Comments on: Android not open?

By: James

James — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:36:06 +0000

The marketing side of Google has said “open” now but the previous announcements by Googlers in the know have all said “open when the device ships”. As a general policy I ignore anything said by marketeers, and blasting them is not worth your time.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:12:46 +0000

I’m not blasting google for not doing what they said they’d do; I’m blasing google for claiming something is open *now* when it’s not. That’s it. If they had said “will be open”, then I would have kept my mouth shut. But they said “is open”, which is just not true.

Contrast with Nokia and maemo: maemo was available before the tablet was. Granted, not completely everything (like, say, DSP and WIFI drivers) was open at the time, but Nokia never claimed absolutely everything would be open either.

Now, obviously, I can’t order a device until I get my hands on it to play with. That’s just a given. However, I also can’t order a device until google fulfills their open source promises. So far, I haven’t seen much. I’m hopeful, but I haven’t seen much.

By: James

James — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:53:32 +0000

Yes, but rather than getting caught up in marketing hype, I’d wait until the phone is actually available before blasting Google for not living up to something they said they’ll do when it’s released. Grousing about it now is premature.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:27:46 +0000

Sure, but the quote was:

“Android is open to developers, open to consumers, and open to handset manufacturers. Cannot wait to see what’s next.”

With the possible exception of manufacturers (I don’t know what kind of license they use…), none of that is actually true, at this time.

By: James

James — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:13:31 +0000

The story has always been they’ll open it up once the first devices ship, which should be in the next month or two.