Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 16th Sep 2012 16:53 UTC
There's a bit of a story going on between Google, Acer, and Alibaba, a Chinese mobile operating system vendor. Acer wanted to ship a device with Alibaba's operating system, but Google asked them not to, and Acer complied. The reason is that Acer is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, which prohibits the promotion of non-standard Android implementations - exactly what Alibaba is shipping. On top of that, Alibaba's application store hosts pirated Android applications, including ones from Google.
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Member since:2007-04-18
Google is saying that you can't use a non compatible Android fork. The Chineese company is saying its not a fork. It's Linux with an Android compatible runtime.
Except that the statement that it's not a fork is, for all we know, false. Google's Android chief Andy Rubin is quoted as stating this:
the Aliyun OS incorporates the Android runtime and was apparently derived from Android
Apparently they didn't re-implement a new VM, libs and tooling like Google did with Java. Instead they simply lifted portions of the Android OS wholesale. This would make Aliyun clearly a derivative work of Android and therefore a fork.
Member since:2005-11-10
"Google is saying that you can't use a non compatible Android fork. The Chineese company is saying its not a fork. It's Linux with an Android compatible runtime.
Except that the statement that it's not a fork is, for all we know, false. Google's Android chief Andy Rubin is quoted as stating this:
the Aliyun OS incorporates the Android runtime and was apparently derived from Android
Apparently they didn't re-implement a new VM, libs and tooling like Google did with Java. Instead they simply lifted portions of the Android OS wholesale. This would make Aliyun clearly a derivative work of Android and therefore a fork. "
Yet the company says: “Aliyun OS incorporates its own virtual machine, which is different from Android’s Dalvik virtual machine. Aliyun OS’s runtime environment, which is the core of the OS, consists of both its own Java virtual machine, which is different from Android’s Dalvik virtual machine, and its own cloud app engine, which supports HTML5 web applications. Aliyun OS uses some of the Android application framework and tools (open source) merely as a patch to allow Aliyun OS users to enjoy third-party apps in addition to the cloud-based Aliyun apps in our ecosystem.”
So that would then not make it a fork.
Member since:2011-04-25
Google says this is against the OHA, but there are at least 2 other OHA members doing exactly the same thing (Haier with Aliyun and Lenovo with oPhone). Therefore, no, I do not find Google more credible, and no, I will not assume they are being the more truthful party in this case.
Edited 2012-09-17 11:00 UTC
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Member since:
2005-11-10
? But pirated Apps are not the reason Google is using. Google is saying that you can't use a non compatible Android fork. The Chineese company is saying its not a fork. It's Linux with an Android compatible runtime.