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.
