Found an interesting article here that chronicles the beginnings of Android being touted as "open-source," and the strange dichotomy of its actual reality.
http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-how-open-is-it-21664
The most popular comment on this article details the following as well:
"Abusing the word "open" is an understatement. They've really stripped meaning from the word, and redefined it to benefit Android from iOS, no matter how dishonest it is. And that's really a shame, because truly open source projects have made substantial impacts on the industry. One of them being Webkit, ironically an Apple open source project. But you don't see Apple touting that as some marketing gimmick to imply righteousness or freedom. Apple never even mentions Webkit in the mainstream.
I've always said Android was UNMODERATED, and that's the only true effect consumers feel from it. But that has nothing to do with freely distributed source code, and is completely irrelevant to "open." It simply means Google doesn't screen apps into its store, which can be a double edged sword for average consumers.
Google needs to embrace the fact that Android is controlled by Google behind the scenes, and quit living this false reality. And also quit using it as propaganda and marketing, having no respect to the real open source community. They also need to make all their Google die hards understand that closed is not a bad thing, it's a necessary aspect of maintaining control over your platform."
So what do you think? Do you think Android is as "open" as Google made it out to be, only to quietly seize more and more control over the years to "unify" the OS?
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