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Comment by kuhsaft | Hacker News Reader

Android is developed by the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of mobile industry giants.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260420021444/https://www.openh...

Openness for end-users was never a tenet. It is a very HN view to think that open-source equals freedom for users, and to state that it was a promise when it never was.

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Freedom for users was the motivating factor that created open source in the first place. Rewriting history to serve your own ends doesn't help your credibility.

I don’t know what you’re going on about “rewriting history”. I never mentioned the history of open source.

From the Open Handset Alliance:

“The Android platform will be made available under one of the most progressive, developer-friendly open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products.”

Give mobile operators and device manufacturers freedom, not consumers.

If anything, the people claiming that Android was created for freedom for consumers are rewriting history.

That's perhaps because typical consumers don't build their own operating systems?

Right. Phones won’t be built open for consumers because they aren’t built by consumers. They’re built by corporations for consumers.

The software may be built by consumers for consumers, e.g., AOSP distros. But, the hardware and mobile infrastructure, probably not.

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