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Comment by tomkarlo

11 years ago

That's a mischaracterization of his own comments on why he left. It had to do with open sourcing GPU drivers, which is probably an issue with other vendors, not Google.

See: https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/9HHRURor...

6 comments

tomkarlo

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throwaway2048  11 years ago

It was Google's choice to put that hardware into the phone, and it was their choice not to pressure qualcomm into being more open.

Your argument itself is also somewhat of a mischaracterization, because at least Google could have wrestled redistribution rights for the binary drivers, thus making AOSP actually usable on the nexus, and they didn't even bother with that.

Vendors are a convenient whipping boy when don't care about openness but wanna look like you do.

  • fpgeek  11 years ago

    There's a very, very simple problem with your argument:

    https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers#razor

    • throwaway2048  11 years ago

      and here is the problem with yours, from the EULA:

           Subject to the terms of this Agreement, Licensor hereby grants to
     You, free of charge, a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable,
     non-transferable, limited copyright license, during the term of
     this Agreement, to download, install and use the Software
     internally in machine-readable (i.e., object code) form and the
     Documentation for non-commercial use on an Authorized Android
     Enabled Device and non-commercial redistribution for academic
     purposes only of a reasonable number of copies of the Authorized
     Android Enabled Device Software (the "Limited Purpose"). You may
     grant your end users the right to use the Software for
     non-commercial purposes on an Authorized Android Enabled Device.
     The license to the Software granted to You hereunder is solely for
     the Limited Purpose set forth in this section, and the Software

      This makes it entirely impossible for AOSP to distribute the drivers

zobzu  11 years ago

well actually while I get where you're coming from, that's still correct. if AOSP was more open he wouldn't have left. Google doesn't give a damn about openness right now.

  • tomkarlo  11 years ago

    "If AOSP were more open he wouldn't have left." Can you substantiate that statement at all? AOSP's "openness" is determined by its licensing, which is a standard Apache 2.0 license. The issue was whether certain vendors would contribute to AOSP under that license, not whether AOSP was open enough.