"Open"?

"Closed until clarification of circumstances, but it was open."

Something like this can be described all the "openness" in relation to Google, in particular - Android. To be honest, no one ever liked to hear this word from the mouth of the company representatives.

On the one hand, this “openness” led to situations in which Western mobile operators trite their short-sighted clients (for example ... you are in the US and want to install Skype on your Android mobile phone? Only if your operator is Verizon).
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On the other hand, Google’s products are “open” only when it’s convenient for the company itself. Want to use Google services on your Android device? Easy - sign the license agreement. Or maybe you want to add your code to Android? Or work on Google? Not. But you have to wait. It is open.

Laugh-laugh, but it seems that at every opportunity we hear what this Android is actually open, as if this is the perfect answer to every question.

- How will you compete for the market with Apple? Open.
- How will you cooperate with the operators? Open.
- How will you make money on Android? Also open?

The latest news of this week does not allow to restrain this openness. Surely many have heard that Google is delaying the release of the source codes of the latest version of Android - Honeycomb in some circumstances , which we will simply call you: processing and debugging the code behind closed doors. Sorry, open.

Firstly, the fact that the source code must be "released" already says absolutely everything you need to know about the "openness" of Google. One of the Facebook developers named Joe Hewitt (Joe Hewitt, a former Mozill) member has broken out a post where the level of hatred towards interpreting the concept of “open source” by Google is simply off scale. Even though this was last year, the development of events shows that such haters, over time, can become much more. And the worst thing is the developers who have recently helped build Android.

But that's not the point. In his post, Joe does not claim that Google’s openness model is destructive for Android, in any case. He only asked the developers to call things by their own names, and not to try to speak "openly" where it is a lie, a provocation and a fashionable trend.

The conclusion is simple: for Google, the word “open” (we call things by their proper names) is an excellent marketing move, and no more.

Android "open" iOS? Of course. But after all, the largest search engine (soon the language will not turn so to call this giant machine) operates with absolute concepts. This means that the “open” (Google) was opposed to the “closed” (Apple). And this is not true. And in this context, “slightly more open” sounds no better than “slightly pregnant.”

This is not to mention the fact that the benefits of being “open” are still obvious, especially in the development environment. But now Google will have to admit that the benefits of being “closed” are much more tangible. As often happens in life - the place between black and white begins to fill with paints.

So how long will Android be closed? Nobody knows. Bloomberg quotes the phrase Google: "At least the near future", which sounds encouraging. Slightly lower in the note appears: "Maybe a few months." Here, those on, broke the brakes.

What am I talking about? Yes, the fact that all dreams, tales and legends about the "open mobile OS", which "everyone can install on a compatible device of their own making" slowly sink into oblivion. If anyone dreamed about it at all.

Will this affect the further release of Honeycomb tablets? How to look. Google’s big Android partners — companies like HTC, Samsung, and Motorola are definitely not going to lose anything. The Xoom is already on the shelves, where the new models will soon arrive. All others will sit waiting for these "several months."

Announcing the release delay, Google added an interesting line, in the form of the words of the shop manager Andy Rubin: “We didn’t want to think about what we would need to make this software work on mobile phones. It will take a lot of additional resources that will expand the schedule and shift deadlines, which we cannot allow. ”

Why such a tight schedule and short deadlines? Nobody talked about it out loud, but Habrahabr reader is definitely able to add 2 and 2 in order to get an answer = iPad 2. Definitely, Google tried to put the first Honeycomb partner tablet on the shelves before the new iPad started its triumphant march.

Has the rush justified itself? Judging by the review of the Motorola Xoom - not really. If we take into account the closure of the "open" platform, which made Google - "definitely not."

Contrary to popular belief ... I still think that closing Android development is a good sign. If this had not happened, the final result would have been impossible to predict. It could easily lead to the appearance on the market of tons of devices that differ from each other with an incomprehensible software filling. And if Google really, seriously expects to compete with the iPad for the market, the closure of Android was the only right step since the creation of the Open Handset Alliance.

Everyone hopes that on the next Google I / O, which will be held in May, no one will hear the echoes of the epic battle between "open" and "closed". Not that she sounded bad, no, exactly as long as you don’t have to contradict yourself.

TechCrunch via BusinessWeek via Joe Hewitt's Blog