Google Apps License Forbids Forking, Promotes Google Services

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 13, 2014 @05:53AM from the also-requires-you-bow-to-satan-and-eat-twinkies dept.

Sockatume writes "If you want to ship a phone with Google's apps on it, you need to license them. A copy of the OEM licensing agreement from 2011 was recently leaked, and Ars Technica provides a summary. Amongst the rules: a company licensing Google Apps can't act in a way that would fragment Android, but must also maintain the platform's open-ness; most of Google's services must be included; Google apps must be defaults, and placed within a couple of clicks of the default home screen. No surprises, but it's interesting to see the details laid out."

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Re:Wait, what? by Kenja · 2014-02-13 06:13 · Score: 5, Informative

Android is based on Linux. The Google apps are not. Despite what some people claim, not everything written for a GPL operating system must be open source.

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