These cycles will continue in the direction of their momentum until an external factor intervenes and breaks the cycle.
When we first contemplated Java and formed the Java Community Process, we wanted to create an open virtuous cycle where all members of the ecosystem would benefit. We thought hard about what types of external factors could intervene to weaken the ecosystem as a whole. One important external factor we knew could do this was incompatibilities between implementations of Java. Let me explain:
Imagine a hypothetical situation where the platform on each phone sold was just a little bit different. Different enough where Opera Mini would run normally on one phone but run terribly slow on another. Let's say, for sake of example, that Java implemented an API that put the phone to sleep for a fraction of a second to conserve battery life when nothing was moving on the screen. The API prototype for such a function might look like SystemClock.sleep(millis) where the parameter "millis" is the number of milliseconds to put the device to sleep for.
If one phone manufacturer implemented SystemClock.sleep() incorrectly, and interpreted the parameter as Seconds instead of Milliseconds, the phone would be put to sleep a thousand times longer than intended! This manufacturerâ(TM)s phone would have a terrible time running Opera Mini. If apps donâ(TM)t run well across devices due to incompatibilities, consumers would leave the ecosystem, followed by developers. The end of the virtuous cycle.
We have never believed in a âoeone size fits allâ strategy, so we found a way to enable differentiation for device manufactures while protecting developers and consumers from incompatibilities by offering a free "Technology Compatibility Kit" (TCK). TCK is a set of software tools that tests and exercises the platform to make sure that (for example) SystemClock.sleep(millis) actually puts the device to sleep for only milliseconds. Like Java, the test suite is freely available to everyone under the OpenJDK Community TCK license: http://www.jcp.org/en/resources/tdk/
While Java remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Java compatible devices benefit from the full Java ecosystem. By joining the Java Community Process, each member contributes to and builds one Java platform -- not a bunch of incompatible versions. Weâ(TM)re grateful to t
Just saying.
The copyleft would have ensured all parties (& users) had equal standing from the get-go no matter how many lawyers one had or not.
Leave it to a Windows faggot to to bring up his favorite drink.
This is the same good reason Sun wouldn't let Microsoft go off and branch (break) Java. It shatters the ecosystem with various things working on various branches and the ordinary end user not being able to distinguish what's what and finally just leaving to go somewhere else. There is no evilness going on here, there's just the fact of what does happen . Facts are facts, not evil plots. Like it or not, there has to be some control somewhere for engineering to work. Google's pretty easy to get along with but that doesn't mean that there aren't players who will try to take advantage of that fact for whatever reason and force Google to act to protect the overall ecosystem.
Just what kind of pressure are we talking about here? The kind that appears when news meets spindoctors?
We agree that the Aliyun OS is not part of the Android ecosystem and you're under no requirement to be compatible.
However, the fact is, Aliyun uses the Android runtime, framework and tools. And your app store contains Android apps (including pirated Google apps). So there's really no disputing that Aliyun is based on the Android platform and takes advantage of all the hard work that's gone into that platform by the OHA.
So if you want to benefit from the Android ecosystem, then make the choice to be compatible. [It's] easy, free, and we'll even help you out. But if you don't want to be compatible, then don't expect help from OHA members that are all working to support and build a unified Android ecosystem.
lol, u mad bro?
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(gosogog)
All this sort thing going on now in the IT world means that it's time we got away from the "PATENT" world...it just goes on causing problems in a world where INNOVATION is t most important .
You are fucking confused, why would Google suing over this instead of leveraging relationships and agreements make it any less evil? It wouldn't, particularly since, as you noted yourself, just because the legal system allows for it, doesn't make it not evil. You didn't make an argument there, my fellow idiot, you just restated your opinion that it's evil with a lot of junk tacked on to make it look like an argument (and that is kinda evil).