So much for open (updated)

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I thought that the secret strength of Android was that it was open source, and not a “walled garden” like iOS.

So much for that.

Perhaps the competition from Apple is becoming too much.

Disclosure: I own Apple stock.

Update: More from The Register.

In October, when Steve Jobs publicly called Google’s claims of openness “disingenuous”, Android chief Andy Rubin responded with the first tweet of his life:

the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”

In others words, Rubin says open means that you can use a command line to create a directory, download the Android source code, and build your own OS.

By that definition, Honeycomb is not open. Sometimes, Steve Jobs is exactly right.

 

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