Well note I what I was replying to. What I said is that as long as you keep doing this then _anyone_ will be able to just put regular Android on it and do the same for a fraction of the price or even for free.

So yes, Android, AOSP and Hybris are hammers. I'm thinking there's a huge world out there of hardware where running Android would make no sense, but this Android-as-hammer requirement means people just don't see it.


That said, I obviously also have a huge anti-Android agenda. So here comes the off-topic part...

It's a bit ironical that the quote you mention comes from a person who has succeeded at exactly that.

"Ruinous compromises" for me.

Last time I was actively trying to port the Linux kernel to anything, it was the day I fried my Palm T|X*.

Well, that was in 2009 more or less, so I can tell you something: things have not improved. Running the software you want on the devices you own is _at least_ as hard today as it was 6 years ago, probably harder since nowadays the minimum amount of supported hardware for a device to be considered "usable" has increased dramatically.

Android has done _absolutely nothing_ regarding hardware freedom.

It just happens that it is a POSIX-like operating system and thus running most programs is much easier... but so is iOS. But from a hardware point of view? No improvement at all. Same as Windows CE days. Even words from WinCE I believe should be considered _blasphemy_ are still in use today (e.g. BSP, ROM), thanks to Android.

* When I fried my Palm T|X, I suddenly found myself without a working PDA and without money. Alongside many Palm PDAs, I found a cheap used N810 on eBay, so after a bit of thought I decided to take a risk and try it, instead of getting another Palm. That was 2009. The rest is history