Thread: Sony Ericsson Xperia X3
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attila77 is offline attila77
2009-07-23 , 14:41
Posts: 3,319 | Thanked: 5,610 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland
#21
Originally Posted by johnkzin View Post
Except that they DO give you the source code to pretty much everything except the application market program, allowing anyone (not just OHA members) to do what they want with it (such as random people porting it to netbooks, someone porting the application layer to run on top of desktop linux, etc.). That's definitely more liberty than EZX was ... by a LONG shot.
This is result of the service/software approach you outlined at the end. Android can say it's free because the parts others don't want to disclose (telephony, etc) is not there so it's not 'their' problem if Moto, Archos or anybody else implements something and locks it up. So, with regard to freedom, you, as a user, are pretty much where you were with EZX - good luck with replacing the Android (or significant pars of it) the original handset maker put on the device. Yes, can be theoretically done, but it's more hack-of-the-day material and definitely handset specific (e.g. it's not *android* that will make or break this option).

The other big difference is that because the core Android team isn't a handset maker, they have no reason to be guarded about it like Moto was. And the various handset makers don't view it as giving control of their handsets to a competitor. Thus, it's spreading beyond a single handset maker, and it's gaining more mindshare than EZX ever had.
This I agree with, that's why I said it's EZX 'done right'.