Does google need to be held accountable?

[CuBz]

Roze comes along and hits the nail on the head.

I agree with everything you said and I really don't understand why some people try to blame Google

 

[Koyanishi]

SHOULD Google be held accountable on how its OS worked on by its OEM Partners (phone manufacturer)? I think they SHOULD, because it’s their baby and they should have a standard of how it should be used.

Now, does Google NEED to be held accountable? No. Google is a software company, it wrote the OS and made it open source platform so that OTHERS can take what it has made and implement it AS HOW THEY SEE FIT. Only caveat is that the OEM Partners need to be within the terms of the license (Apache Software License) that they agreed to when they signed to use Android on their phones. So far all of the OEM Partners have abide to what Google has set out in their license. Now from what I see of how this work, if the manufacturer does what the license says and break no rules, they can basically do the hell they want with Android. That includes locking the boot loader, making it harder to root, skinning a UI that takes them longer to update, add crapwares etc. And we do see this as a trend that all of the OEM Partners seem to embrace (HTC and Motorola included).

And this from the hidden message

Quote:
People have been saying that the freedom of Android has basically meant that the carriers are free to screw the consumers.
If I were to release an operating system that I claimed was open and that forced everybody to make [phones] all look the same and all support very narrow features and functionality, the platform wouldn't win. It wouldn't win because the OEMs have a lot of value to bring and the carriers have a lot of value to bring, and they need a vehicle by which to put their interesting differentiating features on these things. Every phone shouldn't look like every other phone. If that was the case there would just be one SKU, right?

So google releases open source os, but the carriers and the oem's are free to make it their own non-open source os.

Why can't google let the carriers and oem's put whatever the heck they want on the os as long as its open source. That way the oem's and carriers cannot screw the end users as they are currently doing.

The whole idea here is just to figure out what consumers want, build phones and tailor them to what consumers want.

You think end users want a restricted market so you can only use the apps they want you to use? Do they want to only use bing and not google as a search engine?

I doubt that they want that but are force to accept a compromise that is would not be necessary if google did the right thing and force the carriers and oem's to keep android open source.

So, basically the consumers vote with their wallets on the direction of how the OS go
I hope I have made my points why Google is not held accountable for the actions of their OEM partners.

As already stated, end users are forced to accept comprises solely because android is open sourced to oem's and carriers but not to the end users.

Rose, btw, thanks for the touch of sanity to this discussion

 

[MrWomble]

As already stated, end users are forced to accept comprises solely because android is open sourced to oem's and carriers but not to the end users.

Rose, btw, thanks for the touch of sanity to this discussion

And as also stated - google should not clamp down on what carriers bring to the market - therefore in the case of the X10 alone - they SHOULD NOT be held accountable as it is Sony's development and phone, NOT googles

Which is a direct answer to the original post - all clarified in Rose's hidden message and sanctioned by yourself and - earlier in the year - by myself

So did i make a valid point, yes - does everybody else - of course

but in the short term - should google be pulled in to give sony a kick in the backside JUST BECAUSE they haven't released 2.whatever yet

COURSE NOT

And rose - thanks - but i think that was $0.05 worth

 

[Koyanishi]

As to the OP query:

I don't expect google to box SE's ears and tell them to be nicer to end users.

However, google could have solved this problem to begin with by licensing android only if it remain open source to end users.

That way the oem's and the carriers could add all the "value" they want and differentiate their products from each other but the end user would have the option to remove any such "value".