That was quite a spin It was not about what hardware I can put under RedHat or distro X not matching the number of platforms RedHat runs. It was about how free RedHat is, and that has nothing to do with those points.

I guess I wrote something ambiguously, you got it backwards as well. It's not about proliferating Android to other devices (there is nothing technical preventing you from running WinMo, Symbian, Maemo or Mer on any on the devices you mention), it's about doing with your device whatever you want with it. It also has nothing to do with standards (it doesn't have to be libre to be a standard and vice versa). Does HTC or any other major manufacturer provide docs that make it possible (god forbid encourage) to roll/mod your own OS (based on the originally distributed or vanilla Android, Mer, or whatever) ? No. Does Android licensing (=Google) discourage device manufacturers from hiding under the old hide-and-seek model of proprietary modules or mix in their own secret ingredients ? No. That's why it smells only like free beer to me.

Right, but that very strongly speaks toward the G1 not being an open device ... it doesn't speak toward Android being a non-open OS.

That's a good question. I honestly assumed it was GPL because it uses GPL'ed software (linux kernel and gnu binutils). If anyone knows the actual answer here, I'd be happy to be corrected ... but I don't see how they could make that leap (distributing the linux kernel and gnu binutils under the Apache license instead of GPL) given that they don't own the underlying software.

Or are you saying that things like Dalvik and the higher level layers are Apache, and only the lower level layers are GPL?

I was just trying to point out that your argument had a bit of a hole in that you tried to differentiate Android from Redhat on the basis that the G1 can only have android installed on it. The rest of the stuff you wrote is argument drift, and has little to do with my response (though I agree with some of your points ).

Lets shake hands and make up!

YARR!
}:^)~
GrumpsCorrupt

Weather proprietary or open components, I don't think that Android will hurt the open source regime. In fact, its not a stretch to believe that android will only increase exposure to open software and will almost certainly increase the number of its proponents.... if it hasn't already.

YARR!
}:^)~
CorruptChicaBowWow

And that seems to be what it is:

The Linux and lower layers are GPL v2, and the upper layers are ASL v2.

So, as I said, the core is GPL'ed.

You're not going to sell the world on open source, if the open source version of something (in this case, windowing models and GUI's) is crap.

X is crap. It does things inefficiently, it has disorganized programming models, X GUI's are pretty hollow when it comes to infrastructure, etc.

Invent an open source windowing model that isn't crap, and then we'll talk.

... meaning: what you get to see when you write for Android (the things that make Android, Android itself) is Apache v2, while things that neither a programer nor a user gets to see and that are only used to boot and run Android are GPL..

That's why I said that Google can get away with it. At *their* level, it's all rosy and open, but before it gets to the 'people' it has to pass through the manufacturer layer, and, because of the licensing, they can do pretty much whatever they please (resulting in a less-than-libre final product). Saying Google and members of it's Android alliance have nothing to do with this is IMHO wrong. Android became a viable option for the alliance EXACTLY because it provided manufacturers an option to collaborate in a (seemingly?) open way and still end up with a result that will fit their individual (not that libre) goals. Yes, way better than what Microsoft and WinMo do, but still not the real deal.

Shake !

Except that that's not true. People are using it without going through a manufacturer. People got a hold of early releases of "Cupcake" and put it on their G1's before it was officially released by HTC or T-Mobile. People have been putting it on N810's without any manufacturer's support. People have been porting it to x86 and putting it on netbooks. XDA hackers have, IIRC, been porting it to other phones. Canonical is porting the runtime to run on top of Ubuntu (which could eventually run on Ubuntu-ARM, which then could be on Mer).

There's nothing true about your statement above.

You don't need to deal with a manufacturer in order to deal with Android. Not on the G1, not on your own random device. The manufacturers can introduce their own customizations to the upper layers (ex: the HTC Hero front end) that you may or may not have access to, but you're still free to use mainline Android, and you're free to use (hypothetical) 3rd party Android variants.

It's not really any different than buying a system with a version of Gnu/Linux/X that comes with commercial or private components (Maemo, and some versions of Redhat, probably others, the HTC Hero version of Android). You don't have unrestricted access to every part of the software that you got, but you can easily get the exact same software _without_ those commercial/private components (CentOS, IIRC). And, in the case of CentOS and Android, it's a perfectly usable stand-alone OS when you've removed the commercial/private components. (though, with CentOS, they're removed from Redhat, whereas with Hero, they've been added to Android; the relationship is similar, even if the flow of creation is in the opposite direction).

If you're wary of those kinds of components, then the thing to avoid is the HTC Hero version of Android, not the mainline version of Android. But, to criticize Android because something like the HTC Hero version can exist ... doesn't leave you any place to go as a good example. Even Gnu/Linux/X has that exact same problem. Yet, I don't see anyone criticising Gnu/Linux/X in the way they're criticising Android.