Most current FOSS which offers some online services, hardware support, certain drveres and protocols, include GoogleAPIs, which are also FOSS, this is the main problem and how Google control the internet.
This make it irrelevant if a OS like Android or other service is FOSS or not, at least in privacy or to avoid Big
Tech.
It’s sad, but since Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and others have gotten massively into the world of FOSS, offering a large part of these products, developed by in-house devs and contracted in their own Stores, such as Google code , GitHub, GitLab and others, the original philosophy has been greatly distorted. A new definition of FOSS is urgently needed to avoid these confusions between what is independent FOSS and what is ‘proprietary’ FOSS
I’m not sure why there is a need for a new FOSS definition. If it is free and open, it’s FOSS. Most Android distribution that are installed on phones you can buy are NOT FOSS. The Google Play Store is not FOSS. The Google Play Services are not FOSS.
The core of Android is FOSS, though, and that is called AOSP - Android Open Source Project. It’s a working smartphone OS. Install F-Droid on it, and you have a FOSS store that’s filled with FOSS.
I mean, sure. Microsoft is about to embrace and extinguish. But I’m not sure if they distorted the original philosophy of FOSS. How so?
Most current FOSS which offers some online services, hardware support, certain drveres and protocols, include GoogleAPIs, which are also FOSS, this is the main problem and how Google control the internet. This make it irrelevant if a OS like Android or other service is FOSS or not, at least in privacy or to avoid Big Tech. It’s sad, but since Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and others have gotten massively into the world of FOSS, offering a large part of these products, developed by in-house devs and contracted in their own Stores, such as Google code , GitHub, GitLab and others, the original philosophy has been greatly distorted. A new definition of FOSS is urgently needed to avoid these confusions between what is independent FOSS and what is ‘proprietary’ FOSS
I’m not sure why there is a need for a new FOSS definition. If it is free and open, it’s FOSS. Most Android distribution that are installed on phones you can buy are NOT FOSS. The Google Play Store is not FOSS. The Google Play Services are not FOSS.
The core of Android is FOSS, though, and that is called AOSP - Android Open Source Project. It’s a working smartphone OS. Install F-Droid on it, and you have a FOSS store that’s filled with FOSS.
I mean, sure. Microsoft is about to embrace and extinguish. But I’m not sure if they distorted the original philosophy of FOSS. How so?