This really reminds me of Open Solaris.<p>> We will no longer distribute source code for the entirety of the Solaris operating system in real-time<p>In the case of Open Solaris, the code never came out from that point onwards. For Android, the likely end goal is to do the bare minimum of distributing only copyleft code that they don't own copyright to. Until those get replaced with a closed alternative.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2482s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2482s</a>
I hope they make it closed source and make us much money out of it as possible for shareholders that is their job and their duty, why are they giving this away for free they have already captured market share by claiming opensource and building a community now all they have to do is make it proprietary and the old opensource version slowly wither and become unstable, then they can charge money for the operating system just like mircrosoft but this time on phone millions and billions of phones, $$$$$. /S (I obviously do not agree with this)
Hmm while this could be sold as just to prevent leaks (which occasionally happen), I think this is more likely a first step to closing the source, in light of the EU messing up their open source monetisation strategy.<p>Well, more like the 5th step really. They already moved a ton of functionality into Google Play Services, and discontinued a load of the open source stock apps like Calendar.
This headline really is misleading. The source will still be released, it just means that the work leading up to a release will be in private. IMO, there's nothing wrong with that, since it's likely that a lot of the intermediate com mediates are likely just noise.
Both The Verge and 9to5 are citing this as the original source:<p><a href="https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-aosp-3538503/" rel="nofollow">https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-...</a>
I’m glad they’re dropping the pretense of being an open platform. Maybe this will create space for a truly open mobile platform that respects our privacy even better than Apple. I never liked Android anyway, felt half baked and unpolished even on several flagship phones I used it on some years ago before giving up on it.
I've seen that one before. Next thing you know licenses start changing, features locked out and completely removed and development slowly starts creeping towards full proprietary prison. Time to throw some money at Jolla and Sailfish OS and migrate I suppose.
Android was really cool for the first couple years, but now it's optimized for brand presence and ad delivery. Every Android device I've purchased for the last 10 years there's been a common expectation of the manufacturer trying to totally capture, record, sell, and leverage my digital experience in ways you never wanted. The only escape was LineageOS, and the technical barrier was plenty hard to make it work just right.<p>I'm currently on iOS and as many other commenters said, I'm still waiting for a truly open and privacy-respecting OS that we can install on open hardware. It worked for Unix in the computer world.
I bet they'll regret turning their back on grapheneOS <a href="https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114230671644378529" rel="nofollow">https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114230671644378529</a>
the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”
- Andy Rubin<p>This has really stood the test of time...
I was there and applaud when Google shared their "Don't be evil" motto. Everybody used to absolutely hate "M$" at the time.<p>How naive we were. We never realized that "Don't be evil" was not a choice, it something that natural happens to a public company. Today it would feel so much of quixotism for a company were to to come out and say "Don't be evil".
It will remain open source<p>> This does not mean that Google is making Android a closed-source platform, but rather that the open-source aspect will only be released when a new branch is released to AOSP with those changes, including when new full versions or maintenance releases are finished.
Help me understand what this means to e.g. GrapheneOS, please. Will it be able to exist and just have to wait longer for updates or will it be in real jeopardy?
They might be cooking up their own silicon, like Apple did when transitioning from the A-series chips to the M1. If that's the case, they'd definitely want to keep any low-level system tweaks or new APIs under wraps.<p>This whole situation also reminds me of the Manifest V3 drama with Chromium. They might be planning something similar and want to avoid the early headaches of public criticism.<p>Or maybe they're doing a bigger overhaul of Android's core, changing how apps can communicate and control each other (e.g., computer-user, Operator)!<p>Idk, I dnt want to be cynical fingers crossed.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Keeping android open source would be a helpful antitrust defence when some of Alphabet / Googles other products dominate markets (chrome, search). I wonder if they're now less worried about anti trust under the current administration.
Will they still push all the native commits once they release?<p>I think it's OK if they do the dev internally, but if they just release source snapshots and we lose visibility of the dev process that occurred to get there, that will be a big loss.
>This does not mean that Google is making Android a closed-source platform, but rather that the open-source aspect will only be released when a new branch is released to AOSP with those changes, including when new full versions or maintenance releases are finished.<p>I'll believe it when I see it. These days, words are basically meaningless from these large tech companies. Actions are what matter.<p>at the very least, I'm not convinced this internal branch and AOSP will be close to feature parity if they do throw some stuff out.
Android is going to go closed source. There's no benefit to Google when a Chinese company takes Android, guts the Google parts, and shoves it on a cheap ass phone for a market with a few billion people.<p>Maybe longer still... I could see Google fully jettisoning the "other" phone makers and going all in on its own hardware to boost profits further. The iPhone is highly profitable, wouldn't you as a Google share holder want them to maximize the value there?<p>Personally I gave up on Android years ago. It was never great, but the endless poor support of software updates (mostly stemming from Qualcomm blobs as I understand it) was enough to drive me away. Apple really does support iPhone's for a very long time, and their sole goal isn't to sell more eyeballs. Good enough reason for me.
Well, I hope that if they do so, the FSF and all copyright holders of the Open Source software used to make Android Great In-the-First-Place will sue their a$$e$ off.
This is an entirely predictable next step - the only surprise is that it took so long to happen.<p>They progressively replaced all the default apps with the Google alternatives.<p>A Chrome-Chromium type split was only a matter of time.
I mean nothing changes, it was already open source, and few people outside Google know how to dev things around android, it's now a very complex os
They are giving reasons that claim it will be better for everyone in the end, but this is obviously not true for devs of LineageOS and Graphene.<p>Why is it OK for corporations to make self-interested sociopathic decisions that harm consumers then slap a post-hoc rationalization that is basically a lie to appease the public? It's so common that almost every corporation does it, and most people don't even take note.
Can we please just go back to having some sort of Debian-based GNU/Linux on a smartphone. Just create a really great mobile interface on top of that.<p>The more I learn about Android, the more I think the whole thing is a waste of time.