Closed source is not bad, if there's at least an open competitor to keep them honest.

Not sure that competitor is Google though, because they seem to be more interested in controlling the platform than in creating an open platform. Open is a bit of a marketing buzzword with Android.

> people cheer them on for it and hail them as the saviors of mankind

[citation needed]?

Nobody is specifically cheering because it's closed source. I would cheer even more if they had iOS and opened it up for minor tinkering.

I just deleted my rant that I wrote as a reply to this.

Look, there have been a zillion articles raving about Apple in the last two weeks. Just google for yourself, don't ask me for citations about the most blatantly obvious things. It really annoys me.

No, they usually don't cheer the closedness (although it happens often enough), but they don't seem to mind it, either.

I've been reading your comments for some time and you seem to have serious anger problems when the subject is Apple. Also, you're very disrespectful to Apple users, bringing the topic even when it has nothing to do with the company. I seriously recommend a psychiatrist or counselour. Apple/Google are not religions, my friend!!!

I'm sorry, but why should people have an issue with how software is developed? What makes OSS that much better?

The original article complains that Android is not open enough. So apparently if you go closed source, nobody cares, but if you give away your stuff, people feel entitled to more.

As for what makes OSS better: you can check what the software does, and change it if you don't like it. I think you can find lots of articles about the benefits of OSS. However, I don't care what kind of software you use, so please spare me the discussion.

> The original article complains that Android is not open enough. So apparently if you go closed source, nobody cares, but if you give away your stuff, people feel entitled to more.

The thing is, most companies (Apple, MS, Oracle) advertise their software as closed source but still give away portions of their code (Apple with BSD/WebKit, Oracle with Java, MS gives away smaller stuff) while Google advertises their code as open source and gives away portions of their code.

That's why people are complaining. It's not a war on semantics ("oh but it is still Open Source"), it's not a political war.

It's basically people complaining about how Open Source has been reduced to a buzzword because of Google.

Google push their "openness" in their marketing to Android users. It's part of the sales patter. It is sold as if it develops in the open and their whole stack is OSS. It isn't. If you present yourself as a paragon of virtue and suggest that you product is entirely open, when it turns out you aren't as open as you make out, people will complain.

As for your reason why OSS is better; none of that is relevant to consumers, who account for the largest part of the market by far. How many consumers are going to fork Android realistically? None. Don't get me wrong OSS software is a great thing and has it's place commercially too, but you present your argument as if it is black and white; as if anything closed is evil. It is not.

"However, I don't care what kind of software you use, so please spare me the discussion." That was pointlessly aggressive. If you want to engage in adult conversation, I suggest that you rethink your approach. I must ask, at what point did I or any other commenter start reeling off what software they use, and evangelising their world view as the one true view?

>you can check what the software does, and change it if you don't like it

Except with Android I can't submit those patches back to the main project, so I have to maintain a separate fork myself, for eternity (similarly for any changes made by other non-Google developers that I might want to use). This isn't sustainable for more than a few patches. An Android fork that is developed in the open and accepts community patches would qualify for the benefits of Open Source, Android from Google? Not so much.

Some previous Android releases have been open source software but the Android project is not an open source project.

>Except with Android I can't submit those patches back to the main project, so I have to maintain a separate fork myself

Open Source doesn't give you the right to get patches accepted upstream, it gives you the right to have your own fork. If your fork is worth it's steam, other people will like it and join you, otherwise it will die off when you lose interest just as it should.

>This isn't sustainable for more than a few patches

This is true, but sounds like it could be countered by starting a fork as a community project so that anyone with just a few patches can submit them to your fork. This would also likely increase interest in your fork and may help find someone willing to take over admin rolls for you, since that seems to be your goal in all this.

Look, if all you want it to be able to publish a few patches and upstream won't accept them, then include said patches in a blog post. That way they're in the wild, and you don't have to maintain a repository. Just a thought in passing.

So start such a community fork. That it hasn't happened yet seems to indicate that manufacturers don't even want it.

Also there might be community mods, like Cyanogen (haven't really looked into them).