[SypheDMar]

You said Linux phone, however.

If someone can show me a phone that is comparatively relevant and "open source" as Android, I'd like to know. And don't say Apple or Microsoft. The former because of its closed ecosystem and the latter because of the lack of widespread usage and support.

If you tell me that Android isn't open source because it has developed a successful business model and is crushing competition by limiting other phone OS from having access to its apps, then I can agree that it's not supporting anything but a Google universe. However besides Google, I have yet to see a successful open source phone.

Firefox phones are aiming at a niche market, and Ubuntu has its own problems in the open source world. The latter is also being described as "Not Linux" and "Not Open Source" by others who are critical of Canonical.


EDIT: I'm thinking the solution is to not find an alternative to an Evil Google World because everything else is either worse or a tier lower. I'm thinking that we should be focusing on what to do about an Evil Google World if it comes. Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?

[Bobboau]

get Eric Schmidt back, Google didn't start turning evil until about fifteen minutes after Larry Page took over.

[karajorma]

As others have said, the issue is that Google claims to be open source when it quite obviously isn't. Not to mention that it's not that hard for them to embrace and extend the open source parts of the OS until there is no open source version of Android.

Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?

Is there anyone who thinks that the Microsoft World back in the day was actually any good for consumers?

[jg18]

Great article.

They don't seem to tout their open sourceness much these days, or at least it's not mentioned on their mobile info page or the about Android page. The AOSP page is perhaps a wee bit disingenuous though given this article, although the page is only accessible through a menu at the upper right and isn't that front-and-center.

[BloodEagle]

Is there anyone who thinks that the Microsoft World back in the day was actually any good for consumers?

I dunno.  Windows 95's UI was pretty awesome for consumers.

Shame that they're so embarrassed of it, nowadays.

[karajorma]

Windows 95 was only awesome cause Win 3.1 was so ****.

[Luis Dias]

EDIT: I'm thinking the solution is to not find an alternative to an Evil Google World because everything else is either worse or a tier lower. I'm thinking that we should be focusing on what to do about an Evil Google World if it comes. Is this Google World different from Microsoft World back in the day?

As I said, the only hope I see in androidworld is Cyanogenmod. I didn't point to Apple or MS as a "solution" to the android problem.

As I also said, I *do* prefer Apple or MS's proprietary solutions than a crippled "open source" solution that only works properly when you add the closed proprietary tools that Google adds to the android ecossystem for the main reason that at *least* they are not being hypocrites and lying to consumers about it.

Do take consideration that OS X (and therefore iOS) is also built on top of an open source software, but of course anyone bringing this up would be insanely idiotic for that OSS is a really simple core software that is useless for everybody without the proprietary stuff built on top of it. I see that Google is building more and more and more of this proprietary stuff on top of android, and it will end up the same.

[Nuke]

osx is based on unix, some of which is proprietary with some free bsd thrown in. the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.

[Ghostavo]

the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.

Yeah... except not.

[Nuke]

wikipedia would disagree:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation

check your fanboyism at the door.

[Ghostavo]

Wikipedia doesn't disagree with me.

Minix is open-source.


P.S.
What do you think Linus based Linux on?

P.P.S
Open-source and proprietary commercial aren't exclusive adjectives.

[Nuke]

minx was not as open as you think it was, it had a more open license but was still restrictive enough to warrant the creation of a whole new os. you did have to pay a licensing fee. so dispite the code being open it was not foss. thats what torvalds sought to correct. linux was pretty much written from scratch. it did use some minx code early on until those parts were replaced.

what i said about osx was a completely separate statement. osx comes from closed source osx server, with some frebsd and netbsd elements thrown in (which are open source). the os is most definitely not free though.

[Ghostavo]

minx was not as open as you think it was, it had a more open license but was still restrictive enough to warrant the creation of a whole new os. you did have to pay a licensing fee. so dispite the code being open it was not foss. thats what torvalds sought to correct. linux was pretty much written from scratch. it did use some minx code early on until those parts were replaced.

You've got to be kidding... I know you had to pay a license fee, it doesn't change the fact that it was open source. The license could state only space mutants could use it and that you had to pay the GDP of a large country to use it and I still wouldn't care. I was correcting you on, and I quote

the whole reason we have linux is because linus torvalds got pissed off at how closed source unix was and wrote an os.

which is simply not true. He was annoyed at the non-free part.

[Nuke]

lots of unix was closed source back then. linus liked minix because it was open source. but the licensing was too restrictive and he wanted a foss os. hince linux. what i said was close enough. especially if you consider the point of the post was to state that osx was not fully based entirely on open source software (free or otherwise).

[jr2]

ubuntu != debian

Sort of, yeah, but they're pretty related.

[Phantom Hoover]

(If you can't read the tiny diagram, Ubuntu was forked from Debian originally, which is why they have the same package manager; package management is one of the big distinctions between distros.)

[jr2]

@ Nuke: Try this? thread (avoiding further derail of this topic)

EDIT: @ PH, thanks, I went back and lvlshotted it for clickable goodness.

[Nuke]

i really dont care, i was just trying to correct an ambiguity about osx.

[Phantom Hoover]

There's something pretty amusing about United Linux's place in that timeline.

lol, it includes linux from scratch as a 'distro'

[Mikes]

I want my Ubuntu Edge Phone... want want want ...

Why can I not has it?!