The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android • Hacker News Board

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#71

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:44 AM UTC

pizza wrote: post #24

baybal2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google bought this platform with every dollar invested over more than a decade, they didn't do this only so that Apple had a competitor, but so that THEY had control over mobile eyeballs. Google's biggest trick was developers. They leveraged the decaying state of Java, and it being the default CS language in a lot of places. They simple showed a more attractive opportunity to tenths of thousands of Java devs stuck…

Makes me think whoever comes up with a mainstreamed way to do cross-platform mobile apps in Python will easily capture a large share of recent college grads, too, then.

[deleted]

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#72

Post by EGreg » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

harryf wrote: post #34

Roritharr wrote: post #9

Google invested Billions into Android. Samsung tried to hedge for this by building Tizen(Bada) and realized how much needed to be invested to get an Android competitor going, so they kept the development going, but focused for their Smartwatches, as this would have to be a "if the worst happens" plan, not something that could be a profitable venture. LG has the Palm/HP borne WebOS for their TVs, i suspect with a simi…

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#73

Post by shaan7 » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

harryf wrote: post #34

Roritharr wrote: post #9

Google invested Billions into Android. Samsung tried to hedge for this by building Tizen(Bada) and realized how much needed to be invested to get an Android competitor going, so they kept the development going, but focused for their Smartwatches, as this would have to be a "if the worst happens" plan, not something that could be a profitable venture. LG has the Palm/HP borne WebOS for their TVs, i suspect with a simi…

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

There is Sailfish which won't be affected by the US government https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/mobile-tabs/hua...

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#74

Post by dis-sys » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:49 AM UTC

dagw wrote: post #40

tech6 wrote: post #39

Can someone explained what happened recently to cause such aggressive action against Huawei with ARM , Google etc refusing to work with them. Is it related to arrest of their executive recently ?

It's part of the US/China trade war. Trump believed the existing tariff situation with China was unfair and wanted to negotiate a new trade deal. When negotiations failed he started to implement a bunch of tariffs and trade restrictions on chines goods and companies to try to force their hand. This is just a part of that 'negotiation' strategy. Google, Arm etc. don't want to stop doing business with Huawei (since doi…

> This is just a part of that 'negotiation' strategy.

Your explanation doesn't answer the question why Huawei got picked. Huawei products got banned in the US way before the trade war, Huawei's exports to US is pretty small I'd say. It thus has really nothing to do with the existing tariff situation whatsoever.

On the other hand, there are many big Chinese companies exporting to the US in huge sheer volume, Lenovo is probably the best example here, interestingly, Lenovo never got treated in the same way. Why there is such huge difference?

The answer is plain and simple - Huawei managed to lead the 5G development and growing faster than anyone else. US refuses to accept that. Lenovo's business model is what US wants all Chinese companies to follow - focusing on low end craps, make money by working hard not working smart. Same goes to those crappy Chinese companies like Xiaomim OPPO, OnePlus.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#75

Post by qwertydog » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:50 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #72

harryf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

I think the main issue is the play store is off limits i.e. no existing android apps

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#76

Post by microcolonel » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

This title is an extreme framing of the situation. A similar title would be "The Huawei Travesty Reveals Microsoft's Iron Grip on Windows NT".

Yes, copyright is a thing, and if you own a copyright, you are entitled to control its copying through license agreements. To characterize that as an "Iron Grip" is quite strange, as short of releasing all of this investment as open source, there is no other kind of "grip" that Google is entitled to.

Google has invested billions of dollars into applications and infrastructure for their most successful Linux distro, and yes, they own the copyright to that.

As far as I'm aware, Google does not market their current Android distro as "open source" to any great extent, so why is it more of a problem than any other piece of popular proprietary software? What about the millions of Linux-based kiosks, pub games consoles, and giant social media and advertising juggernauts who also have proprietary software that they sell access to?

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#77

Post by jmkni » Fri, May 24, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #72

harryf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

The OS is open source, Google Play Services isn't.

When you are developing Android apps, you can leverage Google Play Services for all sorts of functionality, such as push notifications and maps, and I would say more apps do use these than don't.

Huawei can still put Android on their phones, but not with Google Play Services. This means that many Android apps just won't work. They also can't supply the Google Play Store, which means that they need an alternate way to distribute apps.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#78

Post by fulafel » Fri, May 24, 2019, 9:05 AM UTC

necovek wrote: post #52

The article links to an interesting view on how even AOSP is a no-go for Huawei: https://www.xda-developers.com/analysis-huawei-aosp-google-b... What I find interesting is that Apache Licensed software can be relicensed even in proprietary form (as long as you make it a derivative work, with your derivative bits with a proprietary license), thus the easy way out seems to be to have a non-US entity make a proprietary…

Is the article really right in this one?

" A country banning its resident companies from engaging in contracts with a specific company breaks how our copyright system works, and as a result, breaks how open source licenses work. -- If Huawei cannot enter into a contract with Google, then they cannot enter into the Apache 2.0 licensing agreement with Google, which means that they would not have a license to distribute the AOSP codebase."

If we look at the cited license (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html) it's just a one sided license from the copyright holder, not a contract between parties, right?

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#79

Post by kuschku » Fri, May 24, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #72

harryf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible that Google cutting off Huawei will actually backfire, because it makes having a viable alternative to Android a MUST HAVE instead of just NICE TO HAVE. Perhaps it’s possible to resurrect Blackberry 10 ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_10 ) for example, which seemed to be an impressive piece of engineering that got trampled by Blackberrys failing business. I played with a demo once that could…

Isn’t Android open source? So why can’t Huawei simply fork it?

Google has spent the last decade cutting apart the open part of Android and making it more and more proprietary.

Launcher, Phone app, Messages, Contacts, Calendar. All proprietary.

Notification API, Location API, SMS APIs and step counter APIs, and even the new app format. All proprietary.

It's a huge undertaking building an app for Android today without using Google's services, and sometimes even impossible.

If you want to verify a user by sending a code through SMS (think Whatsapp sign-up) you either have to use the proprietary API, or you'll be banned from the play store. Using the open source API instead gets you banned because it allows you to read all SMS — and Google never cared to build a new open source API because they already have their proprietary API anyway.

And nowadays you don't have APKs anymore but often app bundles, a special format which only the Play Store can parse.

And if you create a new app today, per default you don't even get the signing key to publish APKs yourself, but only Google gets to keep it.

Re: The Huawei Disaster Reveals Google’s Iron Grip on Android

#80

Post by luckylion » Fri, May 24, 2019, 9:08 AM UTC

DeonPenny wrote: post #55

turtlecloud wrote: post #43

So they trigger the PRC gov to build their own OS. A temporary setback or worse? Who do we bet on in 10 yrs? State sponsored technology or Google? My bet is on China.

Lol do that seems like a strange bet. State sponsor rarely win in those cases

State sponsored != state run.