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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

So what company that once it gets into a position to bully won’t? Google forced manufacturers not to ship phones based on Android forks if they ship Google certified phones. This is the same thing that Microsoft got in trouble. They didn’t allow OEMs to ship alternate operating systems if they wanted to ship computers with Windows.

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> So what company that once it gets into a position to bully won’t?

All of them will. All of them need to be regulated better instead of just getting a slap on the wrist.

Just don't go throwing "Microsoft is my open source hero" (and that last paragraph) bullshit on my face.

They can ship Google certified phones based on Android forks as long as they pass CTS[1]. You don't really think the Galaxy phones are built on top of unmodified AOSP, do you? Many[2] manufacturers[3] provide[4] SDKs[5] for their phones on top[6] of the base Android SDK.

[1] https://source.android.com/compatibility/cts/

[2] https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy/sdks

[3] https://developer.motorola.com/tools-kits

[4] https://www.htcdev.com/devcenter/opensense-sdk/opensense-ove...

[5] https://developer.sony.com/develop/theme-creator/overview

[6] http://mobile.developer.lge.com/develop/

That was not the issue. Samsung could not both ship Google certified phones and Android phones based on non Google certified forks.

This is what Google got fined for.

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/18/google-face...

The second anti-competitive behaviour was preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems that had not been approved by Google.

For instance, Amazon wouldn’t have been allowed to manufacture both Fire phones and phone that were certified by Google as an Android phone.

This point doesn't support your first sentence then because this policy of the Open Handset Alliance existed before Google was in a position to bully, before Android had any market share at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance?wprov=...

The referenced citations from your Wikipedia article actually supports my claim.

(Citation #5 as of this writing) https://www.cnet.com/news/alibaba-google-just-plain-wrong-ab...

Google took some heat earlier this week for seemingly using its clout to squash a burgeoning mobile OS.

(Citation #6 as of this writing) https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...

While it might not be an official requirement, being granted a Google apps license will go a whole lot easier if you join the Open Handset Alliance. The OHA is a group of companies committed to Android—Google's Android—and members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices. That's right, joining the OHA requires a company to sign its life away and promise to not build a device that runs a competing Android fork.

Besides, even in 2008, what other OS were OEMs going to license to compete with the iPhone? Windows Mobile?

Your citations are about a policy that predates a single Android device being available to the public, so they do not support your claim.

> Besides, even in 2008, what other OS were OEMs going to license to compete with the iPhone? Windows Mobile?

Yes, Windows Mobile was the dominant licensed smartphone operating system at the time. What's that got to do with anything?

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