Android and China

[sergey]

So Android is totally open-source? You, me, Apple, anybody can take Android,
tweak it, put it on a phone and that's it?

Does anybody know about Baidu's Linux OS mobile platform?

Android is already in China and if it is indeed open source, why should Baidu reinvent the wheel? Just grab a copy of Android, throw out all the Google apps, replace it with Baidu apps, Baidu ads and presto- they're already caught up to Android and they have the Chinese government on their side.

I'm asking because I'm curious about the future of smartphones in China, and with wikileaks showing that the Chinese government actually played a role in hacking Google back then and pretty much putting them out of business, I wonder what the dominant platform will be in China. Android apparently is pretty popular, but I wonder if Baidu or Sina is the default search engine or if it is Google.

 

[lordofthereef]

I think if you are actually selling it, you have to pay royalties. One cannot just take open source, tweak it, and then sell it mass market.

 

[grainysand]

You can slap Android on anything and sell it. What you won't have is access to Google's app suite: no market, no gmail, probably no google sync.

 

[adi19956]

You can slap Android on anything and sell it. What you won't have is access to Google's app suite: no market, no gmail, probably no google sync.

you can download those apps though can't you?