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:2005-09-01
Member since:2008-09-21
1. It did not run the compatibility tests. Google has a bigger collection of automated tests to target application compatibility. Every Android fork needs to pass those tests.
2. Aliyun sourcecode was not provided. That means all necessary changes Alibaba did (minus propitary stuff like there cloud integration) including hardware drivers and patches need to be given back to Android. This is the base for 3th part mods like cyanogen and for proper auditing, validation, reconstruction and future enhanced application compatibility testing.
This is for OHA members. Anyone can take the Android code everytime and not follow that requirements. But then they a) cannot be in the OHA and b) are ranged as incompatible.
Also when Alibaba says that they did heavy changes within Android so its not Android any longer then that opens some more questions like where in Android got the changes done? Unlike common believe Opensource does not mean you can do everything without giving back and compared to common believe most or at least lot of Android is not APL. Alibaba would be required to open any changes done in certain areas or they lose there right to use them. Compare to what google brings on the table the license-issue is serious and legally binding.
Edited 2012-09-17 21:23 UTC
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2010-12-16
"The OHA prohibits its members from promoting incompatible Android implementations..."
"Incompatible Android implementations..."
:)
what is Alibaba's Phone incompatibility with Android? Can not run Android applications?