LWN: Comments on "Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)"

Not so fast

man_ls — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Because they have delivered a lot of crazy stuff that everyone else thought was impossible to do. If they only deliver 1/2 of what they announce it is still not a bad ratio.

Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)

sbergman27 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:21:13 +0000

"""
The weirdest aspect of the whole thing is that Google can't say why they won't talk about it,
and they're buttoned up tight.
"""

Not so weird, really.  Any time a luminary who happens to have become a Google employee is
interviewed, there is always that awkward moment when they pause and say "I can't talk about
that".  Google is about secrecy when it suits their purposes, and about the appearance of
openness when that suits their purposes.  As for the rest of us, our own personal information
is fair game for them either way.

surprise! google is turning into a vaporware company

b7j0c — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:23:07 +0000

hey i can't wait to use my android phone (just powered up by the google solar initiative!) to
connect to my local google free wifi so i can talk to my opensocial friends about posting new
crap to google knol (that pop culture reference might be harder to place - it was the
insanely-hyped-for-eight-hours "wikipedia killer")

why does google get a free pass on so much vaporware?

It's a mix of two

khim — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:51:10 +0000

Why do you feel this way? Is it because you trust that the google corporation wouldn't go back on its word, or because you think that it will be in its best interest to release it later, or something else?

It's in Google's best interest to keep their word :-) Because a lot of marketing hoopla around Android is based on trust. Once this trust will be lost - it'll be the end of Android. May be few years down the road if and when Android will be default phone platform they'll have the luxury to deceive people (like Microsoft) - but not for a few years...

Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)

davidw — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:31:17 +0000

Because I've talked with people involved with the Android program who promise it.  Also, yeah,
I think that going back on their word would be quite damaging for them.

The reason they're waiting for phones is this, they say: if they dumped the source code, they
would run the risk of some random manufacturer running out and doing a crappy, non-QA'ed
phone, and then the press would be all over what a disaster Android is (just like they jumped
on this story like a pack of wolves:-)

Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)

zooko — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:15:51 +0000

"But I still have every belief we'll see the source code after phones come out."

Why do you feel this way?  Is it because you trust that the google corporation wouldn't go
back on its word, or because you think that it will be in its best interest to release it
later, or something else?

I'm not asking these questions in order to implicitly disagree with your prediction -- I'm
just curious why you think so.

Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)

davidw — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:52:50 +0000

It's an issue, but not a major one.  The weirdest aspect of the whole thing is that Google
can't say why they won't talk about it, and they're buttoned up tight.  Bizarre.  But I still
have every belief we'll see the source code after phones come out.  What is more of an open
question is whether they'll be able to put together a real open source community, rather than
just throw some code at svn every once in a while.

Google's Android platform: not so open after all (ars technica)

njd27 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:18:35 +0000

The author seems to have got rather over-excited about something that is basically just a
closed beta programme.