See, NOW it makes sense...

See, NOW it makes sense...

Wow, what is it with Linux people automatically jumping on the "control" meme? This is purely a pragmatic thing.

Control is "a pragmatic thing" - at least from the point of view of the control-holder. The point is, it's often seen as easier and more easily profitable to retain control over something than to let someone else have influence over one's business plans. The reason "Linux people" (I take it you are NOT a "Linux person"?) tend to be sensitive to this is because of how often it becomes a roadblock. Proprietary data formats, proprietary video and audio codecs, software patents, digital restrictions, proprietary hardware, trademark and copyright licensing... all there to retain control. Apple's profitability seems like a pretty good demonstration of how iron-fisted control can be pragmatic.

I recognize that if it were the case that Google just doesn't want to deal with working out compromises with mainline kernel developers that this would probably be a purely pragmatic decision, perhaps on the assumption that not having to do so would decrease delays in Android development, and perhaps, like Apple, make it easier to control the perception of the Android brand (reducing the chance that a change somewhere in the kernel that Google doesn't operate on inadvertently causing performance problems for Android, for example).

Obviously not everyone agrees that this is the best course of action in the long run, otherwise there wouldn't be all the arguing and occasional light snark that we're seeing over this. It doesn't help that Google occasionally does things that make people question its attitude towards Linux - Google often seems reluctant to port their standalone applications to Linux, for example. Admittedly this doesn't affect me as much, since the one Google application that I really like to use has maintained pretty good Linux support...so far. I just hope Marble develops fast enough to take over before Google decides to quietly drop development on the Linux versions of Google Earth...

tl;dr - Google's motives likely are pragmatic rather than malicious, but from this discussion they really don't seem to like having to deal with mainline Linux development and a lot of people seem concerned about how this might cause problems for users of mainline Linux if Google decides to walk away.